A new American journey.

The last U.S. Army mules were formally mustered out of the service in December 1956, ending 125 years of military reliance on the virtues of this singular animal. Much less glamorous than the cavalryman’s horse, the Army pack mule was a good deal more important: from the Mexican War through World War II, mules were an indispensable adjunct to army movement. The author has exhaustively researched the ubiquitous yet nearly invisible army mule. Through his work we learn a great deal about military procurement, transport, and supply, the bedrock on which military mobility rests.

While mules share some similarities with horses, they are very different and are used for very different purposes. With rich detail, this book sets forth how their strength, endurance, and steadiness sets them apart from horses and made them invaluable to American history.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN NPR CONCIERGE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “In her form-shattering and myth-crushing book….Coe examines myths with mirth, and writes history with humor… [You Never Forget Your First] is an accessible look at a president who always finishes in the first ranks of our leaders.” —Boston Globe Alexis Coe takes a closer look at our first--and finds he is not quite the man we remember Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down--even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation's hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him into the presidency--twice. When he retired years later, no one talked him out of it. He left the highest office heartbroken over the partisan nightmare his backstabbing cabinet had created. Back on his plantation, the man who fought for liberty must confront his greatest hypocrisy--what to do with the men, women, and children he owns--before he succumbs to death. With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have readers--including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads--inhaling every page.

The Book of Mules: An Introduction to the Original Hybrid, written and photographed by Donna Campbell Smith, is a celebration of mules, those long-eared hybrids that helped carry pioneers west, tilled the tobacco and cotton fields of the South, and served in the military throughout America history. Today, they are still working hard in fields, working as pack animals, as favorite mounts for trail riders and are still used in the military. The Book of Mules includes history and origin of the mule, care, selecting, breeding, showing, and owning mules for fun. Written with a sense of recapturing the past The Book of Mules is an essential introduction for anyone who owns, rides, plans to buy, or is otherwise fond of mules.

Winner of the 1999 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction A CBC Notable Children’s Book in the Field of Social Studies Two recently freed, formerly enslaved brothers work to protect the new life they’ve built during the Reconstruction after the Civil War in this vibrant, illustrated middle grade novel. Maybe nobody gave freedom, and nobody could take it away like they could take away a family farm. Maybe freedom was something you claimed for yourself. Like other ex-slaves, Pascal and his older brother Gideon have been promised forty acres and maybe a mule. With the found family they have built along the way, they claim a place of their own. Green Gloryland is the most wonderful place on earth, their own farm with a healthy cotton crop and plenty to eat. But the notorious night riders have plans to take it away, threatening to tear the beautiful freedom that the two boys are enjoying for the first time in their young lives.

A passion for politics and for political power is at the core of this biography of "Big Jim" Folsom, the legendary two-term Alabama governor who revolutionized state government by going directly to the "branchheads," the grassroots, to exhort the powerless to fight for their rights against the "Big Mules," the elite cotton planters and urban industrialists. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with Folsom, his family and friends, and his allies and rivals, Carl Grafton and Anne Permaloff reveal in Big Mules and Branchheads the complex reality behind the stories and myths that have arisen around the Alabama governor. Often dismissed as a naïve yet somehow appealing yokel whose rise to power was largely attributable to luck, Folsom is seen here as a highly knowledgeable and creative political strategist who calculated his most important victories even while his behavior often seemed influenced by innocence and a tendency toward buffoonery. His two terms as governor were marked by scandal, yet Folsom energetically sought to raise the moral level of Alabama politics by bluntly advocating, in the face of great opposition, the expansion of civil rights for blacks, poor whites, and women. Folsom, the authors suggest, is as widely misunderstood in Alabama as Alabama is misunderstood throughout the nation. Illuminating the intricacies of Alabama's politics as it traces Folsom's rise to power, this book gives readers the unique opportunity to know the legendary Folsom as a flawed, yet often inspiring human being who energetically practiced his own colorful brand of politics.