This is a rare book of keen observation, respect, and in some instances even affection for Native Americans of his time. (It's a good bet his editor or the marketing department had something to do with the language.) General Oliver O. Howard commanded Union forces in the American Civil War and lost his right arm at the Battle of Fair Oaks in 1862. After recovery, he continued in important commands, including the Army of the Tennessee. He fought at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. For nine years after the Civil War, he was commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau and worked to integrate free African Americans into southern society. Howard was also a leader in promoting higher education for freedmen, most notably in founding of Howard University in Washington and serving as its president 1867–73. He accepted the surrender of the famous chief Joseph, and led campaigns and negotiations with an astonishing number of the western tribes. No student of the Indian Wars in the United States should miss reading this book. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

No less authority than Hiram Chittenden wrote this marvelous history of the early days of one of America's most important waterways. A West Point engineer, namesake of the Hiram Chittenden locks in Seattle, Chittenden was a respected historian of early western America. There was no railroad system in the United States whose importance to its tributary country was relatively greater than was that of the Missouri River to the trans-Mississippi territory in the first seventy-five years of the nineteenth century. Through the earliest days of navigation on the great Missouri, through its use in the Civil War, the Indian Wars, Custer's Last Stand, and its eventual demise as a major highway due to the development of the railroads, this history tells of an America that depended on rivers for expansion. Though Grant Marsh captained the steamer Far West, which took the wounded Little Bighorn survivors to Ft. Lincoln, La Barge also saw service as a captain on Custer's Yellowstone Expedition. The life of Joseph La Barge exemplifies the 19th century life of the river. The author met La Barge shortly before his death and found him to be an extraordinary wealth of information about early steamboat travel, as La Barge had owned and operated boats on the river for many years. He was on the first boat that went to the far upper river, and he made the last through voyage from St. Louis to Fort Benton. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

One of the legendary figures of the frontier U.S. Army and the Indian Wars, Sandy Forsyth is unknown to most Americans. This volume contains his exciting account of the Battle of Beecher Island in September, 1868. Forsyth commanded a tiny force pinned down on a sand bar in the Republican River for nine days against hundreds of Cheyenne warriors led by Roman Nose. Forsyth was badly wounded but stayed in command as men and horses fell around him. Earlier in his career, he had been an aide-de-camp to Major-General Phil Sheridan during the Civil War. He rode with Sheridan on his famous nighttime ride from Winchester to avert catastrophe at the Battle of Cedar Creek. That story is here, as well as Forsyth's memory of his presence at the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. This is one of the most exciting and well-written memoirs of an officer who served in the Civil War and on the frontier. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers, tablets, and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

On November 30, 1864, General David Stanley led a successful counterattack against Confederate forces at Franklin, Tennessee. Coming at a decisive moment in the battle, it helped lead to one of the worst disasters of the war for the Rebels. For his actions, Stanley was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Abraham Lincoln. Stanley was involved in many major battles of the war and was also a participant in the Indian Wars. His life encompassed diverse military careers among the union generals in the Civil War and Indian Wars. Here in his own words you can read his fascinating tale. For the first time ever, this long-out-of-print book is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE or download a sample.

For fifty-four years in the 19th century, Benjamin Armstrong spent his life with Native American tribes, learning their customs and languages, and becoming the adopted son of a Chippewa chief. Armstrong sat before Presidents Filmore and Lincoln on separate occasions as interpreter and advocate for Native American visitors to Washington. In this remarkable book, Armstrong relates his many years in the west with a depth and sympathy for his Native American friends that found few parallels among his contemporaries. He discusses their religion, marriage customs, camp life, and many anecdotes of individuals with whom he formed close bonds. Armstrong did more to humanize Native Americans than nearly any white person of his day. In the end, he writes: "...the unbiased judgment of the future will be that the Indians were found good and were made bad by white people, and that the condition of things has not been one whit improved by white associates, but, on the contrary, has been degraded....[the Indians] saw that the example of the white people was far from the teachings of the missionaries, far from the truth and the pretensions of the traders, and far from justice and right." For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above. Buy it today!

For the four long years of the American Civil War, Sam Barron rode with the famed Third Texas Cavalry under General Lawrence Sullivan Ross (governor of Texas twice and president of Texas A&M). Ross' Brigade, as it was known, was involved in some of the most important and successful Confederate operations of the war. Of special note, Barron describes the raid on Holly Springs that decimated Union supplies there, temporarily threatening Ulysses S. Grant's plans to take Vicksburg, the last Rebel stronghold on the Mississippi. The Third Texans also fought at Corinth, Elkhorn, Oak Hill and elsewhere. Only a Texan for about one year before the war broke out, Barron nevertheless declared himself a secessionist as soon as he heard about John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For less than you'd spend on gas going to the library, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

As the Civil War raged during its worst years, Rachel Moore and her husband left cold New York for the Caribbean in an attempt to restore her failing health. At times it seemed the voyage itself was going to kill her. But she survived and kept a journal of her keen observations of life in the islands. What shocked her the most was the state of Caribbean slavery; worse, in her mind, than what she had seen traveling through the American south. A Quaker and an abolitionist, slavery was an absolute evil to her. Her descriptions of slave life, the islands, the people, and what she loved about her time there are all fascinating to read. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.