Capitol Books Local 10-16-2009 $16.99.

Athens and Limestone County were founded in 1818, the year before Alabama became a state, making Athens one of its oldest cities. The quaint, picturesque downtown square in Athens, the county seat, is the heart of the community. Athens and Limestone County are studies in the ongoing tug-of-war between tradition and progress. Athens is traditionally a railroad and cotton town--once ranking among the state's largest cotton producers--but since the aerospace boom of the 1960s, it has increasingly entered the orbit of the technology center of nearby Huntsville, home of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and Redstone Arsenal. These days, Athens is home to many manufacturing firms, and local civic groups are focused on revitalizing downtown and bringing tourists to Limestone County.

The city of Athens is a picturesque, quintessential southern town in north central Alabama, full of folklore and history. The town may also have more ghost stories per capita than any other town in the South. This book collects, for the first time, the best ghost stories that Athens has to offer. You'll read about: * the frenzied spirits that beat on the windows of town square buildings in their attempt to escape an 1893 inferno; * the phantom grandfather clock in the George S. Houston Library and House that chimes but cannot be found; * the lonely ghost of Founders Hall whose lantern light travels from window to window as she searches for her lost love; * the forlorn spirit of the Vasser-Lovvorn Home whose recurring screams from the attic pierce the night; * the ghost child of the Donnell House who was frightened to death by Union soldiers during the Civil War invasion of the town; * and many more.

Join author Wil Elrick as he explores the history behind some of the Cotton State's weird and legendary tales. Mysterious 1989 UFO sightings brought more than 4,000 visitors to the tiny town of Fyffe, population 1,300. Legends of the Alabama White Thang - an elusive, hairy creature with a shrill shriek - persisted in the state for a century. Just outside Huntsville's historic Maple Hill Cemetery lies an eerie playground where the ghosts of departed children are rumored to play in the dead of night. After hundreds of unexplained sightings, the town of Evergreen declared itself the Bigfoot Capital of Alabama. Alabama is a weird and wonderful place with a colorful history steeped in folk tales passed from generation to generation.

Preparing for war : Alabama to Richmond, January 14-June 20, 1861 -- Waiting for the great battle : Richmond to Manassas, June 21-July 21, 1861, Manassas to Centreville, Virginia : July 22-September 21, 1861 -- Camp at Centreville, Virginia : September 27-December 31, 1861 -- The road to the Peninsula : January 8-March 24, 1862 -- The Peninsula campaign and the Seven Days Battles : March 25-July 27, 1862 -- The Second Battle of Manassas to Fredericksburg, Virginia : August 9-November 18, 1862 -- The Fredericksburg campaign : December 3, 1862-February 9, 1863 -- Chancellorsville, Virginia, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania : February 20-July 9, 1863 -- Orange, Virginia, to Petersburg, Virginia : August 22, 1863-October, 1864 -- Prison and home again : January 2-June 2, 1865 -- Epilogue -- Appendix A : List of the letters -- Appendix B : 9th Alabama Regiment casualties/enlistment totals -- Appendix C : 9th Alabama Regiment officers and infantry assignments -- Appendix D : Pvt. William Cowan McClellan's military record -- Appendix E : 9th Alabama regimental roster for Companies F and H

In The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience (1970) and The Confederate Nation (1979), Emory Thomas redefined the field of Civil War history and reconceptualized the Confederacy as a unique entity fighting a war for survival. Inside the Confederate Nation honors his enormous contributions to the field with fresh interpretations of all aspects of Confederate life -- nationalism and identity, family and gender, battlefront and home front, race, and postwar legacies and memories. Many of the volume's twenty essays focus on individuals, households, communities, and particular regions of the South, highlighting the sheer variety of circumstances southerners faced over the course of the war. Other chapters explore the public and private dilemmas faced by diplomats, policy makers, journalists, and soldiers within the new nation. All of the essays attempt to explain the place of southerners within the Confederacy, how they came to see themselves and others differently because of secession, and the disparities between their expectations and reality.