During and after the Civil War, four presidents faced the challenge of reuniting the nation and of providing justice for black Americans - and of achieving a balance between those goals. This first book to collectively examine the Reconstruction policies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes reveals how they confronted and responded to the complex issues presented during that contested era in American politics.

"The defeat of the Confederacy and the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 brought about the final destruction of slavery in the United States. Americans were confronted for the first time with the possibility of creating a republic dedicated to the principle of racial equality. What followed over the next twelve years was one of the most complex, inspiring, and ultimately tragic eras in American history. Reconstruction: Voices From America's First Great Struggle For Racial Equality brings this tumultuous and fateful period to dramatic and violent life through the vivid testimony of more than sixty participants and observers. Here is a vitally important book for anyone interested in this crucial period and its inescapable relevance for today."--

Historians have traditionally drawn distinctions between Ulysses S. Grant's military and political careers. This book questions such distinctions and offers a new understanding of this often enigmatic leader. The author argues that during the 1860s Grant was both soldier and politician, for military and civil policy were inevitably intertwined during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. According to the author, Grant instinctively understood that war was 'politics by other means.' Moreover, he realized that civil wars presented special challenges: reconciliation, not conquest, was the Union's ultimate goal. And in peace, Grant sought to secure what had been won in war, stepping in to assume a more active role in policymaking when the intransigence of white Southerners and the obstructionist behavior of President Andrew Johnson threatened to spoil the fruits of Northern victory.

Spanning the crucial months from January 1863 to March 1864, this third volume of The Library of America's highly acclaimed four volume series presents an incomparable portrait of a nation at war with itself while illuminating the military and political events that brought the Union closer to victory and slavery closer to destruction. It brings together more than 140 contemporary letters, diary entries, speeches, articles, messages, and poems by more than eighty participants and observers, among them Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Mary Chesnut, Clement Vallandigham, Henry Adams, Charlotte Forten, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and George Templeton Strong, as well as Union officers Robert Gould Shaw, Charles B. Haydon, and Henry Livermore Abbott; Confederate diarists Catherine Edmondston, Kate Stone, and Judith McGuire; and Alabama soldier Samuel Pickens, Iowa housewife Catharine Pei

"The final months of the Confederacy offer fascinating opportunities - as a case study in war termination, as a period that shaped the initial circumstances of Reconstruction, and as a lens through which to analyze Southern society at its most stressful moment. The Collapse of the Confederacy collects six essays that explore how popular expectations, national strategy, battlefield performance, and Confederate nationalism affected Confederate actions during the final months of the conflict."--Jacket.

A horror/thriller inspired by actual events, follows three filmmakers as they make a documentary about the legendary Lost Dutchman mine, the most famous lost gold mine in the world. In 2011, they ventured into the Superstition Mountains of Arizona to search for it themselves. They never made it out. It is the chilling reconstruction of their last days.

"In Union and Emancipation, seven leading historians offer new perspectives on the issues of race and politics in American Society from the antebellum era to the aftermath of Reconstruction. The authors, all trained by Richard H. Sewell at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, address two major themes: the politics of sectional conflict prior to the Civil War, illuminated through ideological and institutional inquiry; and the central importance of race, slavery, and emancipation in shaping American political culture and social memory. Contributors consider the national culture, the centrality of the nation-state in understanding American history, the place of race in redefining what it meant to be an American, the way the Civil War helped to redefine the nature of the 'political, ' and of 'citizenship, ' and the significance of political parties through the ideas and interests that motivate them. The collection, with its dual themes of union and emancipation, will provoke debate, offe

An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", in which Haley traces his African American family's history from the mid-18th century to the Reconstruction era.