Relates local legends from Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma about abandoned mines, hidden stashes of plunder, and lost fortunes

Come along on the search for the greatest shipwreck treasure of the Civil War era.

This historical mystery contains two stories which gradually merge into one. One occurs during 2011, while the other takes place in 1863 during the height of the Civil War. In 2011, after moving to South Carolina, Paul Waring, a retired Connecticut state trooper, and his wife start their new life. Soon after moving, Paul makes a startling discovery. He discovers the remains of a long-forgotten Confederate soldier, along with several Civil War artifacts. Those artifacts include two glass bottles containing several clues he must decipher. Paul determines that one clue concerns the whereabouts of the lost Confederate treasury; a treasury largely comprised of gold and silver coins. He later discovers much of this gold was stolen from the United States government at the outbreak of the Civil War.

As Hawk lies on the bottom of the pool paralyzed he realizes the gypsy was right again. How long can he hold his breath before someone notices? Will he be able to pull through this to finish the remaining predictions? Greg Hawk's memoir of a life's adventure takes a drastic turn at the end of a divorce as he listens to a gypsy lady in New Zealand predict things on the path ahead. Every obstacle on his path in life has put him on another tangent of learning and struggle, at times driving him to the edge of defeat. During these years, death seemed to be a constant companion as he witnessed it, as well as facing it personally. As a soldier, a husband, a divorcee, a partner of a successful construction business in Denver, owner of Fantasy Dive Charters in Australia, to being a treasure hunter in the mountains and desert of the Southwest, he faced many self-imposed challenges." Random Tangents is a celebration of a life well-lived, of obstacles overcome, of the triumph of spirit. And let's face it, sometimes a little luck."

In the dying days of the Civil War, an assassination attempt is made on Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Faced with this ongoing threat, the decision is made to evacuate the Southern capital of Richmond, Virginia. Everything must be moved, including the Confederacy's substantial gold and silver reserves, which must be kept out of Union hands. Thus, a covert plan is devised to transfer it to a secret location. However, during the move, the treasure vanishes without a trace. One hundred and fifty years later, two historians, Des Cook and Madison Callum, stumble upon clues that could solve one of the war's greatest mysteries while leading them to the richest and most significant find in American history. But others are searching for it too and will do anything to obtain it. Now, Des and Madison find themselves entangled in a race that, if they fail to win, would not only result in their deaths but also change the very future of the country.

Highly researched and thoroughly documented. Over 100 photographs, drawings and maps

Explores the legacy of a Civil War-era secret society, the Knights of the Golden Circle, and describes efforts to crack the society's system of codes and symbols to identify hidden treasure sites across the American south and west.

This sweeping new history recognizes that the Civil War was not just a military conflict but also a moment of profound transformation in Americans' relationship to the natural world. To be sure, environmental factors such as topography and weather powerfully shaped the outcomes of battles and campaigns, and the war could not have been fought without the horses, cattle, and other animals that were essential to both armies. But here Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver weave a far richer story, combining military and environmental history to forge a comprehensive new narrative of the war's significance and impact. As they reveal, the conflict created a new disease environment by fostering the spread of microbes among vulnerable soldiers, civilians, and animals; led to large-scale modifications of the landscape across several states; sparked new thinking about the human relationship to the natural world; and demanded a reckoning with disability and death on an ecological scale. And as the guns fell silent, the change continued; Browning and Silver show how the war influenced the future of weather forecasting, veterinary medicine, the birth of the conservation movement, and the establishment of the first national parks. In considering human efforts to find military and political advantage by reshaping the natural world, Browning and Silver show not only that the environment influenced the Civil War's outcome but also that the war was a watershed event in the history of the environment itself.

“Captivating . . . [Lowenstein] makes what subsequently occurred at Treasury and on Wall Street during the early 1860s seem as enthralling as what transpired on the battlefield or at the White House.” —Harold Holzer, Wall Street Journal “Ways and Means, an account of the Union’s financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives . . . Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge.” —Eric Foner, New York Times Book Review From renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, a revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country’s history Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Even before the Confederacy’s secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity—the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the “more perfect union” that had first drawn him to politics. With Lincoln at the helm, the United States would now govern “for” its people: it would enact laws, establish a currency, raise armies, underwrite transportation and higher education, assist farmers, and impose taxes for them. Lincoln believed this agenda would foster the economic opportunity he had always sought for upwardly striving Americans, and which he would seek in particular for enslaved Black Americans. Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s vanquished rival and his new secretary of the Treasury, waged war on the financial front, levying taxes and marketing bonds while desperately battling to contain wartime inflation. And while the Union and Rebel armies fought increasingly savage battles, the Republican-led Congress enacted a blizzard of legislation that made the government, for the first time, a powerful presence in the lives of ordinary Americans. The impact was revolutionary. The activist 37th Congress legislated for homesteads and a transcontinental railroad and involved the federal government in education, agriculture, and eventually immigration policy. It established a progressive income tax and created the greenback—paper money. While the Union became self-sustaining, the South plunged into financial free fall, having failed to leverage its cotton wealth to finance the war. Founded in a crucible of anticentralism, the Confederacy was trapped in a static (and slave-based) agrarian economy without federal taxing power or other means of government financing, save for its overworked printing presses. This led to an epic collapse. Though Confederate troops continued to hold their own, the North’s financial advantage over the South, where citizens increasingly went hungry, proved decisive; the war was won as much (or more) in the respective treasuries as on the battlefields. Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency of the Civil War to transform a union of states into a nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and a Congress studded with towering statesmen, changed the direction of the country and established a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Civil War tokens are tangible reminders of America history. These small, cent-sized tokens served as emergency "money" during the small-change shortage of 1862-1865. Today they are highly collectible, and A Guide Book of Civil War Tokens elevates the collecting and study of these once-shunned imitation cents to a new level of scholarship and accessibility. Novice and experienced collectors alike, as well as history buffs and everyone interested in the Civil War, will find this volume a fascinating and indispensable reference. Inside, you'll find a wealth of information not in print in any other single source, along with: How to collect Civil War tokens and store cards, Detailed historical background, Valuations, Rarity ratings, More than 2,000 full-color photos, Legendary rarities; discussions of every known issuer; illustrations and descriptions of nearly every known die; and more Book jacket.