"The defeat of the Confederacy and the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 brought about the final destruction of slavery in the United States. Americans were confronted for the first time with the possibility of creating a republic dedicated to the principle of racial equality. What followed over the next twelve years was one of the most complex, inspiring, and ultimately tragic eras in American history. Reconstruction: Voices From America's...

Drawn from letters, diaries, speeches, articles, poems, songs, military reports, legal opinions, and memoirs, this collection brings together over 120 pieces by more than 60 men and women to create a firsthand narrative of the first year of the Civil War. Beginning on the eve of Lincoln's election in 1860 and ending in January 1862 with the appointment of Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War, the selections provide a sense of the immediacy, uncertainty,...

"For the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, the leading historian of the era presents a landmark two-volume edition of the thirty-nine pamphlets charting the course of the political crisis that led to independence. This second volume includes twenty works from the crucial years when the debate turned from issues of representation and consent to the fateful question of where sovereignty would ultimately reside in the British...

Contains "The Oregon Trail," a collection of essays that first appeared in the "Knickerbocker Magazine," discussing Parkman's trip to Oregon in 1846, and "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," relating Ottawa leader Pontiac's attacks on British forts and settlements in the 1760s.

This collection of Poe's writings includes his thoughts on poetry; reviews he wrote on many other authors, British, American, and Continental; his views of the literary world he moved in; essays, etc. A valuable tool for anyone studying Poe and his work.