Abe Lincoln had never set his sights on becoming president; after all, he'd grown up in a log cabin on the frontier and had hardly any formal schooling. But as the question of slavery threatened to destroy the United Sates, this self-taught lawyer with a sharp mind and passion for justice found himself at the center of the greatest debate the nation had ever faced.

John's heart sank. A British man-of-war was plowing through the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean in hot pursuit of his ship. If the British caught up with the Boston, John would be hanged. He had proudly signed the Declaration of Independence and was carrying the colonies' secret papers. He couldn't be captured now! Growing up in Massachusetts, longing to be a farmer like his father, John Adams never imagined the vital role he would one day play in the transformation of the colonies into an independent American nation.

Born a tanner’s son in rugged Ohio in 1822 and battle-tested by the Mexican-American War, Grant met his destiny on the bloody fields of the Civil War. His daring and resolve as a general gained the attention of President Lincoln, then desperate for bold leadership. Lincoln appointed Grant as Lieutenant General of the Union Army in March 1864. Within a year, Grant’s forces had seized Richmond and forced Robert E. Lee to surrender.

In 1855, with the United States at odds over slavery, the lawyer Abraham Lincoln wrote a note to his best friend, the son of a Kentucky slaveowner. Lincoln rebuked his friend for failing to oppose slavery. But he added: “If for this you and I must differ, differ we must,” and said they would be friends forever. Throughout his life and political career, Lincoln often agreed to disagree.

McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This is history on a grand scale, an audiobook about politics, war, and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, it is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.

Originally published in six volumes, which sold more than one million copies, Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln was praised as the most noteworthy historical biography of Sandburg’s generation. He later distilled this monumental work into one volume that critics and readers alike consider his greatest work of nonfiction, as well as the most distinguished, authoritative biography of Lincoln ever published.

Growing up in an Illinois prairie town, Sandburg listened to stories of old-timers who had known Lincoln. By the time this single-volume edition was competed, he had spent a lifetime studying, researching, and writing about our 16th president.

In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward. Through exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country.

The definitive life of Abraham Lincoln, With Malice Toward None is historian Stephen B. Oates's acclaimed and enthralling portrait of America's greatest leader. In this award-winning biography, Lincoln steps forward out of the shadow of myth as a recognizable, fully drawn American whose remarkable life continues to inspire and inform us today.

In preparing the Life of Lee for Children, for use in the public schools, I beg leave to place before teachers good reasons for employing it as a supplementary reader.

This Black History Collection contains the brilliant works of Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass), Booker T. Washington (Up from Slavery) and W. E. B. Du Bois (The Souls of Black Folk). Enjoy the works of these three influential men, whose vision and ideas helped to shape modern society.

By March 4, 1865, the Civil War had slaughtered more than 700,000 Americans. After a morning of rain-drenched fury, tens of thousands crowded Washington’s Capitol grounds that day to see Abraham Lincoln take the oath for a second term. As the sun emerged, Lincoln rose to give perhaps the greatest inaugural address in American history, stunning the nation by arguing, in a brief 701 words, that both sides had been wrong, and that the war’s unimaginable horrors - every drop of blood spilled - might well have been God’s just verdict on the national sin of slavery.

In his introduction to The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ketcham notes that there has been so much written about Lincoln that the legend has begun to obscure, if not to efface, the man. “In this biography the single purpose has been to present the living man with such distinctness of outline that the reader may have a sort of feeling of being acquainted with him.”

The New York Times best-selling author of George Washington's Secret Six and Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates turns to two other heroes of the nation: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In The President and the Freedom Fighter, Brian Kilmeade tells the little-known story of how two American heroes moved from strong disagreement to friendship, and in the process changed the entire course of history.

With rare detail and in consummate style, Steve Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Taking advantage of expanding news media, aided by an increasingly literate public, the two linked their names to the three great national movements of the time - westward settlement, women’s rights, and opposition to slavery. Together, John and Jessie Frémont took parts in events that defined the country and gave rise to a new, more global America.

Perhaps more than even Washington, Jefferson, or Adams, Ben Franklin is the Founding Father who best exemplifies the authentic American spirit and values. Eminent historian Thomas Fleming paints a lively portrait of this self-made man blessed with a wealth of talents: a best-selling author, the most important newspaper publisher in America, and a world-renowned scientist and inventor before he took on the task of becoming the true "Father" of American independence.