Learn about the Potomac River and its significant role in American history. The great Potomac River begins in the Alleghenies and flows 383 miles through some of America's most historic lands before emptying into the Chesapeake Bay. The course of the river drove the development of the region and the path of a young republic. Maryland's first Catholic settlers came to its banks in 1634 and George Washington helped settle the new capitol on its shores. During the Civil War the river divided North and South, and it witnessed John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry and the bloody Battle of Antietam. Author Garrett Peck leads readers on a journey down the Potomac, from its first fount at Fairfax Stone in West Virginia to its mouth at Point Lookout in Maryland. Combining history with recreation, Peck has written an indispensable guide to the nation's river.

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The Potomac River Basin, stretching from Pennsylvania through West Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, is home to a variety of wildlife and culture. The Potomac flows through the landscape, offering its shores to bathers and fishermen, its rapids to adventurous kayakers, and its natural beauty to all who live nearby. But, over the centuries and specifically since the coming of European settlers to the area 400 years ago, the region and the river have been transformed. Many of the changes that have affected the Potomac were the result of human actions--the introduction of maize about 1,900 years ago, the accidental importation of the Chestnut blight in 1904, and the increased industrialization of the region. In this pictorial history, readers will have the opportunity to learn about the long-lasting effects of deforestation, mining, and pollution, the plant and animal life that call the region home, and the river's restorative power and enduring grace in striking views from the past 200 years.

War is waged not only on battlefields. In the mid-1980s a high-stakes political struggle to redesign the relationships among the president, secretary of defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and warfighting commanders in the field resulted in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Author James R. Locher III played a key role in the congressional effort to repair a dysfunctional military whose interservice squabbling had cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and put the lives of thousands of servicemen and women at risk. Victory on this front helped make possible the military successes the United States has enjoyed since the passage of the bill and to prepare it for the challenges it must still face.Victory on the Potomac provides the first detailed history of how Congress unified the Pentagon and does so with the benefit of an insider's view. In a fast-paced account that reads like a novel, Locher follows the bill through congressional committee to final passage, making clear that the process is neither abstract nor automatic. His vivid descriptions bring to life the amazing cast of this real-life drama, from the straight-shooting chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Barry Goldwater, to the peevishly stubborn secretary of defense, Caspear Weinberger.Locher's analysis of political maneuvering and bureaucratic infighting will fascinate anyone who has an interest in how government works, and his understanding of the stakes in military reorganization will make clear why this legislative victory meant so much to American military capability. James R. Locher III, a graduate of West Point and Harvard Business School began his career in Washington as an executive trainee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has worked in the White House, the Pentagon, and the Senate. During the period covered by this book, he was a staff member for the Senate Committee on Armed Services. Since then, he has served as an assistant secretary of defense in the first Bush and the early Clinton administrations. Currently, he works as a consultant and lecturer on defense matters.

Everyone knows that Washington, D.C. is a city of secrets. There are secrets in the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court. There are secret files in the Pentagon, the FBI, CIA, NSA, and a veritable alphabet soup of federal agencies. Yet the greatest secrets in the nation's capital are not locked in a vault or under 24-hour guard. Washington's greatest secrets are hidden in plain sight. They are the secrets of Ancient Egypt and of its influence on the development of the United States and its capital city. America's founding fathers were profoundly influenced by the ancient Egyptians. Egypt is on the Potomac, but you will never know it it you do not know what to look for. The hidden history of Washingtonc D.C. and its relationship to ancient Egypt are revealed in the pages of this book.