Private History

Lincoln comes alive through the reading of his speeches, essays, and other writings, including "The Gettysburg Address" and "The Second Inaugural Address".

One of America's most admired TV anchors gives us an intimate chronicle of the final year of the twentieth century. In this engrossing narrative, a national bestseller, are all the most significant matters of that year--from Bill Clinton’s impeachment to Columbine, from the war in Kosovo to...

An eye-opening book about how societies are designed to support the status of those in power at the destructive expense of those without it. From 1958, China declared war on sparrows, contributing to the deaths of more than 10 million people. In the 19th century, the Shuar people of Ecuador were driven by economic need to wage bloody wars to procure shrunken heads for the Western curio market, which nearly destroyed their society. There have been 55 prime ministers of Great Britain, of whom 48 have been privately educated, creating a society built for and by the privileged.

This volume does not claim to be a tactical, or strategic history of the campaigns of which it treats; it aims rather to be a narrative of the every day life and experience of the private soldier in camp and field how he lived, how he marched, how he fought and how he suffered. No sooner had some of the volunteers reached the front, and been subjected to the hardships and exposures of army life, than they fell sick, were sent to the hospital and were discharged without passing through any serious campaigns.

The first really great battle of the Civil War was that of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, and I shall not only attempt to give a general account of the battle, but also describe it from the point of view of a man in the ranks. In respect to the general features of this desperate struggle between our own countrymen, my statements are derived from many reports and accounts carefully collated, and from many conversations with soldiers engaged, both from the Union and Confederate armies.