This work is essentially a compilation of articles that deal wholly or in part with muster and pay rolls, court order books, pension records, land claims, depositions, petitions, militia lists, orderly books, and service records. The majority of the articles focus on the records of the colonial and Revolutionary War periods, but there also are some that relate to the War of 1812. In the aggregate these comprise data of almost unequaled variety and magnitude. Produced over the years by an army of specialists, they were spread throughout the three periodicals named in the title. This varied and immense body of data is brought together in a handy and well-indexed volume, which will make its use by the researcher very easy.

A New York Times Notable Book of 1996 It was in tolling the death of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in 1835 that the Liberty Bell cracked, never to ring again. An apt symbol of the man who shaped both court and country, whose life "reads like an early history of the United States," as the Wall Street Journal noted, adding: Jean Edward Smith "does an excellent job of recounting the details of Marshall's life without missing the dramatic sweep of the history it encompassed." Working from primary sources, Jean Edward Smith has drawn an elegant portrait of a remarkable man. Lawyer, jurist, scholars; soldier, comrade, friend; and, most especially, lover of fine Madeira, good food, and animated table talk: the Marshall who emerges from these pages is noteworthy for his very human qualities as for his piercing intellect, and, perhaps most extraordinary, for his talents as a leader of men and a molder of consensus. A man of many parts, a true son of the Enlightenment, John Marshall did much for his country, and John Marshall: Definer of a Nation demonstrates this on every page.

From Tyler's quarterly historical and genealogical magazine.