When a railroad baron sends hired guns to clear the farmers out of Thunder Valley, Roy Sether befriends the notorious Rondo James to help protect his family.

An “exciting and informative” account of the Civil War battle that opened the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, with illustrations included (Lone Star Book Review). Charles Knight’s Valley Thunder is the first full-length account in decades to examine the combat at New Market on May 15, 1864 that opened the pivotal Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who set in motion the wide-ranging operation to subjugate the South in 1864, intended to attack on multiple fronts so the Confederacy could no longer “take advantage of interior lines.” A key to success in the Eastern Theater was control of the Shenandoah Valley, an agriculturally abundant region that helped feed Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Grant tasked Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, a German immigrant with a mixed fighting record, and a motley collection of units numbering some 10,000 men to clear the Valley and threaten Lee’s left flank. Opposing Sigel was Maj. Gen. (and former US Vice President) John C. Breckinridge, who assembled a scratch command to repulse the Federals. Included in his 4,500-man army were Virginia Military Institute cadets under the direction of Lt. Col. Scott Ship, who’d marched eighty miles in four days to fight Sigel. When the armies faced off at New Market, Breckinridge told the cadets, “Gentlemen, I trust I will not need your services today; but if I do, I know you will do your duty.” The sharp fighting seesawed back and forth during a drenching rainstorm, and wasn’t concluded until the cadets were inserted into the battle line to repulse a Federal attack and launch one of their own. The Union forces were driven from the Valley, but would return, reinforced and under new leadership, within a month. Before being repulsed, they would march over the field at New Market and capture Staunton, burn VMI in Lexington (partly in retaliation for the cadets’ participation at New Market), and very nearly capture Lynchburg. Operations in the Valley on a much larger scale that summer would permanently sweep the Confederates from the “Bread Basket of the Confederacy.” Valley Thunder is based on years of primary research and a firsthand appreciation of the battlefield terrain. Knight’s objective approach includes a detailed examination of the complex prelude leading up to the battle, and his entertaining prose introduces soldiers, civilians, and politicians who found themselves swept up in one of the war’s most gripping engagements.

A realistic but nostalgic look at the land that is as much a state of mind as it is an actual place examines what it means to be a westerner today and how present actions are shaping the landscapes, institutions, culture, and potential of the American West for future generations. Original.

An endless expanse of blue, sea, withered wood, immortal mountains, ten thousand miles in total without any sign of human habitation. Endless rays of blue, boundless sea, dead wood, immortal mountains, ten thousand miles devoid of human habitation.

Understanding the development and practice of power—based on an in-depth observation of human psychology—has been a part of traditional Chinese thought for thousands of years and is considered a prerequisite for mastering the arts of strategy and leadership. Thunder in the Sky presents two secret classics of this ancient Chinese tradition. The commentary by Thomas Cleary—the renowned translator of dozens of Asian classics—highlights the contemporary application of these teachings.

For the glory and glory of the Spirit Gate, the Eastern Uncle Mu Chen had gone against the heavens. They traversed the Nine Prefectures, laughed arrogantly at the four seas, traversed the ten thousand worlds, and battled all the heroes of the various clans!