Biography & Autobiography - Historical

Ambrose Burnside, the Union general, was a major player on the Civil War stage from the first clash at Bull Run until the final summer of the war. He led a corps or army during most of this time and played important roles in...

Over fifty years after her death, Simone Weil (1909-1943) remains one of the most searching religious inquirers and political thinkers of the twentieth century. Albert Camus said she had a "madness for truth." She rejected her Jewishness and developed a strong interest in Catholicism,...

To Americans living in the early twentieth century, E. H. Harriman was as familiar a name as J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. Like his fellow businessmen, Harriman (1847-1909) had become the symbol for an entire industry: Morgan stood for banking,...

This vivid work, first published by UNC Press in 1954, reveals General Joseph Orville Shelby as one of the best Confederate cavalry leaders--and certainly the most colorful. Born in Lexington, Kentucky, but drawn by the promise of the growing West, Shelby became one of...

Lloyd Kramer offers a new interpretation of the cultural and political significance of the career of the Marquis de Lafayette, which spanned the American Revolution, the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830, and the Polish Uprising of 1830-31. Moving beyond traditional biography, Kramer traces...

By the time of his death in 323 B.C., Alexander III of Macedonia had built an empire that stretched from the eastern Mediterranean coast through Asia Minor and into the Indus valley. Even before his sudden death, Alexander had achieved mythical status throughout his...

Even before the end of the Civil War Colonel John Pelham had become a legendary figure of the Confederacy. General Lee called him "the gallant Pelham," and on seeing the young artillerist employ but a single gun to hold up the advance of three...

Eleanor Agnes Lee, Robert E. Lee's fifth child, began her journal in December 1852 at the early age of twelve. An articulate young woman, her stated ambitions were modest: "The everyday life of a little school girl of twelve years is not startling," she...

This collection profiles the people who helped shape life in North Carolina in the twentieth century. It includes 160 biographical sketches of Tar Heels who made a difference, highlighting their accomplishments in the areas of agriculture, the arts, business, education, law, media, politics, popular...

Born into an elite Boston family and a graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, white Massachusetts aristocrat Wendell Phillips's path seemed clear. Yet he rejected his family's and society's expectations and gave away most of his great wealth by the time...

M ximo Castillo and the Mexican Revolution is the first English-language translation of the memoirs of General M ximo Castillo of Chihuahua, a pivotal figure in the civil war that consumed Mexico between 1910 and 1920. Born into rural poverty, Castillo experienced first-hand the...

In 1833, Edward G. W. and Frances Parke Butler moved to their newly constructed plantation house, Dunboyne, on the banks of the Mississippi River near the village of Bayou Goula. Their experiences at Dunboyne over the next forty years demonstrated the transformations that many...

In his masterpiece, Jefferson Davis, American, William J. Cooper, Jr., crafted a sweeping, definitive biography and established himself as the foremost scholar on the intriguing Confederate president. Cooper narrows his focus considerably in Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era, training his expert eye...

Although he was one of the most important African American political leaders during the last decade of the nineteenth century, George Henry White has been one of the least remembered. A North Carolina representative from 1897 to 1901, White was the last man of...

The Civil War writings of G. Campbell Brown--cousin, stepson, and staff officer of famed Confederate General Richard S. Ewell--provide a comprehensive account of the major campaigns in the north Virginia theater. Terry L. Jones has performed an invaluable service by gathering these widely scattered...

This elegantly written biography depicts the combined effect of social structure, character, and national crisis on a woman's life. Mary Greenhow Lee (1819-1907) was raised in a privileged Virginia household. As a young woman, she flirted with President Van Buren's son, drank tea with...

Pierre Cl ment de Laussat was the last representative of a foreign power to exercise authority in Louisiana. Appointed colonial prefect by Napoleon Bonaparte, Laussat departed for Louisiana in January 1803 to preside over the formal retrocession of the colony from Spain to France,...

Born the eighth child in a wealthy Mississippi plantation family in 1843, David Eldred Holt joined Company K of the 16th Mississippi Regiment in 1861 and served in the Eastern theater throughout the Civil War. Late in his life, at a time when many...

When she was forty-four years old, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop left her comfortable home in New London, Connecticut, and soon thereafter took an apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side. She ran a newspaper ad inviting indigents dying of cancer to come live with her to...

Born in rural Winn Parish, Louisiana, Huey P. Long grew up to become the most influential governor the state of Louisiana has ever known. Indeed, he commanded a power base that ultimately made him virtual dictator of his home state. The story of Long's...

"Cooper paints a meticulous and absorbing portrait of McKay's restless artistic, intellectual, and political odyssey... The definitive biography on McKay."--Choice Although recognized today as one of the genuine pioneers of black literature in this century--the author of "If We Must Die," Home to Harlem,...

"Halleck originates nothing, anticipates nothing, to assist others; takes no responsibility, plans nothing, suggests nothing, is good for nothing." Lincoln's secretary of the navy Gideon Welles's harsh words embody the stereotype into which Union General-in-Chief Henry Wager Halleck has been cast by most historians...

John Brown Gordon's career of prominent public service spanned four of America's most turbulent decades. Born in Upson County, Georgia, in 1832, Gordon practiced law in Atlanta and, in the years immediately preceding the Civil War, developed coal mines in northwest Georgia. In 1861,...

Characterized by precision of statement and clarity of detail, W.W. Blackford's memoir of his service in the Civil War is one of the most valuable to come out of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. It also provides a critically important perspective on...

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was one of the prominent figure of American politics in the first half of the nineteenth century. The son of a slaveholding South Carolina family, he served in the federal government in various capacities--as senator from his home state, as...

Cutting across the Bourbon Era, the Populist Revolt, and the Progressive Movement, Hoke Smith's career gave expression to the Southern politics of his generation. In Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South, Dewey Grantham examines in detail the central role of this...

Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, Marquis de Sade 1740-1814, remains a man whose name is instantly recognized but whose life is obscure. Born close to royalty in the age of aristocratic decadence, he precipitated sexual scandals in the grand manner. Alleged poisoning and unnatural practices with a group...

Woodford County, Kentucky--originally a part of Fayette County, Virginia, and the parent of at least eight present-day Kentucky counties--was first surveyed and shaped in 1788. Railey's History takes the county through the nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on the original migrant settlers in the...

This is a significant addition to the literature of royal and noble genealogy. Author Thomas Benjamin Hertzel establishes conclusively that Judith Ivye (b. 1550, d. Feb. 6, 1578), wife of Anthony Prater and daughter of Thomas Ivye and his second wife, Elizabeth Malet, descends...

This superb genealogical and historical account traces the O'Sullivan sept a full thirty-one generations from the author's Carolina origins to the family's Irish roots in 170 AD. Mr. McCreight demonstrates that the O'Sullivans may be the oldest documented royal family on record, based on...

For the work at hand, Mr. Reynolds assembled a copiously illustrated collection of 500 essays devoted to distinguished families resident in the southern portion of New York State. Most of the essays begin with an explanation of the geographical origin or derivation of the...

In 1880 Gustav Koerner (1809-96), one-time Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois and confidant of Abraham Lincoln, published a comprehensive history of Germans in America entitled "Das deutsche Element in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika, 1818-48." Dr. Don Heinrich Tolzmann has here translated and edited selected chapters...

In 1880 Gustav Koerner (1809-96), one-time Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois and confidant of Abraham Lincoln, published a comprehensive history of Germans in America entitled "Das deutsche Element in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika, 1818-48." For the work at hand, Don Heinrich Tolzmann translated and edited...

On one level, of course, the work is an ably told personal political biography of Thomas, 6th Lord Fairfax, the Baron of Cameron (1693-1781). Fairfax was heir to his grandfather Lord Culpeper's share of the Virginia Northern Neck proprietary, an inheritance that ultimately enabled...

Between 1913 and 1916, William Richard Cutter published four separate series entitled "New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial." The First Series, published in 1913, featured genealogical and biographical essays on nearly 1,000 New England families. The Second Series (1914), while containing some families not...

This work lays out the 323 proven lines of descent from the eighty-seven men who served as Governor of one of the colonies of British North America. Each lineage furnishes a brief sketch on the member, the name of the Colonial Governor ancestor, the...

A preponderance of the thousands of subjects of the family essays referred to in this three-volume set were inhabitants of St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Lewis, Herkimer, Hamilton, Warren, Essex, Clinton and Franklin counties. In many cases the family head migrated into the state from Canada,...

A preponderance of the thousands of subjects of the family essays referred to in this three-volume set were inhabitants of St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Lewis, Herkimer, Hamilton, Warren, Essex, Clinton and Franklin counties. In many cases the family head migrated into the state from Canada,...

This work begins with a brief Introduction in which the compiler recounts the region's historic importance in the French and Indian War and in the Revolutionary War. There is also a special section on regional topography and the legislative origins of Albany County, in...

This work begins with a brief Introduction in which the compiler recounts the region's historic importance in the French and Indian War and in the Revolutionary War. There is also a special section on regional topography and the legislative origins of Albany County, in...

Mr. Turner here captures the golden age of Nottoway County in southside Virginia, from 1781 to 1861, with over 200 sketches of venerable county homes and their resident families. While most of the sketches are less than a page in length, some are illustrated,...

Between 1900 and 1903, James Hathaway compiled and edited what is now regarded as the supreme collection of genealogical source records on the Old Albemarle region of North Carolina, issued quarterly in eleven numbers of 160 pages each. "The North Carolina Historical and Genealogical...

Between 1900 and 1903, James Hathaway compiled and edited what is now regarded as the supreme collection of genealogical source records on the Old Albemarle region of North Carolina, issued quarterly in eleven numbers of 160 pages each. "The North Carolina Historical and Genealogical...

In 1948 longtime Appomattox County resident and amateur historian Nathaniel Featherston prepared a history of the county which included nearly 200 pages devoted to photographs of his contemporaries and to the military service records of Appomattox County residents who served in the Spanish American...

Following the Glorious Revolution, the supporters of the House of Stuart, known as Jacobites, could be found throughout the British Isles, but they were most numerous in the Highlands and North East Scotland, particularly among those of the Roman Catholic faith. The county of...

Wise's "Eastern Shore of Virginia" is a history of the counties of Accomack and Northampton; however, genealogists will be drawn to the book's numerous references to families prominent on the Eastern Shore and to the extensive lists of early settlers and patentees of land.Author:...

Mrs. Dayton blends genealogy with architectural history to capture the pioneer days of Lewisburg and surrounding Greenbrier County. Each chapter treats an important building over 100 years old at the time of the book's original publication in 1942 and the people who either built,...

Mr. Finnell, who has for a number of years served as the Registrar General of the National Huguenot Society, has here extracted all known Bible records from the files of the organization, i.e., "Proof Files" of qualified members of the Society and a second...

Rothert's coverage, which focuses on the ante-bellum period, boasts of over 200 photographs and ranges over such topics as John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg (for whom the county was named), the intrepid first-comers, county boundaries and boundary changes, courts and courthouses, life in the olden...

Based upon research in the Pennsylvania Archives and in records in the offices of the Register and Recorder of Berks County, this volume is arranged in two parts (books). Book I delineates all aspects of Berks County participation in the conflict, including the patriotic...