For many people, the history of women in the U.S. Armed Forces begins and ends with the recent Persian Gulf War. However, as Richard Hall shows in this volume, the precedent for women in combat goes back at least as far as the Civil War. He describes women who went disguised as men, as nurses, "daughters of the regiment", and vivandieres, who often took part in the fighting. Photographs.

Volume 2 explains how Bill Belichick's New England Patriots have won three Super Bowls in four seasons, and includes quotations from Patriots players, coaches, owners, and executives as they describe the team's success factors.

This thrilling book tells the full story of the an iconic episode in American history, the Boston Tea Party-exploding myths, exploring the unique city life of eighteenth-century Boston, and setting this audacious prelude to the American Revolution in a global context for the first time. Bringing vividly to life the diverse array of people and places that the Tea Party brought together-from Chinese tea-pickers to English businessmen, Native American tribes, sugar plantation slaves, and Boston's ladies of leisure-Benjamin L. Carp illuminates how a determined group of New Englanders shook the foundations of the British Empire, and what this has meant for Americans since. As he reveals many little-known historical facts and considers the Tea Party's uncertain legacy, he presents a compelling and expansive history of an iconic event in America's tempestuous past.

In a study that will radically shift our understanding of Civil War literature, Elizabeth Young shows that American women writers have been profoundly influenced by the Civil War and that, in turn, their works have contributed powerfully to conceptions of the war and its aftermath. Offering fascinating reassessments of works by white writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, and Margaret Mitchell and African-American writers including Elizabeth Keckley, Frances Harper, and Margaret Walker, Young also highlights crucial but lesser-known texts such as the memoirs of women who masqueraded as soldiers. In each case she explores the interdependence of gender with issues of race, sexuality, region, and nation. Combining literary analysis, cultural history, and feminist theory, Disarming the Nation argues that the Civil War functioned in women's writings to connect female bodies with the body politic. Women writers used the idea of "civil war" as a metaphor to represent struggles between and within women—including struggles against the cultural prescriptions of "civility." At the same time, these writers also reimagined the nation itself, foregrounding women in their visions of America at war and in peace. In a substantial afterword, Young shows how contemporary black and white women—including those who crossdress in Civil War reenactments—continue to reshape the meanings of the war in ways startlingly similar to their nineteenth-century counterparts. Learned, witty, and accessible, Disarming the Nation provides fresh and compelling perspectives on the Civil War, women's writing, and the many unresolved "civil wars" within American culture today.

When the Civil War broke out, women answered the call for help. They broke away from their traditional roles and served in many capacities, some of them even going so far as to disguise themselves as men and enlist in the army. Estimates of such women enlistees range from 400 to 700. About 60 women soldiers were known to have been killed or wounded. More than sixty women who fought or who served the Union or Confederacy in other ways are featured. Among them are Sarah Thompson, the Union spy and nurse who brought down the famous raider John Hunt Morgan; Elizabeth Van Lew, the Union spy instrumental in the largest prison break of the war; Sarah Malinda Blalock, who fought for the Confederacy as a soldier and then for the Union as a guerrilla raider; Dr. Mary Walker, a doctor for the Union and the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for Civil War service; and Jennie Hodgers, the longest serving woman soldier (and the only woman to receive a soldier's pension).

With meticulous research and page-turning suspense, Patriots brings to life the American Revolution—the battles, the treacheries, and the dynamic personalities of the men who forged our freedom. George Washington, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry—these heroes were men of intellect, passion, and ambition. From the secret meetings of the Sons of Liberty to the final victory at Yorktown and the new Congress, Patriots vividly re-creates one of history's great eras.