A Buckeye Titan


Book Description

Here is a panorama of life as it was lived and witnessed by one Ohio citizen, his family, and his friends, from 1816-1876. From the diary and correspondence of John H. James of Urbana, Ohio, and from contemporary manuscripts, periodicals, and newspapers, William E. and Ophia D. Smith have created an authentic picture of the times. A Buckeye Titan is not so much a biography of a man as it is an exposition of the contribution of his manuscripts to American history in general and to Ohio history in particular. The point of view presented is that of the protagonist and his friends. Cincinnati and Louisville are seen when slow-moving, square-rigged barges and primate boats propelled by “elastic vigor” crowded their landings, and when stately floating castles received and discharged passengers and cargoes upon their busy rivers. Lexington, Athens of the West, is portrayed as it was in the lush days of Horace Holley. The sophistication of New Orleans, Philadelphia, and New York sets off the awkward adolescence of such Mid-Western towns as Columbus, Dayton, Urbana, and Indianapolis. Against a background of devious politics and frenzied finance, the Mad River and Lake Erie Rail Road begins in Sandusky and stubbornly fights its way to Springfield. Whigs and Loco Focos engage in a titanic struggle of the establishment of a second banking system. Civil War days are graphically drawn. The tumultuous conflict of opinion, the graft and corruption, the political chicanery in the raising of troops and in the promotion of officers and men, the strength and the weakness of the Northern fighting forces and their leaders—all are here. Statesmen and politicians, reformers and scholars, authors and artists, actors and actresses, soldiers, travelers, bankers and merchants, founders of the first Swedenborgian college in the world, and plain everyday people, as well as intimate glimpses of distinguished characters, appear in these pages.




William Henry Harrison


Book Description

Although William Henry Harrison died a month after becoming President, he lived a full and accomplished life before assuming the presidency. As a member of Congress, he sponsored legislation dividing the Northwest Territory. As governor of the Indiana Territory, he led a movement to suspend the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance and earned a reputation for acquiring large land cessions from the Indian tribes, winning the affection of white settlers and the animosity of Native Americans. Serving as brigadier general during the War of 1812, he then served in the Ohio legislature and the U.S. Senate, and was named minister to Colombia. This bibliography provides a guide to the literature on his extensive career.




The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 16


Book Description

This volume’s 571 documents cover both Jefferson’s opposition to restrictions on slavery in Missouri and his concession that “the boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.” Seeking support for the University of Virginia, he fears that southerners who receive New England educations will return with northern values. Calling it “the Hobby of my old age,” Jefferson envisions an institution dedicated to “the illimitable freedom of the human mind.” He infers approvingly from revolutionary movements in Europe and South America that “the disease of liberty is catching.” Constantine S. Rafinesque addresses three public letters to Jefferson presenting archaeological research on Kentucky’s Alligewi Indians, and Jefferson circulates a Nottoway-language vocabulary. Early in 1821 he cites declining health and advanced age as he turns over the management of his Monticello and Poplar Forest plantations to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph. In discussions with trusted correspondents, Jefferson admires Jesus’s morality while doubting his miracles, discusses the materiality of the soul, and shares his thoughts on Unitarianism. Reflecting on the dwindling number of their old friends, he tells Maria Cosway that he is like “a solitary trunk in a desolate field, from which all it’s former companions have disappeared.”




The 26Th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry


Book Description

Here is the third edition of the history of a group of men who valiantly fought to preserve the Union during the American Civil War. The first edition was published in 2010 to wide acclaim. An updated second edition was printed in 2013. Now, seven years later, this third edition expands on the previous ones with a new chapter and many more stories, burial locations, maps and photos. The men of the 26th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry were among the first to answer their country’s call to duty, and among the last ones to finally be mustered home. The “Old 26th” fought in numerous western theater campaigns and battles; including: Shiloh, Corinth, Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Kennesaw, Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville. After the war’s end, the veterans yearned to publish their regiment’s proud history as so many other units had done. Regrettably, the high cost of publishing proved too steep for the aged veterans, and their dream died with them. The descendant of three veterans of the 26th Ohio, Jeffrey A. Hill resurrected their dream and brought it to fruition. Meticulously researched, their history is based on over five hundred primary source documents including letters, diaries, military and pension records, regimental and company records, and other first person accounts. Their narrative conveys their omnipresent sense of duty and loyalty. This book chronicles the involvement of the 26th Ohio from the initial fervor following Fort Sumter and throughout the war, as well as the postbellum activities. The appendices include a roster, list of burial sites, photo gallery, and index. This history is a lasting tribute to the men who so bravely fought to protect what they held most dear—their beloved country. At long last, here is their story...




Tracks Across Continents, Paths Through History


Book Description

A standard track gauge—the distance between the two rails—enables connecting railway lines to exchange traffic. But despite the benefits of standardization, early North American railways used six different gauges extensively, and even today breaks of gauge at national borders and within such countries as India and Australia are expensive burdens on commerce. In Tracks across Continents, Paths through History, Douglas J. Puffert offers a global history of railway track gauge, examining early choices and the dynamic process of diversity and standardization that resulted. Drawing on the economic theory of path dependence, and grounded in economic, technical, and institutional realities, this innovative volume traces how early historical events, and even idiosyncratic personalities, have affected choices of gauge ever since, despite changing technology and understandings of what gauge is optimal. Puffert also uses this history to develop new insights in the theory of path dependence. Tracks across Continents, Paths through History will be essential reading for anyone interested in how history and economics inform each other.




The Papers of Henry Clay


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The Politics of Long Division


Book Description

This sequel to Donald J. Ratcliffe's Party Spirit in a Frontier Republic investigates the origins of the important series of political contests now known as the Second Party System. Whereas recent historians claim that the mass parties of the antebellum era emerged in the 1830s, Ratcliffe argues that already by 1828 the battle lines had been laid down in Ohio that would dominate local and national politics until the eve of the Civil War, and even persist into the twentieth century. This cleavage in popular political loyalties first emerged, Ratcliffe contends, in the wake of the Missouri crests and the Panic of 1819. In 1824 the struggle to control the federal government saw many voters make choices to which they subsequently clung. Then in 1828, with the rise of the Jacksonian opposition, the excitements of the first closely contested presidential electron in Ohio brought unprecedented numbers of voters into the electoral contest. The choices that voters made at this critical time reflected, in part, the energetic organizational work of ambitious politicians and the persuasive scurrility of the media. But, more significantly, it revealed not only the economic hopes and political attachments but also the cultural attitudes, ethnic antagonisms, and social tensions that divided Ohioans in the much neglected decade of the 1820s.







AERO TRADER, JUNE 1998


Book Description




The Limits of Dissent


Book Description

Every American war has brought conflict over the extent to which national security will permit protesters to exercise their constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. The most famous case was that of Clement L. Vallandigham, the passionate critic of Lincoln's Civil War policies and one of the most controversial figure in the nation's history. In the great crisis of his time, he insisted that no circumstance, even war, could deprive a citizen of his right to oppose government policy freely and openly. The consequence was a furor which shook the nation's legislative halls and filled the press with vituperation. The ultimate fate for Vallandigham was arrest, imprisonment, and exile. The burning issues raised by his case remain largely unresolved today. Mr. Klement follows the tragic irony of Vallandigham's career and reassesses the man and history's judgment of him. After his death, "Valiant Val'' became a symbol of the dissenter in wartime whose case continues to have relevance in American democracy.