Letters Home II

Letters Home II: Camp Life & Battles
edited by Alan Sessarego

A collection of original Civil War Soldiers' letters and photographs put together by collector Alan Sessarego.

Washington's Crossing

Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American History Series)

by David Hackett Fischer

Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia. George Washington lost ninety percent of his army and was driven across the Delaware River. Panic and despair spread through the states.

Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, Washington—and many other Americans—refused to let the Revolution die. Even as the British and Germans spread their troops across New Jersey, the people of the colony began to rise against them. George Washington saw his opportunity and seized it. On Christmas night, as a howling nor'easter struck the Delaware Valley, he led his men across the river and attacked the exhausted Hessian garrison at Trenton, killing or capturing nearly a thousand men. A second battle of Trenton followed within days. The Americans held off a counterattack by Lord Cornwallis's best troops, then were almost trapped by the British force. Under cover of night, Washington's men stole behind the enemy and struck them again, defeating a brigade at Princeton. The British were badly shaken. In twelve weeks of winter fighting, their army suffered severe damage, their hold on New Jersey was broken, and their strategy was ruined.

Fischer's richly textured narrative reveals the crucial role of contingency in these events. We see how the campaign unfolded in a sequence of difficult choices by many actors, from generals to civilians, on both sides. While British and German forces remained rigid and hierarchical, Americans evolved an open and flexible system that was fundamental totheir success. At the same time, they developed an American ethic of warfare that John Adams called "the policy of humanity," and showed that moral victories could have powerful material effects. The startling success of Washington and his compatriots not only saved the faltering American Revolution, but helped to give it new meaning, in a pivotal moment for American history.

Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851)

by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze

Son of the Morning Star

Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn
by Evan S. Connell

Custer's Last Stand is among the most enduring events in American history—more than one hundred years after the fact, books continue to be written and people continue to argue about even the most basic details surrounding the Little Bighorn. Evan S. Connell, whom Joyce Carol Oates has described as "one of our most interesting and intelligent American writers," wrote what continues to be the most reliable—and compulsively readable—account of the subject. Connell makes good use of his meticulous research and novelist's eye for the story and detail to re-vreate the heroism, foolishness, and savagery of this crucial chapter in the history of the West.

Evan S. Connell has received numerous prizes and awards for his writing and is the author of sixteen books of fiction, poetry, essays, and history, including Mr. Bridge, Mrs. Bridge, The Diary of a Rapist, The Alchymist's Journal, and The Collected Stories. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Stars in Their Courses

Stars in Their Courses: The Gettysburg Campaign
by Shelby Foote

Shelby Foote, who cut such a courtly figure in Ken Burns's PBS series The Civil War, is an uncommonly graceful writer as well, and this careful study of the 1863 Gettysburg campaign assumes the contours of a classical tragedy. Foote positions readers on the field of battle itself, among swirling smoke and clattering grapeshot, and invites us to feel for ourselves its hellishness: "men on both sides were hollering as they milled about and fired, some cursing, others praying ... not a commingling of shouts and yells but rather like a vast mournful roar." Foote's fine book is history as literature, and a welcome addition to any Civil War buff's library.

Management Science

An Introduction to Management Science: Quantitative Approaches to Decision Making

by Anderson, Sweeney, and Williams

Learn today's management science concepts and techniques from a leader in the field. AN INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT SCIENCE provides a sound conceptual understanding of the role that management science plays in the decision-making process. AN INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT SCIENCE is applications-oriented and continues to use the problem-scenario approach that has been a hallmark feature of each edition in which a problem is described in conjunction with the management science model that's introduced. The model is then solved to generate a solution and recommendation to management.

Essentials of Statistics

Essentials of Statistics for Business and Economics

by Anderson, Sweeney, and Williams

David R. Anderson is Professor of Quantitative Analysis in the College of Business Administration at the University of Cincinnati. Born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, he earned his BS, MS, and PhD degrees from Purdue University. Professor Anderson has served as Head of the Department of Quantitative Analysis and Operations Management and as Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration. In addition, he was the coordinator of the College's first Executive Program. In addition to teaching introductory statistics for business students, Dr. Anderson has taught graduate-level courses in regression analysis, multivariate analysis, and management science. He also has taught statistical courses at the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. Professor Anderson has been honored with nominations and awards for excellence in teaching and excellence in service to student organizations. He has coauthored ten textbooks related to decision sciences and actively consults with businesses in the areas of sampling and statistical methods.

Dennis J. Sweeney is Professor of Quantitative Analysis and founder of the Center for Productivity Improvement at the University of Cincinnati. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he earned BS and BA degrees from Drake University, graduating summa cum laude. He received his MBA and DBA degrees from Indiana University, where he was an NDEA Fellow. Dr. Sweeney has worked in the management science group at Procter & Gamble and has been a visiting professor at Duke University. Professor Sweeney served five years as Head of the Department of Quantitative Analysis and four years as Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Cincinnati. He has published more than 30 articles in the area of management science and statistics. The National Science Foundation, IBM, Procter & Gamble, Federated Department Stores, Kroger, and Cincinnati Gas & Electric have funded his research, which has been published in MANAGEMENT SCIENCE, OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING, DECISION SCIENCES, and other journals. Professor Sweeney has coauthored ten textbooks in the areas of statistics, management science, linear programming, and production and operations management.

Thomas A. Williams is Professor of Management Science in the College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Born in Elmira, New York, he earned his BS degree at Clarkson University. He completed his graduate work at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he received his MS and PhD degrees. Before joining the College of Business at RIT, Professor Williams served for seven years as a faculty member in the College of Business Administration at the University of Cincinnati, where he developed the first undergraduate program in Information Systems. At RIT he was the first chair of the Decision Sciences Department. Professor Williams is the coauthor of 11 textbooks in the areas of management science, statistics, production and operations management, and mathematics. He has been a consultant for numerous Fortune 500 companies in areas ranging from the use of elementary data analysis to the development of large-scale regression models.

History Of The Second Seminole War

History Of The Second Seminole War, 1835-1842

by John K. Mahon

By the third decade of the 19th century the growing American nation had expanded so far into the Florida peninsula that in 1832 a group of Seminole tribal chiefs accepted the terms of a treaty which provided for the removal of their tribes to the West. Wiley Thompson was appointed to supervise the migration. However, a great number of the Seminoles were deeply attached to their homeland and fiercely opposed exchanging their Florida land for that promised in the West. On December 28, 1835, warriors led by Osceola massacred Thompson and a number of American citizens, thereby beginning the Second Seminole War. It continued for almost seven years and would become the most expensive of all the American Indian wars, in both monetary and human terms. After the war John T. Sprague, who had participated in the war during its last years, published "The Origin, Progress, and Conclusion of the Florida War", for 120 years the only account of this episode in US history. Drawing on data, resources and insights unavailable to Sprague, Mahon sets out to bring a broad national perspective to this study, setting the war in the context of both Florida and US military history and Indian policy.

Hunted Like a Wolf

Hunted Like a Wolf: The Story of the Seminole War
by Milton Meltzer

A landmark work for teens chronicling the Second Seminole War (1835-1842) and the treachery of the U.S. during that time. A ragged, starving handful of guerrillas, the Seminoles and blacks resisted the invading U.S. Army ten times their number. Meltzer explores the Seminoles' choices and the sacrifices they made by resisting in the longest and costliest of the Indian Wars. The book reveals America's terrible racial history, the consequences of which we are only beginning to understand.

Short film about Dade Battle