UNITED STATES AUTHOR · HISTORY · HISTOIRE
Frederic L. Paxson
Also known as: Frederic Logan Paxson, Frederic L Paxson
Some of the finest writing in the vast body of Civil War literature, indeed, some of the finest history writing of any sort, has been devoted to broad overviews of the Civil War.
— from The American Civil War
Most acclaimed
The Civil War
Spanning the crucial months from January 1863 to March 1864, this third volume of The Library of America's highly acclaimed four volume series presents an incomparable portrait of a nation at war with itself while illuminating the military and political events that brought the Union closer to victory and slavery closer to destruction. It brings together more than 140 contemporary letters, diary entries, speeches, articles, messages, and poems by more than eighty participants and observers, among them Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Mary Chesnut, Clement Vallandigham, Henry Adams, Charlotte Forten, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and George Templeton Strong, as well as Union officers Robert Gould Shaw, Charles B. Haydon, and Henry Livermore Abbott; Confederate diarists Catherine Edmondston, Kate Stone, and Judith McGuire; and Alabama soldier Samuel Pickens, Iowa housewife Catharine Peirce, Kentucky preacher George Richard Browder, and Kansas clergyman Richard Cordley. The selections include vivid and haunting eyewitness narratives of some of the war's most famous battles--Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Fort Wagner, Chickamauga, Chattanooga--as well as firsthand accounts of the merciless guerrilla war in Missouri and Kansas; the Richmond bread riot and the New York draft riots; the controversies surrounding the use of black soldiers and the Lincoln administration's curtailment of civil liberties; and the struggles of civilians both black and white to survive increasingly harsh wartime conditions.
The last American frontier
For many years, a single volume covering the "History of the West" did not exist. Paxson’s masterwork rectifies this problem – offering an essential, sweeping account of the American West and westward expansion from 1763-1893. The American pioneer is followed to every frontier for nearly 150 years across fifty-nine chapters. Full of world-class insight, Paxson masterfully paints a picture of how the land mass of the United States was settled – starting with English settlers in New England to the wayward expansion across the continent and ending with the sunny shores of California. Paxson’s literary genius does not shine in quotations from secondary and source material; he has made his material a part of himself. Indeed, rather than conforming to a social history, Paxson takes a historical, geographic, and pragmatic view of Westward expansion. He masterfully covers American history from the War for Independence to the Louisiana Purchase, conflicts with Native Americans and Civil War, Presidential edicts from Washington to Roosevelt, and even offers keen insight into the little-studied intricacies of frontier finance and the inside workings of canal and railroad corporations.
The American Civil War
"The Civil War is the central event in American history. More than any other event, the war defined the American people and nation." "Following a narrative history, Kingseed offers six stimulating topical chapters covering such issues as the transformation of Abraham Lincoln, why Lee lost the battle of Gettysburg, and the consequences of the War from a contemporary perspective. Eighteen biographical sketches of key civilian, military and political figures such as Clara Barton, Matthew Brady, J.E.B. Stuart, Ulysses S. Grant, and Frederick Douglass personalize the momentous events of the Civil War, while 16 keenly annotated primary documents, ranging from Lincoln's "House Divided against Itself" speech to Jefferson Davis's Inaugural speech to a bluejacket's remembrances of the horrors witnessed during and after the Battle of Antietam. Ten illustrations, a map of the major campaigns, chronology of events, glossary, annotated bibliography, and index complete this one-stop research resource on the American Civil War."--Jacket.