“A terrific biography….The dramatic story of how the American army that beat the British was forged has never been better told than in this remarkable book.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin, New York Times bestselling author of Team of Rivals The true story of the Baron de Steuben and the making of the American Army, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge is the first biography in half a century of the immigrant Prussian soldier who molded George Washington’s ragged, demoralized troops into the fighting force that eventually triumphed in America’s War of Independence. Praised by renowned historian Thomas Fleming as “an important book for anyone interested in the American Revolution,” The Drillmaster of Valley Forge rights a historical wrong by finally giving a forgotten hero his well-deserved due.

Previously hard-to-find information on homosexuality in early America—now in a convenient single volume! Few of us are familiar with the gay men on General Washington’s staff or among the leaders of the new republic. Now, in the same way that Alex Haley’s Roots provided a generation of African Americans with an appreciation of their history, Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships will give many gay readers their first glimpse of homosexuality as a theme in early American history. Honored as a 2007 Stonewall Book Award nonfiction selection, Male-Male Intimacy in Early America is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of the role of homosexual activity among American men in the early years of American history. This single source brings together information that has until now been widely scattered in journals and distant archives. The book draws on personal letters, diaries, court records, and contemporary publications to examine the role of homosexual activity in the lives of American men in the Colonial period and in the early years of the new republic. The author scoured research that was published in contemporary journals and also conducted his own research in over a dozen US archives, ranging from the Library of Congress to the Huntington Library, from the United Military Academy Archives to the Missouri Historical Society. Male-Male Intimacy in Early America explores: the role of the open frontier and the unregulated seas as places of refuge for men who would not enter into heterosexual relationships the sexual lives of American Indians—particularly the berdache tradition—and how the stereotypes associated with American Indian sexuality molded white America’s attitudes toward homosexuality homosexuality in slave narratives—and the homosexual subtexts of racist minstrel show lyrics the formation of European gay communities during American colonial times, with an emphasis on Berlin, Paris, and London—with English translations of material previously available only in German or French! homosexuality as presented in eighteenth-century novels popular with American readers, plus information on homosexuality that was published in medical treatises of the period United States Army and Navy courts-martial that focused on sodomy the sublimation of homosexuality by religious revival movements of the early nineteenth century, particularly among Quakers, Mormons, and Oneida Perfectionists social groups as a perceived cover for homosexual activity, with an emphasis on the Masonic Order non-procreative sexuality as a theme and as a threat during the American revolution the West in American literary tradition—and the role of popular writers such as James Fenimore Cooper and Davy Crockett in creating the myth of individual sexual freedom on the margins of American society Author William Benemann rejects Foucault’s contention that homosexuality is an artificial construct created by medico-legal authorities in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He recognizes that men have been sexually attracted to other men throughout American history, and in this book, examines their historical options for expressing that attraction. He also addresses related issues surrounding race and gender expectations, population and migration patterns, vocational choice, and information exchange. Written in a straightforward style that can easily be understood by lay readers, Male-Male Intimacy in Early America is an ideal choice for educators, students, and individuals interested in this unexplored area of American history and sexuality studies.

This study of Frederick Carder's contributions to the Steuben Glass Works (which he co-founded in 1903) and the works he produced in glass are presented with over 760 photographs and 450 line drawings, the majority from the Rockwell collections. Reference material and photographs never before in print are provided. A section valuable to all collectors discusses aspects of identification and evaluation--signatures, relative rarity, and dating.

Refuting commonly held myths about the American Revolution, this comprehensive history of the colonial army's winter encampment of 1777-1778 reveals the events that occurred both inside and outside the camp boundaries, discussing interactions between the soldiers and local civilians, divisions within the army, the political and military strategies of George Washington, and their implications in terms of the future of the United States. Reprint.

Winner of the George Washington Prize Winner of the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History Winner of the Excellence in American History Book Award Winner of the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award From the bestselling author of the Liberation Trilogy comes the extraordinary first volume of his new trilogy about the American Revolution Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn and two other superb books about World War II, has long been admired for his deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative histories. Now he turns his attention to a new war, and in the initial volume of the Revolution Trilogy he recounts the first twenty-one months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force. It is a gripping saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery; Nathanael Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who becomes a brilliant battle captain; Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proves to be the wiliest of diplomats; George Washington, the commander in chief who learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost. The story is also told from the British perspective, making the mortal conflict between the redcoats and the rebels all the more compelling. Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the first act of our country’s creation drama.

This collection of documents, including many previously unpublished, details the role of the Army engineers in the American Revolution. Lacking trained military engineers, the Americans relied heavily on foreign officers, mostly from France, for sorely needed technical assistance. Native Americans joined the foreign engineer officers to plan and carry out offensive and defensive operations, direct the erection of fortifications, map vital terrain, and lay out encampments. During the war Congress created the Corps of Engineers with three companies of engineer troops as well as a separate geographer's department to assist the engineers with mapping. Both General George Washington and Major General Louis Lebéque Duportail, his third and longest serving Chief Engineer, recognized the disadvantages of relying on foreign powers to fill the Army's crucial need for engineers. America, they contended, must train its own engineers for the future. Accordingly, at the war's end, they suggested maintaining a peacetime engineering establishment and creating a military academy. However, Congress rejected the proposals, and the Corps of Engineers and its companies of sappers and miners mustered out of service. Eleven years passed before Congress authorized a new establishment, the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers.

American Military History provides the United States Army-in particular, its young officers, NCOs, and cadets-with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose. The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the story of the U.S. Army in action. This first volume covers the Army's history from its birth in 1775 to the eve of World War I. By 1917, the United States was already a world power. The Army had sent large expeditionary forces beyond the American hemisphere, and at the beginning of the new century Secretary of War Elihu Root had proposed changes and reforms that within a generation would shape the Army of the future. But world war-global war-was still to come. The second volume of this new edition will take up that story and extend it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism and includes an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.