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After the war, he led the KKK in Georgia and participated in one of the greatest stock market scandals of the Gilded Age.
He also formed a triumvirate, along with Aleck Stephens and Joe Brown that dominated Georgia politics for more than a quarter century after "redemption." And milked his image as the "plumed knight of Appomattox", who led the last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia.
John B. Gordon, in short, was a piece of work. (Read C.Vann Woodward's description of him in TOM WATSON AGRARIAN REBEL.)
Another of Gordon's postbellum achievements was as high priest
of the cult of the "lost cause." In codifying the "myth," he was second only to Jubal Early. Like Early, he maintained that the war had not been about slavery at all, but states rights. Like Early, he would maintain that the South was not defeated but only overwhelmed but vastly superior numbers of men and material. Unlike Early, he downplayed the struggle between northern industrial capital and southern landed gentry and he gave the myth a conciliatory twist perfectly suited to the capital hungry "new south." For decades he would dazzle memorial day audiences, with a speech arguing that *both* sides of the "war between the states" were right and *both* sides won( the North preserved the union and the South preserved "honor"). (Now *that's* conciliatory!)
It is this mythmaking, that is in evidence in his wartime memoirs. His overwritten florid prose
describes each calvary charge in romantic hyperbole with out a hint of gore attached to the proceeding. (It is just this sort of bunk that Sherman had in mind when he told cadets "war is not a gentlemen's game,
war is hell.")
As "myth" this book deserves five stars, as "history" two would be being generous--so I've split the difference.
If one wants a real soldier's story told with out concern for the memories of marble men or a sense of decorum one would be better off with Edward Porter Alexander's FIGHTING FOR THE CONFEDERACY.
If on the other hand wants to wallow in fantasies of "moonlight and magnolias" then, by all means, knock yourself out!
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Matthias Baldwin began as a jewel smith in Philadelphia, but he was enamored of technology and soon built a small engine. More than a toy, it powered his first shop for forty years and now resides in the Smithsonian. Philadelphia, home of the Franklin Institute, which supported new inventions and technology, was also the home of numerous machine shops, and soon Baldwin had created a shop where he began to design ever better steam engines for railroads. He invented the Jervis leading truck, a pair of wheels that moved along as the track curved, reducing the number of derailments. His flexible-beam design became very popular because it had more driving wheels and with the weight of the engine over the drivers it could pull longer and heavier freight trains. By 1846, his shop made forty-two types of engines, he had paid off all his debts, and he had survived the panic of 1837, a severe market reversal. He had also bought out his early partners, making him the sole owner of the company.
You really have to be a locomotive or railroad buff to enjoy this book (isn't everybody?), but there is also a great deal about capitalism and market conditions in the nineteenth century. The Baldwin Works managed productivity increases on an average of 3.1% per year, as compared with 1.9% nationally, and it accomplished this through organizational and technical changes. By 1906, Baldwin was producing a locomotive every three hours, twenty-four hours a day. Baldwin minimized the risk inherent in the system by engaging in industry-wide price-fixing agreements, and he relied on "just-in-time" inventory supplies to reduce the need for substantial working capital. He drew a great deal of technical expertise from his customers, the railroads. The author suggests that Baldwin's success came also because of his reliance on a core of skilled workers rather than on trying to improve profits by manipulating workers and exploiting them.
That Baldwin rapidly lost ground to the diesel-electric engine may suggest that individual leadership tied to an entrenched way of operation might be a disadvantage in the long run.
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2. In the same way the authors use Columbia, or Columbian when speaking of Colombia.
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I had doubts about reading Jacobean Drama, but once I picked up The White Devil, I was hooked. I was especially intrigued with the duality of the heroine Vittoria. In Vittoria, Webster offers us a character we love to hate, but finds ourselves pitying her, perhaps even siding with her.
The White Devil is certainly a play worth reading.
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There is little doubt that the Queen idealized Brown in a way no one else did, but especially after Albert's death, no one tended her as he did. A courtier wrote, "Others had tended her as their Queen and mistress. John Brown protected her as she was, a poor, broken-hearted bairn who wanted looking after and taking out of herself." Many around the Queen disapproved. Brown took his duties so seriously he would deny even her family access to her. His gruffness with others made few friends. Sent to convey the Queen's invitation to dinner to the Lords-in-Waiting, Brown pushed open the door of the billiard room, eyed the aristocrats, and bawled, "All what's here dines with the Queen." The Prince of Wales particularly disliked him, always referring to "that brute" rather than using his name. He obliterated all the busts and mementoes of Brown after the Queen's death, but he was never able to wipe out the rumors that Brown and the Queen were lovers, or that they had a morganatic marriage, or that Brown was her guide in spiritualism. Such evidence as there is shows that they were nothing but devoted friends as well and mistress and servant. This readable book well illustrates the relationship, with ample quotations from the Queen's diary and from remarks of those who knew both parties well.
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Kay treats readers to a rich description of the countryside during the boys' journey. They experience the "sweet, refreshing scent" of a wide, wildflower-strewn prairie, where "green grasses waved in the wind like waves approaching a shore." The boys meet animals unheard of back in Boston, and insects like fireflies, which George compares to "millions of tiny lanterns.
Their appreciation of new sights and sounds are short-lived, though. Upon reaching David's family and realize that David's parents are heavily involved in a dangerous plot with John Brown, whose secret plan to overthrow the Federal government involves starting a violent slave uprising across the South. Feel the tension of a family divided, as members realize the risks of taking such a stand. Will they help John Brown in his dangerous plan, or make it to Harpers Ferry in time to warn the townsfolk and stop him in his tracks?" -- Bonnie Bruno...
Whereas that book juxtaposed the plight of a slave family and a northern family filled with abolitionists and sympathetics, this book follows the adventures of two boys and their fathers as they journey to the Kansas Territory in the days when John Brown cast the longest shadow in the land.
David and George, two of the young heroes from the first book, are the main characters here as well, along with their fathers. They have typical frontier adventures, but always in the background (and often in the foreground) is the specter of war, brought on by the increasingly violent actions of abolitionists like David's father.
The arrival of the boys in "Bleeding Kansas" brings that state's bloody conflict into sharp focus. And by having David's father, John, be a part of John Brown's brigade, the author gives us an up-close glimpse of the passion (and, some will say, madness) of Brown himself.
This book succeeds the most by having the reader follow the typical adventures of young boys (playing baseball, getting into fights, doing odd jobs for spending money) while at the same reminding that reader that the setting for these typical adventures is Civil War-era America. To his credit, Alan Kay succeeds at both.
As with the first book in this series, I highly recommend this book. It is an excellent portrayal of young people in the 19th Century. David White, editor, Social Studies For Kids, ...