Maryland Books

ONE CONTINUOUS FIGHT: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863

Eric J. Wittenberg, J. David Petruzzi, Michael F. Nugent

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The titanic three-day battle of Gettysburg left 50,000 casualties in its wake, a battered Southern army far from its base of supplies, and a rich historiographic legacy. Thousands of books and articles cover nearly every aspect of the battle, but not a single volume focuses on the military aspects of the monumentally important movements of the armies to and across the Potomac River. One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863 is the first detailed military history of Lee's retreat and the Union effort to catch and destroy the wounded Army of Northern Virginia. Against steep odds and encumbered with thousands of casualties, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee's post-battle task was to successfully withdraw his army across the Potomac River. Union commander George G. Meade's equally difficult assignment was to intercept the effort and destroy his enemy. The responsibility for defending the exposed Southern columns belonged to cavalry chieftain James Ewell Brown (Jeb) Stuart. If Stuart fumbled his famous ride north to Gettysburg, his generalship during the retreat more than redeemed his flagging reputation. The ten days of retreat triggered nearly two dozen skirmishes and major engagements, including fighting at Granite Hill, Monterey Pass, Hagerstown, Williamsport, Funkstown, Boonsboro, and Falling Waters. President Abraham Lincoln was thankful for the early July battlefield victory, but disappointed that General Meade was unable to surround and crush the Confederates before they found safety on the far side of the Potomac. Exactly what Meade did to try to intercept the fleeing Confederates, and how the Southerners managed to defend their army and ponderous 17-mile long wagon train of wounded until crossing into western Virginia on the early morning of July 14, is the subject of this study One Continuous Fight draws upon a massive array of documents, letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and published primary and secondary sources. These long-ignored foundational sources allow the authors, each widely known for their expertise in Civil War cavalry operations, to describe carefully each engagement. The result is a rich and comprehensive study loaded with incisive tactical commentary, new perspectives on the strategic role of the Southern and Northern cavalry, and fresh insights on every engagement, large and small, fought during the retreat. The retreat from Gettysburg was so punctuated with fighting that a soldier felt compelled to describe it as "One Continuous Fight." Until now, few students fully realized the accuracy of that description. Complimented with 18 original maps, dozens of photos, and a complete driving tour with GPS coordinates of the entire retreat, One Continuous Fight is an essential book for every student of the American Civil War in general, and for the student of Gettysburg in particular. About the Authors: Eric J. Wittenberg has written widely on Civil War cavalry operations. His books include Glory Enough for All (2002), The Union Cavalry Comes of Age (2003), and The Battle of Monroe's Crossroads and the Civil War's Final Campaign (2005). He lives in Columbus, Ohio. J. David Petruzzi is the author of several magazine articles on Eastern Theater cavalry operations, conducts tours of cavalry sites of the Gettysburg Campaign, and is the author of the popular "Buford's Boys" website at www.bufordsboys.com. Petruzzi lives in Brockway, Pennsylvania. A long time student of the Gettysburg Campaign, Michael Nugent is a retired US Army Armored Cavalry Officer and the descendant of a Civil War Cavalry soldier. He has previously written for several military publications. Nugent lives in Wells, Maine.

REVIEWS

"...Is there anything left unwritten about the Gettysburg Campaign? Absolutely, and this bookis but one example. It is a must have for any student of the Civil War, and especially for a student of the Gettysburg Campaign."Civil War Notebook, 06/2008

"...most likely the definitive book covering the battles and skirmishes with all the major players associated with the time period... One can't help but enjoy the well done narrative with such fine, thorough detail."Reviewer's Bookwatch, 08/2008

"..popular history at its best- simultaneously engaging and educating."The Midwest Book Review 08/2008

"...text and primary sources smoothly fit together unlike some book which are just a collection of primary sources with no real transition language between them... deserves a spot in any Civil War historian's library because of the author's detailed account and analysis of the days following the battle of Gettysburg." Collected Miscellany, 08/2008

The Colts' Baltimore: A City and Its Love Affair in the 1950s

Michael Olesker

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Editorial Review:

This is Michael Olesker's nostalgic reminiscence of 1958, the year the Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants in sudden-death overtime in a game that still grips the emotions of Baltimoreans. Olesker recaptures the city's love affair with the Colts in a series of thoughtful and colorful stories that give voice to such notable characters as Colts players Johnny Unitas and Art Donovan, politicians Tommy D'Alesandro and Jack Pollack, entertainers Buddy Deane and Royal Parker, sportscasters Chuck Thompson and Vince Bagli, and filmmaker John Waters.

The Colts' Baltimore also traces the changing cultural landscape of the city just entering an age of revolution -- a time when schools were being racially integrated, rock and roll played on the radio, and Baltimore was planning to renew the dilapidated downtown.

Revealing warm ties between Baltimore and its beloved Colts, Olesker's writing makes the events of 1958 seem like only yesterday.

Weird Maryland (Weird)

Matt Lake

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Maryland Rocks! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 6 people found this review helpful.

As a lifelong resident of the Washington, DC area, I thought I knew how weird the state of Maryland was, but this volume has been a real eye opener! Maryland, my friends, turns out to be one of the weirder places in the known universe. Case in point: Our very own Count Gore De Vol launched his award winning horror host program , Creature Feature, from the hallowed halls Channel 20, a UHF television station that beamed its signal from Bethesda, Maryland to horror movie fans located in and around DC Metro for more than a decade. You'll find Count Gore's superbly crafted and cannily concise biography opposite a full-page color photo of Count Gore (with a gorgeous blonde on his lap) on Page 100! I'm very proud to say that this enthralling account of Count Gore's fabulous and flamboyant rise to horror host fame was written by none other than Creature Feature's own High Priestess of Weirdness, LadyBoneYard, also known as Donna Mucha! Kudos to LadyB for a truly magnificent article! Of course, you'll find other weird folks lurking in these pages, some more renowned than others. For instance, we all know of Count Gore De Vol, but have you ever heard of the Snallygaster? Or the Goat Man? If you haven't, you'd better watch out, because they stalk Maryland's back roads, just waiting for naïve travelers. Also included is information about the region's infamous Bunnyman, a hatchet-wielding maniac whose authenticity I can vouch for, having myself encountered that particular nut-job way back in the seventies. And then there's that demon-possessed kid who William Peter Blatty made famous in his novel, The Exorcist, which was followed by the blockbuster movie that scared the bejeezus out of all of us. Yep, Maryland's got its share of weird folks and bizarre creatures, but there are also a number of haunted houses, haunted cemeteries and my personal favorite Maryland locale, the abandoned and horrifically haunted Glenn Dale Hospital, a former mental asylum filled with miles of corridors that used to be home to patients who were rumored to have been tortured, experimented upon and murdered. I've been there, and it's a truly harrowing experience, I can tell you. On the lighter side, you'll meet strange denizens of the state who drive cars shaped like spaceships and other unusual objects, find odd, whimsical museums that cater to unusual tastes, see photos of tiny houses built for little people and a tavern with a shark's head sticking right out of the front façade. It's no wonder that Baltimore was home to Edgar Alan Poe, because even the Baltimore bar district is said to be haunted (and believe me, I've seen some strange things there after about 2AM!). And the very best thing about Maryland, I'm sure you'll agree, is that Count Gore De Vol is our own local hero--and to prove it, he's been given another full-page frontispiece photo that heads up the chapter entitled, "Local Heroes and Villains"! This book is packed with enjoyable weirdness and bizarre information, and you certainly don't have to be a Marylander to enjoy it. I know you'll want your own copy, because--listen to this!--if you click on the graphic, you will be offered the opportunity to purchase a copy of this gorgeous, oversized, hardback volume--personally inscribed to you from Count Gore De Vol himself! You can't get a Count Gore De Vol signed volume of Weird Maryland anywhere else, and when the Creature Feature bookshelves have run out of books, you won't be able to get one at all! Be sure to click on the cover and order your copy NOW!

Editorial Review:

What's Weird Around Here?That’s a question Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman have enjoyed asking for years—and their offbeat sense of curiosity led them to create the bestselling phenomenon, Weird N.J. Now the weirdness has spread: several key locales throughout the U.S. are getting the full Weird treatment, with travel guides to the strange, bizarre, and wacky. Each fun and intriguing volume offers more than 250 illustrated pages of places where tourists usually don’t venture—it’s chock-full of oddball curiosities, ghostly places, local legends, crazy characters, cursed roads, and peculiar roadside attractions. What’s NOT shockingly odd here? That every previously published Weird book has become a bestseller in its region.So join the fun on a trek through Maryland, Michigan, and Minnesota. Some of what’s out there is disturbing, some hilarious, but all of it is unforgettably…weird

Baltimore Then and Now (Then & Now)

Alexander D. Mitchell IV

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

great coffee table book 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This is a neat idea for a book: putting "then" and "now" photographs side-by-side. Though the book is at times mildly depressing when you see how alive and grand city spots once were as compared to how they look now, this is not a fault of the author, but our upkeep of cities, of course. The author does an excellent job of capturing the exact same angle of the older photograph, so you can really compare streets and buildings and other landmarks.

We purchased this book as a gift for friends who are soon moving away from Baltimore, their recent home. It was well received.

I have seen other versions of this book, with other cities highlighted. The New York and Philadelphia books look equally engaging, among others.

I would recommend this product for history buffs, as a coffee table general interest book, or for Baltimoreans.

Editorial Review:

Baltimore, sometimes referred to as Charm City, has a long and fascinating history. In this book history changes before the reader's eyes. From its founding in the early 1700s and its incorporation in 1797, Baltimore has been a major port city, full of life and bustle. According to the National Anthem, "our flag was still there" during a battle of the War of 1812, and indeed, the star-spangled banner still flies over Fort McHenry, where the battle occurred. The life and bustle remains at waterside, but instead of clipper ships or steamboats carrying passengers and cargo, tourists now flock to such sights as the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Fort McHenry, the National Aquarium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and Federal Hill. All these places and more are featured in this book.

The Cone Sisters of Baltimore: Collecting at Full Tilt

Ellen B. Hirschland, Nancy Hirschland Ramage

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Over a period of fifty years, sisters Claribel and Etta Cone amassed one of the most acclaimed collections of late-nineteenth and twentieth-century art in America. Dr. Claribel and Miss Etta were two halves of an idiosyncratic team—Claribel bold and assertive and Etta reflective and sensitive—who used the fortunes of their German Jewish immigrant family to seek out works that inspired and pleased them, regardless of public opinion and with only self-taught expertise.

This richly illustrated biography documents their lives from a unique perspective: that of their great-niece, who wrote this book with her daughter. Ellen B. Hirschland and Nancy Hirschland Ramage delve into Claribel’s and Etta’s world, following the sisters through letters and personal stories as they travel to meet some of the artists whose works would turn their adjoining apartments into a gallery. They bought art by Manet, Gauguin, and Cézanne, as well as of Picasso and Matisse, whom they came to know well. The sisters’ experiences in Paris from 1901 through the 1920s provide an exceptional view of the bright artistic ferment in the city at that time. They were two Victorian women from Baltimore buying avant-garde masterpieces, attending salons with friends Gertrude and Leo Stein, and building a collection that would initially enrage the conservative people around them. Only with time would their keen eyes and unwavering taste prove them right.

The Wonder Crew: The Untold Story of a Coach, Navy Rowing, and Olympic Immortality

Susan Saint Sing

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Subjects -> Sports -> Miscellaneous -> Olympic Games
Subjects -> Sports -> Water Sports -> Boating

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

THE WONDER CREW is the fascinating story of how the salty coach of the Annapolis crew team, Coach Richard Glendon, seized the sport of rowing first from the Ivy League schools and then the imposing British with a new style both uniquely American and very much his own. He took a group of young midshipmen with humble origins and dominated a sport once the domain of the privileged.

After stunning the Ivy Leagues in race after race, the US Naval Academy team won a shot at the Olympics. Their task was nearly impossible: for hundreds of years, the British Navy ruled the world and their supremacy of the seas naturally made them dominant in the sport of rowing. With the hopes of a nation, Navy went into the heart of Europe and in thrilling fashion defeated the heavily favored Brits to win the gold medal in 1920. With Glendon's new American style, the US won Gold for forty straight years, the longest winning streak in any single sport in Olympic history.

Rich in history, with brave characters, American ingenuity, and dramatic training and competition, THE WONDER CREW is the first comprehensive account of the 1920 Olympic Navy crew team and their inspirational coach who forged the dramatic story of their quest for Olympic gold.

Drawing the Line : How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America

Edwin Danson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

THE FIRST POPULAR HISTORY OF THE MAKING OF THE MASON-DIXON LINE

The Mason-Dixon line-surely the most famous surveyors' line ever drawn-represents one of the greatest and most difficult scientific achievements of its time. But behind this significant triumph is a thrilling story, one that has thus far eluded both historians and surveyors. In this engrossing narrative, professional surveyor Edwin Danson takes us on a fascinating journey with Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two gifted and exuberant English surveyors, through the fields and forests of eighteenth-century America. Vividly describing life in the backwoods and the hardships and dangers of frontier surveying, Drawing the Line discloses for the first time in 250 years many hitherto unknown surveying methods, revealing how Mason and Dixon succeeded where the best American surveyors of the period failed. In accessible, ordinary language, Danson masterfully throws the first clear light on the surveying of the Mason-Dixon line. Set in the social and historical context of pre-Revolutionary America, this book is a spellbinding account of one of the great and historic achievements of its time.

Advance Praise for Drawing the Line

"Drawing the Line combines a fast-moving story, a human drama, and a clear account of surveying in the era of George Washington. An intriguing interaction of politics and science."-CHARLES ROYSTER, Boyd Professor of History, Louisiana State University, and Winner of the Bancroft Prize in History

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (MBI Railroad Color History)

Kirk Reynolds, Dave Oroszi

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

As Americas first common-carrier railroad--a railroad mandated to operate for the public and for commerce--the Baltimore & Ohio set the stage for North American railway development. And as such, the railroad racked up a remarkable list of firsts--first to offer scheduled passenger service, first to experiment with steam power, and the first air-conditioned passenger cars, lightweight streamliners, high-speed passenger diesels, and "piggyback" freight services--to name just a few.

In this expanded hardcover reissue of the popular 2000 release, authors Kirk Reynolds and Dave Oroszi explore these accomplishments, and with them a significant chapter in American railway history. With an all-new collection of more than 150 photos and illustrations, the book gives a colorful account of the evolution of one of the nations most enduring railroad icons, through good times and bad. Reynolds and Oroszi follow the B&O from its infancy as a horse-powered railway in the first half of the nineteenth century to its 1987 amalgamation into the vast CSX Transportation network.

The book tells how the B&O, handicapped by its rugged route from the East Coast to the Midwest nonetheless proved second to none in serving its customers--whether on star passenger lines like the Capitol Limited and National Limited or on a freight network that included such notable offerings as "Sentinel Service" and the "Timesaver" freights. The railroads story, as it unfolds in these pages, makes for an evocative journey through 160 years of railroad history.

A Religious Orgy in Tennessee: A Reporter's Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial

H.L. Mencken

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The native American Voltaire, the enemy of all puritans, the heretic in the Sunday school, the one-man demolition crew of the genteel tradition."-Alistair Cooke

Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken's coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventually inspired a Broadway play and hit movie.

Mencken's no-nonsense sensibility is still exciting: his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all-including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret "holy roller" service.

Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own-until now.

A Religious Orgy in Tennessee includes all of Mencken's reports for The Baltimore Sun, The Nation, and The American Mercury. It even includes his coverage of Bryan's death just days after the trial-an obituary so withering Mencken was forced to rewrite it (both versions are included, although the rewrite seems, if anything, even less forgiving).

With the rise of "intelligent design," Mencken's work has never seemed more unnervingly timely-or timeless.

A Game of Brawl: The Orioles, the Beaneaters, and the Battle for the 1897 Pennant

Bill Felber

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

It was probably the most cutthroat pennant race in baseball history. And it was a struggle to define how baseball would be played. This book recreates the rowdy, season-long 1897 battle between the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Beaneaters. The Orioles had acquired a reputation as the dirtiest team in baseball. Future Hall of Famers John McGraw, Wee Willie Keeler, and “Foxy” Ned Hanlon were proven winners—but their nasty tactics met with widespread disapproval among fans. So it was that their pennant race with the comparatively saintly Beaneaters took on a decidedly moralistic air. Bill Felber brings to life the most intensely watched team sporting event in the country’s history to that time. His book captures the drama of the final week, as the race came down to a three-game series. And finally, it conveys the madness of the third and decisive game, when thirty thousand fans literally knocked down the gates and walls of a facility designed to hold ten thousand to watch the Beaneaters grind out a win and bring down baseball’s first and most notorious evil empire.

(20070108)