Excerpt from Life of John Van Lear McMahon Like his illustrious predecessors and most of his con temporaries, he has 'passed from the active scenes Of the fallible courts Of this earth to the solemn, silent, and unerring tribunal Of the other w.orld Mitchell, Ta ney, Scott, Mayer, Dulaney, Price, Nelson, Chambers, Schley, and Alexander have all gone before him, and, alas many of them are already forgotten, and all neglected. Although the persons and histories Of these men were once as familiar to all classes Of our people as the Changeless mountains that towered above their heads or the rivers that flowed at their feet, yet already the records of their lives have become so faint and indis tinct that the most industrious historian would now be hardly able to rescue them from Oblivion. The graves Of many Of them have not only never received the mel ancholy reward Of a monument, but have even almost been forgotten and lost, and their illustrious names have passed in many cases from the veneration, if not from the memory, of their own descendants. Alas! About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Baltimore: Its History and Its People, Vol. I was originally published in 1912 by the Lewis Historical Publishing Company of New York and Chicago as a collaboration of several historians, most notably Clayton Colman Hall. The book is relevant today because of its unique views of the development of one of America?s most important industrial cities during its heyday. It contains many interesting maps and photographs.

This masterful, richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad contributes not only to the railway history but to the history of the development of the United States in the 19th century. 80 illustrations.

This volume is the most comprehensive bibliography of purely biographical material written by Americans. It covers every possible field of life but, by design, excludes autobiographies, diaries, and journals.

Based on years of exhaustive and meticulous research, David C. Keehn's study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret southern society that initially sought to establish a slave-holding empire in the "Golden Circle" region of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Keehn reveals the origins, rituals, structure, and complex history of this mysterious group, including its later involvement in the secession movement. Members supported southern governors in precipitating disunion, filled the ranks of the nascent Confederate Army, and organized rearguard actions during the Civil War. The Knights of the Golden Circle emerged in 1858 when a secret society formed by a Cincinnati businessman merged with the pro-expansionist Order of the Lone Star, which already had 15,000 members. The following year, the Knights began publishing their own newspaper and established their headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1860, during their first attempt to create the Golden Circle, several thousand Knights assembled in southern Texas to "colonize" northern Mexico. Due to insufficient resources and organizational shortfalls, however, that filibuster failed. Later, the Knights shifted their focus and began pushing for disunion, spearheading prosecession rallies, and intimidating Unionists in the South. They appointed regional military commanders from the ranks of the South's major political and military figures, including men such as Elkanah Greer of Texas, Paul J. Semmes of Georgia, Robert C. Tyler of Maryland, and Virginius D. Groner of Virginia. Followers also established allies with the South's rabidly prosecession "fire-eaters," which included individuals such as Barnwell Rhett, Louis Wigfall, Henry Wise, and William Yancey. According to Keehn, the Knights likely carried out a variety of other clandestine actions before the Civil War, including attempts by insurgents to take over federal forts in Virginia and North Carolina, the activation of prosouthern militia around Washington, D.C., and a planned assassination of Abraham Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore in early 1861 on the way to his inauguration. Once the fighting began, the Knights helped build the emerging Confederate Army and assisted with the pro-Confederate Copperhead movement in northern states. With the war all but lost, various Knights supported one of their members, John Wilkes Booth, in his plot to assassinate President Lincoln. Keehn's fast-paced, engaging narrative demonstrates that the Knights' influence proved more substantial than historians have traditionally assumed and provides a new perspective on southern secession and the outbreak of the Civil War.