In 1855 an American named William Walker invaded Nicaragua with 58 reckless soldiers of fortune. Within a year he took over the government and had himself "declared" president of Nicaragua. Planning to create a vast slave empire in Central America with himself as dictator, Walker challenged the power of Great Britain, the wealth of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the prestige of the president of the United States. He terrorized the five small Central American republics, as he ruthlessly plunged them into a ghastly bloodbath. Walker rose to the height of fame in the years just prior to the Civil War, his name was on every tongue. Frenzied admirers in New Orleans carried him triumphantly on their shoulders as a conquering hero. But he also inspired the fear, hatred, and vengeance of many who opposed him, and at the age of 36 he was executed by a firing squad of barefoot soldiers in Honduras in September 1860.

This fascinating study sheds new light on antebellum America's notorious "filibusters--the freebooters and adventurers who organized or participated in armed invasions of nations with whom the United States was formally at peace. Offering the first full-scale analysis of the filibustering movement, Robert May relates the often-tragic stories of illegal expeditions into Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and other Latin American countries and details surprising numbers of aborted plots, as well. May investigates why thousands of men joined filibustering expeditions, how they were financed, and why the U.S. government had little success in curtailing them. Surveying antebellum popular media, he shows how the filibustering phenomenon infiltrated the American psyche in newspapers, theater, music, advertising, and literature. Condemned abroad as pirates, frequently in language strikingly similar to modern American denunciations of foreign terrorists, the filibusters were often celebrated at home as heroes who epitomized the spirit of Manifest Destiny. May concludes by exploring the national consequences of filibustering, arguing that the practice inflicted lasting damage on U.S. relations with foreign countries and contributed to the North-South division over slavery that culminated in the Civil War.

This book documents the potency of Manifest destiny in the antebellum era.

On December 11, 1863, a US brigadier general and a Confederate artillery captain met on board the packet steamer Diligent on the Mississippi River below Vicksburg. The Confederate officer had not come on board on official business; he was a paroled prisoner of war. The brigadier general was his older brother, who had learned of the younger man’s capture three weeks earlier at Confederate Fort Semmes, on the Texas coast, and had arranged to have him brought from New Orleans to Vicksburg to be given medical care at the Federal garrison. The American Civil War has rightly been called a war of brothers; Henry, Jasper, and William Maltby were three such brothers. The scene recounted above was between Jasper and William, who had not seen each other in several years since Jasper had left their birth home in Ohio, but who met frequently over the months following their reunion, their familial bond overriding their political allegiances. The three brothers’ lives cover the critical years of Civil War and Reconstruction, a time when Jasper devotedly served the Union cause, while Henry and William became outspoken secessionists, operating Confederate newspapers in Corpus Christi, Matamoros, and Brownsville, eventually as a thorn in the side of Reconstruction officials. Despite their own Southern sympathies, the two Confederates cherished their Yankee brother, whose bravery at Fort Donelson and Vicksburg took a heavy toll on his health and eventually cost him his life. Both Rebels named a son in honor of their hero brother. Combining detailed research in William Maltby’s personal papers with contemporary accounts, military and court records, and the editorials of the two who became newspapermen, veteran scholar and educator Norman Delaney has created a vibrant story of how war can affect a family and a community.

Filled with fresh interpretations and information, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably become the standard one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War--the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry--and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict: the South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war--slavery--and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.

The Beginnings of the The Volunteer State Tennessee was a remote place in 1810. By 1850, some of the most influential people in America had come from Tennessee, such as Sequoyah, David Crockett, the filibuster William Walker and the slave trader Isaac Franklin. Learn about the state's first steamboats and its initial telegraph message. Read newly discovered accounts from the Trail of Tears. Hop along the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad and relive the glory and tragedy. Author and columnist Bill Carey details these stories and more on early history in The Volunteer State.

Major help for those inevitable American History term paper projects has arrived to enrich and stimulate students in challenging and enjoyable ways. Students from high school age to undergraduate will be able to get a jumpstart on assignments with the hundreds of term paper projects and research information offered here in an easy-to-use format. Users can quickly choose from the 100 important events of the nineteenth century, carefully selected to be appealing to students, and delve right in. Each event entry begins with a brief summary to pique interest and then offers original and thought-provoking term paper ideas in both standard and alternative formats that incorporate the latest in electronic media, such as iPod and iMovie. The best in primary and secondary sources for further research are then annotated, followed by vetted, stable Web site suggestions and multimedia resources for further viewing and listening. Librarians and faculty will want to use this as well. Students dread term papers, but with this book, the research experience is transformed and elevated. Term Paper Resource Guide to Nineteenth-Century U.S. History is a superb source to motivate and educate students who have a wide range of interests and talents. The provided topics on events, people, inventions, cultural contributions, wars, and technological advances reflect the country's nineteenth-century character and experience. Some examples of the topics are Barbary Pirate Wars, the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings liaison, Tecumseh and the Prophet, the Santa Fe Trail, Immigration in the 1840s, the Seneca Falls Convention, the Purchase of Alaska, Boss Tweed's Ring, Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at O.K. Corral, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, and Scott Joplin and Ragtime Music.