While the Civil War raged in the east, the Platte River Raids would begin an entirely new battle for the American West. In July of 1864, Northern Plains Indians in Idaho Territory (Wyoming) appeared to be on a warpath to cease all emigrant travel on the Bozeman, Oregon, and Overland Trails by any means. On a signal, hundreds of warriors launched a series of attacks and robberies on unsuspecting emigrants through the winding “Black Hills.” Shots rang out and arrows whizzed as miners, doctors, farmers, families, and war widows rallied their covered wagons together. Some fought to defend their stock and protect their families. Others helped bury the bodies of those who did not survive. Read the eyewitness testimonies of nearly 70 survivors, vetted by living descendants, mapped out, annotated, and presented in one accord for the first time in literary history.

While the Civil War raged in the east, the Platte River Raids would begin an entirely new battle for the American West. In July of 1864, Northern Plains Indians in Idaho Territory (Wyoming) appeared to be on a warpath to cease all emigrant travel on the Bozeman, Oregon, and Overland Trails by any means. On a signal, hundreds of warriors launched a series of attacks and robberies on unsuspecting emigrants through the winding "Black Hills." Shots rang out and arrows whizzed as miners, doctors, farmers, families, and war widows rallied their covered wagons together. Some fought to defend their stock and protect their families. Others helped bury the bodies of those who did not survive. Read the eyewitness testimonies of nearly 70 survivors, vetted by living descendants, mapped out, annotated, and presented in one accord for the first time in literary history.

An anthology of harrowing and insightful poems written in 1932 by Martha Hedwig Nasch, patient-inmate #20864 at the St. Peter State Hospital for the Insane. After noticing something strange from a secret medical procedure in 1927, St. Paul, Minnesota, Martha Nasch's doctor claimed she just had a "case of nerves." With a signature from her adulterous husband, Martha was committed against her will to the asylum. She spent nearly seven years in the Minnesota hospital during the Great Depression and tried to escape twice. Martha's poems written from behind bars include shocking eyewitness accounts of patient mistreatment and a long-suffering adoration for her only child, now being raised alone by her deceiving spouse. When not a soul believed Martha's story, she sought an explanation for her mysterious condition that led her to a spiritual answer for the mystifying curse. Would her findings make her a metaphysical guru of the Breatharian lifestyle, or would she become the laughingstock of her Depression-era family? Editing and arrangement by Martha's great-granddaughter, Janelle Molony, with an introduction by Jodi Nasch Decker, granddaughter and family historian. More than fifty photographs and illustrations are included with the historical research that accompanies this beautiful collection of poems. Learn more at JanelleMolony.com

The official trail diary of pioneer woman, Sarah Jane Rousseau. For Sarah Jane Rousseau, an accomplished pianist from New Castle Upon Tyne, this seven-month journey means leaving all her gentrified comforts behind. It‘s a sacrifice she is willing to make, however, if she ever wants to walk again. After years of trying everything he could for his wife, Dr. James Rousseau is desperate to find a cure for Sarah’s debilitating rheumatism. He hopes that a climate cure in the warm, dry air of California might be the answer she needs. While the Civil War is raging in the east, the Rousseaus join with three other families from Pella, Iowa to make the arduous covered wagon journey across the American Plains. Along the way, tensions run high under the stern captaincy of Sgt. Nicholas P. Earp. While crossing through Idaho Territory, unsuspecting emigrants are caught in the crossfire of angry Northern Plains Indians. In Utah, Mormons put Dr. James to the test while sickness runs rampant. When they leave, Paiute Chief Kanosh sends them with a guide who leads the Pella Company across the desolate Mohave Desert and into the Valley of Fire. By the time they reach the Sierra Nevada, food and water supplies are exhausted and every bit of ammunition is spent. When the Rousseaus can go no further, the Pella Company leaves them stranded in Winter. In the only complete, surviving account from the Pella Company, read how the Iowans face fierce enemies, quicksand, hailstorms, poison water, and the blazing sun. Feel the budding romance between youths. See who has enough mettle to survive. And meet the surprise heroes who restore the emigrants’ faith in humanity. Sarah Jane Rousseau captures every exquisite detail in this precious family heirloom; now, a treasured tale of American History.

For Sarah Jane Rousseau, an accomplished pianist from New Castle Upon Tyne, this seven-month journey means leaving all her gentrified comforts behind. It‘s a sacrifice she is willing to make, however, if she ever wants to walk again. After years of trying everything he could for his wife, Dr. James Rousseau is desperate to find a cure for Sarah’s debilitating rheumatism. He hopes that a climate cure in the warm, dry air of California might be the answer she needs. While the Civil War is raging in the east, the Rousseaus join with three other families from Pella, Iowa to make the arduous covered wagon journey across the American Plains. Along the way, tensions run high under the stern captaincy of Sgt. Nicholas P. Earp. In Idaho Territory, unsuspecting emigrants are caught in the crossfire of angry Northern Plains Indians. In Utah, Mormons put Dr. James to the test while sickness runs rampant. When they leave, Paiute Chief Kanosh sends them with a guide who leads the Pella Company across the desolate Mohave Desert and into the Valley of Fire. By the time they reach the Sierra Nevada, food and water supplies are exhausted and every bit of ammunition spent. When the Rousseaus can go no further, the Pella Company leaves them stranded in Winter. In the only complete, surviving account from the Pella Company, read how the Iowans face fierce enemies, quicksand, hailstorms, poison water, and the blazing sun. Feel the budding romance between youths. See who has enough mettle to survive. And meet the surprise heroes who restore the emigrants’ faith in humanity. Sarah Jane Rousseau captures every exquisite detail in this family heirloom; now, a treasured tale of American History.

In the first book to focus on relations between Indians and emigrants on the overland trails, Michael L. Tate shows that such encounters were far more often characterized by cooperation than by conflict. Having combed hundreds of unpublished sources and Indian oral traditions, Tate finds Indians and Anglo-Americans continuously trading goods and news with each other, and Indians providing various forms of assistance to overlanders. Tate admits that both sides normally followed their own best interests and ethical standards, which sometimes created distrust. But many acts of kindness by emigrants and by Indians can be attributed to simple human compassion. Not until the mid-1850s did Plains tribes begin to see their independence and cultural traditions threatened by the flood of white travelers. As buffalo herds dwindled and more Indians died from diseases brought by emigrants, violent clashes between wagon trains and Indians became more frequent, and the first Anglo-Indian wars erupted on the plains. Yet, even in the 1860s, Tate finds, friendly encounters were still the rule. Despite thousands of mutually beneficial exchanges between whites and Indians between 1840 and 1870, the image of Plains Indians as the overland pioneers’ worst enemies prevailed in American popular culture. In explaining the persistence of that stereotype, Tate seeks to dispel one of the West’s oldest cultural misunderstandings.

This epic historical novel brings to life the hero of the Scottish Wars of Independence who struggled against the tyranny of the English. In the predawn hours of August 24, 1305, in London’s Smithfield Prison, the outlaw William Wallace—hero of all the Scots and deadly enemy of King Edward of England—sits awaiting the dawn, when he is to be hanged and then drawn and quartered. Wallace is visited by a Scottish priest to hear his last confession. Here, Wallace recounts his own incredible real-life story. We follow Wallace through his many lives—from fugitive to patriot, rebel, and kingmaker. His desperate struggles and victorious campaigns are all here, as are the high ideals and fierce patriotism that drove him to abandon the people he loved to save his country. With far more breadth, detail, and historical accuracy than the Hollywood film Braveheart, Jack Whyte’s masterful storytelling breathes life into Wallace’s tale, giving readers an amazing character study of the man who helped shape Scotland’s identity and future.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press In August 1864, Cheyenne and Sioux warriors launched a serires of raids on the "road ranches" along the California-Oregon Train in Nebraska Territory, killing, wounding or capturing dozens of white settlers. Massacre Along the Medicine Road details that violent summer, as seen through the eyes of the people who were the targets of the attacks.

A demon, an unstoppable, Cerberus-like hellhound, lives in the low-country forests of Edisto Island. Uncompromising in its task to protect the occupant of a hidden grave, a murdered slave boy named Isaiah and a deed which rests with him, the man-eating specter has recently killed the son of the local land baron, William Jeffers. Jeffers, a vile and ruthless man who is feared by all, claims to have ownership of the entire island of Edisto Beach and has murdered to protect that claim as he searches for the one document buried somewhere on the island that can dispute his ownership. That document is a deed from Jeremiah Howard, a 19th century plantation owner who deeded Edisto Beach to the family of Moses Freeman, his former slaves, among them Moses's sweet-natured, twelve year old son, Isaiah. A rival plantation owner, Manley Jeffers, William's 19th century ancestor, murdered the entire Freeman family for the deed but it was lost in 1889 when Manley himself was killed by the same avenging demon that has just killed William Jeffers' son. Long departed from Edisto, what is left of Jeremiah Howard's modern day family has now returned to reclaim their ancestral home and with them, twelve year old Kirk Howard, who unbeknownst to his parents, is supernaturally and forever bound to the ghost of Isaiah Freeman and the bone-crushing poltergeist that protects his grave and his secret.

George Bent, the son of William Bent, one of the founders of Bent's Fort on the Arkansas near present La Junta, Colorado, and Owl Woman, a Cheyenne, began exchanging letters in 1905 with George E. Hyde of Omaha concerning life at the fort, his experiences with his Cheyenne kinsmen, and the events which finally led to the military suppression of the Indians on the southern Great Plains. This correspondence, which continued to the eve of Bent's death in 1918, is the source of the narrative here published, the narrator being Bent himself. Almost ninety years have elapsed since the day in 1930 when Mr. Hyde found it impossible to market the finished manuscript of the Bent life down to 1866. (The Depression had set in some months before.) He accordingly sold that portion of the manuscript to the Denver Public Library, retaining his working copy, which carries down to 1875. The account therefore embraces the most stirring period, not only of Bent's own life, but of life on the Plains and into the Rockies. It has never before been published. It is not often that an eyewitness of great events in the West tells his own story. But Bent's narrative, aside from the extent of its chronology (1826 to 1875), has very special significance as an inside view of Cheyenne life and action after the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, which cost so many of the lives of Bent's friends and relatives. It is hardly probable that we shall achieve a more authentic view of what happened, as the Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Sioux saw it.