These fascinating vignettes show Foreign Service personnel in action, heading off problems with other nations, reconciling differences, negotiating workable agreements, defusing conflicts, and generally steering Americans out of harm's way while at the same time coping with the myriad unexpected yet often deeply fulfilling aspects of overseas living. 
In one vignette, Gene describes his rescue of a wayward young traveler from the clutches of an over-eager police officer who (wrongly) believes he has captured the fugitive Patty Hearst. In another, he recalls the grotesque difficulty of recovering and shipping home the mortal remains of an American sea captain whose life ended in a steamy tropical port with limited refrigeration facilities. Kathryn highlights the challenges of maintaining an American-style home life in a constantly changing, sometimes hostile environment. But her essays point up opportunities as well 
as difficulties: When a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier makes a port call, she takes advantage of the chance to show the children a glorious example of American technology.

Welcome Home: Who Are You? Tales of a Foreign Service Family

Schmiel, Gene

Schmiel, Kathryn

Biographies & Memoirs

Aletheia Pubns Inc

The nation's preeminent Civil War Scholar, Professor James McPherson, has read this book and called it "fascinating" We hope you will join him and find out why he also said he enjoyed reading it. Here is what it is all about:What if, even after the Union had won the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery had remained legal in the United States? In this thought-provoking speculative history, written in a "you are there" style using the words of the participants themselves, award-winning Civil War historian Gene Schmiel shows exactly how that ironic and tragic series of events could have happened. He describes how one changed decision at the Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862, could have created a "Civil War butterfly effect" and irrevocably changed American history. Most people don't know that Lincoln saw the Emancipation Proclamation as giving the Confederate states one more chance to re-join the Union, whether or not they abolished slavery. This book will explain how, as a result, slavery might not have ended despite a Union victory.Lincoln hoped that slavery would cease eventually, but at the time he thought that ending the war and re-uniting the nation were sufficient achievements. Schmiel explains also how this series of events might have split the ranks of both the Union and Confederate governments on these issues.To some in the North, the failure to abolish slavery would have become "the Northern lost cause" noted in the title. Abolitionists and black leaders would be bitter that despite the bloodshed, victory had not brought the cherished goal of destroying slavery. Would that then have started an entirely new debate about the future of slavery in a country no longer divided? That too is among the thought-provoking questions arising from this book.

Lincoln, Antietam and a Northern Lost Cause: What If a Union Victory Did Not End Slavery?

History

Americas

Independently published

Irvin McDowell was a prominent figure during the early months of the Civil War. With so much at stake, he was called upon to lead the Union's largest Eastern Theater army. Pressed by the media and President Abraham Lincoln to move into Virginia and defeat the Confederates gathering there, McDowell led his neophyte army out to the plains of Manassas and was soundly defeated. McDowell went on to hold an independent command in northern Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign and serve in the Army of Virginia under Maj. Gen. John Pope during the disastrous Second Bull Run Campaign. Despite his significant contributions, a lack of personal papers left him in obscurity. Authors Frank Simione Jr. and Gene Schmiel used available sources to create a reliable and readable synthesis of the man and his career to fill a sizable gap in the historiography. Unless or until his private papers surface, Searching for Irvin McDowell will stand as the best treatment available.

Searching for Irvin McDowell: The Civil War’s Forgotten General

Simione Jr., Frank P.

Historical

Savas Beatie

My Dearest Lilla: Letters Home from Civil War General Jacob D. Cox (Voices of the Civil War)

Univ Tennessee Press

A unique re-telling of the The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864, through the lives and eyes of three Ohioans who were the heroes of that crucial Union army victory. The Battle of Franklin was the final test of both the strength of the Union army in the West and the notion that a Napoleonic-style frontal infantry attack was the best tactic for Civil War military success. This book describes these events through the words of three Ohio heroes, while thereby giving the reader a full understanding of how these events played out and how the war affected them and their lives irrevocably. The Union army passed its test that day, in great part due to the leadership and heroism of three Ohioans: Generals Jacob Cox, Emerson Opdycke, and Jack Casement. Cox ordered the creation of an impenetrable bulwark of breastworks against the infantry charge ordered by Confederate commander, General John Bell Hood. The bulwark succeeded, and it was only breached because of human error and misjudgment. Cox, Opdycke, and Casement rose to the occasion to seal the breach and ensure Union victory.The notion that frontal infantry attacks could be successful failed the test that day. As at Chickamauga, the Confederate forces were successful for a time because of the human error by Union subordinates at Franklin. But unlike at Chickamauga, the attack ultimately failed due to the heroism of those three Ohioans. The Confederate Army of Tennessee was devastated at the Battle of Franklin. It was finally overwhelmed and obliterated two weeks later at the Battle of Nashville, and the war in the West was effectively over. However, most historians agree that it was the Battle of Franklin that tore the heart out of the rebel army in the West.

OHIO HEROES OF THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN: How Generals Jacob Cox, Emerson Opdycke, and Jack Casement "saved the day" at the last major battle of the Civil War in the West

Searching for Irvin McDowell, Forgotten Civil War General

The Civil War in Statuary Hall: Who Should Be Memorialized in the U.S. Capitol? (Civil War Personalities, 50 At a Time)

CIVIL WAR ROGUES. RASCALS, AND RAPSCALLIONS: 50 "CHARACTERS" WHO CHANGED THE CIVIL WAR ERA (Civil War Personalities, 50 At a Time)

CIVIL WAR "POLITICAL GENERALS" OF THE BLUE AND GREY: 50 CITIZEN GENERALS IN THE FIRST MODERN WAR (Civil War Personalities, 50 At a Time)

CIVIL WAR WOMEN: UNDERESTIMATED AND INDISPENSABLE: 50 WOMEN WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THE "AMERICAN ILIAD" (Civil War Personalities, 50 At a Time)

Community & Culture

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