A narrative account of Reconstruction-era violence documents vigilante attacks on African Americans and their white allies, in a fast-paced analysis that traces the period as reflected by the careers of two Union officers, a Confederate general, a northern entrepreneur, and a former slave.

A few words about One Bloody Shirt at a Time Margarita Ricos is not just any deputy. She's smart. She's courageous. She's a twenty-five-year-old Chicana with attitude who grew up on the edge of the United States in Terlingua, Texas. There, the peoples and cultures of two countries are blended, more than separated, by the once-fierce Rio Grande. Terlingua is an unincorporated settlement built around a mercury mining ghost town of the same name. It lies in the southern part of Brewster County, the largest county in the largest state in the lower forty-eight. It has more square miles than inhabitants; and more mountains than you can count: tall, short, wide, narrow, jagged, rounded, naked, stunning mountains. Margarita and her partner, Deputy Barney George, are entrusted with preserving the peace and upholding the law in a land where the flowers and people grow wild. Crime in south Brewster County is seldom violent, and usually does not come in the form of murder or rape. Yet Norma Bates, a married, forty-five year old, mother of three, is found dead on her kitchen floor, lying in a pool of blood. There is a single stab wound in her chest. Deputy Ricos is about to conduct an interview about the murder when she receives a call from the sheriff. He says he has a couple from Terlingua in his office claiming their fourteen-year-old daughter was raped. Since Margarita is young, and known to the girl, perhaps she can get her to open up. The deputy is stunned by the sheriff's news. Murder—and now rape—what is going on in Terlingua? As the deputies work to solve both crimes, a sinister presence approaches Margarita in her home in the dark. Is it a murder suspect, or the unknown rapist, or a different kind of threat altogether?

The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War-placing a dynamic House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict.

Introduction: interpreting the "great war governor" and reconstruction senator -- A native son -- A rising republican star -- The election of 1860 -- The war governor -- One-man rule -- Copperheads, treason, and the election of 1864 -- Peace and paralysis -- Waving the bloody shirt -- A radical champion for African Americans -- Stalwart Republican -- The election of 1876 and the end of an era -- Morton and the politics of memory

‘Yes, it was be there or be square as, clad in the slum chic of the hipster, he issued the slang anthems of the zip age in the desperate esperanto of the bop. John Cooper Clarke: the name behind the hairstyle, the words walk in the grooves hacking through the hi-fi paradise of true luxury’ Punk. Poet. Pioneer. The Bard of Salford’s seminal collection is as scabrous, wry & vivid now as it was when first published over 25 years ago. ‘The godfather of British performance poetry’ Daily Telegraph