Clash of Extremes takes on the reigning orthodoxy that the American Civil War was waged over high moral principles. Marc Egnal contends that economics, more than any other factor, moved the country to war in 1861. Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Egnal shows that between 1820 and 1850, patterns of trade and production drew the North and South together and allowed sectional leaders to broker a series of compromises. After midcentury,...

Revolutionary War spy, Nathan Hale, tells a hangman and British officer about the ironclad steam warships used in the Civil War.

The author of sixteen consecutive New York Times bestsellers sets his sights on the jewel of the South-Savannah-and brings it to life in his inimitable style. Georgia, 1864: Sherman's army marches from Atlanta to the sea. In its path, the charming old city of Savannah where the Lester ladies -- attractive widowed Sara and her feisty twelve-year-old daughter Hattie -- struggle to save the family rice plantation. When Sherman offers the conquered city...

"On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson...

The three wily and beautiful McDougal sisters can swindle a man faster than it takes to lasso a calf. But their luck is running out. When the wagon carrying them to jail falls under attack, each sister is picked up by a different man. Unfortunately for Abigail, she's grabbed by a twit of a shoe salesman, Mr. Hershall Digman. After stealing his horse, she discovers the secret papers in his saddlebag. Could Digman be a Confederate spy? The man who comes...

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Castle and The Girls of Atomic City comes the fascinating story of America's national day of thanks and of the tenacious and inspiring Sarah Josepha Hale, a nineteenth-century woman who made establishing this holiday her life's mission--one brought to fruition by the wise support of Abraham Lincoln"--

"It was a time of uncertainty in the infancy of the growing nation. The Wild West was open and beckoning to displaced men and families, and many chose to travel to the unsettled frontier, dreaming of new homes, land, and even riches. But few reckoned on those that had lived in those lands for centuries, the native peoples: Blackfoot, Crow, Sioux, and more. Elijah McCain, fresh from the Union army -- where he had attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel...