Akron Public Library

"In 1789, George Washington became the first president of the United States. He has been called the father of our country for leading America through its early years. Washington also served in two major wars during his lifetime: the French and Indian War and the American Revolution"--Amazon.com.

"General Winfield Scott Hancock was given his marching orders in the spring of 1867. Arguably the greatest corps commander of the American Civil War, Hancock would lead a large expeditionary force into the heart of the American West for the expressed purpose of intimidating and removing the Plains Indians from contested lands in Kansas, Nebraska, and eastern Colorado Territory. Critical to the success of Hancock's mission was the newly formed U.S....

The story takes place in Rome shortly after the expulsion of the Tarquin kings. Ordinary citizens are rioting after stores of grain were withheld. The rioters are particularly angry at Gaius Martius, a brilliant Roman general whom they blame. War breaks out with a neighboring Italian tribe, the Volscians, who are led by Martius' great rival, Tullus Aufidius.

A masterful biography of the Civil War general and two-term president who saved the Union twice, on the battlefield and in the White House, holding the country together at two critical turning points in our history.

This book provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious fears in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's...

"George Washington wrote an astonishing number of letters, both personal and professional. The majority - about 140,000 documents - are from his years as commander in chief during the Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783. This Glorious Struggle presents a selection of Washington's most important and interesting letters from that time, including many that have never been published." "Washington's lively and often surprisingly candid notes to his wife...

"Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Ron Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency."--Book jacket....

The extraordinary lives, passions, and careers of four great military leaders--Stonewall Jackson, Winfield Scott Hancock, Joshua Chamberlain, and Robert E. Lee--come to a climax as Union and Confederate forces clash on the battlefields of the Civil War. A worthy companion to The Killer Angels . . . Shaara brilliantly charts the war, the exploits of the combatants and their motivations. He also concisely shows how the early parts of the campaign unfolded....

Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished...

"Born a tanner’s son in rugged Ohio in 1822 and battle-tested by the Mexican American War, Grant met his destiny on the bloody fields of the Civil War. His daring and resolve as a general gained the attention of President Lincoln, then desperate for bold leadership. Lincoln appointed Grant as Lieutenant General of the Union Army in March 1864. Within a year, Grant’s forces had seized Richmond and forced Robert E. Lee to surrender. Four years...