God Knows All Your Names: Stories in American History

By Paul N. Herbert

Book Overview

People with only a slight interest in history will enjoy these fascinating, short and easy to understand stories. Serious history buffs will like these lesser-known episodes, not the stories we've... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1438945124
• ISBN13: 9781438945125
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Authorhouse
• Length: 540 Pages
• Weight: 1.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Must have for a history buffs library

Great read for any level of student of American history. Found the book easy to read, informative and entertaining. Would recommend for U.S. History teachers wishing to inject a little fun into the classroom to keep their students engaged in the subject.

GOD KNOWS ALL YOUR NAMES

I enjoyed reading this book. The title caught my attention because many today feel that they should not mention God. I also liked it because it remembers our unsung heroes of our great country. The first part is on the American Revolution The chapter called "An Early American Health Care Crisis" was very interesting. I didn't know about the smallpox epidemic and the efforts to inoculate as many people as possible. The treatment was very crude and many people died after being inoculated. They set up many pesthouses to isolate the sick and the newly vaccinated. The chapter entitled Christopher Ludwick the Baker-General, was also very interesting. Christopher was a baker who baked thousands of loaves of bread for the American Army. While doing this, he persuaded Hessian soldiers to leave the British Army and settle in Pennsylvania where there were many Quakers who were pacifists. The finances of the new republic were in shambles and were finally fixed by loans from France, Spain and Holland. The privateers also helped with the finances. The second part is on the Civil War The chapter about the balloons is amazing. The first soldier-bearing balloons were a gift from France, but their use by the Union Army was truly revealing. The chapter about slave trading in New York was something I had never heard about. The group of Californians who joined the Second Massachusetts Cavalry were recuited by the State of Massachusetts because their enlistments were low. Lincoln made an agreement with Oregon Senator Edward Baker that if Massachusetts paid for their training and transportation he would recruit some Californians who wanted to return to the East. The Brigade commander was a nephew of the famous poet James Russell Lowell. The Second Massachusetts Cavalry was sent to Vienna VA to find and destroy John Singleton Mosby. Currently living in Fairfax, this I knew, but it is worth mentioning. John Mosby captured US General Edwin Stoughton in has bed in Fairfax. Mosby learned where the General was staying. It was the home of Dr. Gunnell. Mosby entered the house and went into the bedroom where the General was sleeping. Mosby slapped the General on his behind and asked if he knew Col. Mosby. The general asked if they had caught Mosby and Mosby answered "I am Mosby and I have caught you." General Robert E. Lee was a graduate of West Point and an officer in the US Army. President Lincoln wanted Robert E. Lee to lead part of the Union Army. Robert E. Lee said that if Virginia secedes he cannot fight against his home state. Virginia did seceed and Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the US Army and returned to Virginia. The Saga of Wilmer and Virginia McLean is another Chapter that is incredible. The Mcleans owned a large farm in Manassas, VA where the First Battle of Manassas took place. Their house was burned and they decided to move to a safer place. They settled in Appomattox, VA. Four years later the surrender of

A Review of AMERICAN HISTORY

Wow ! This is not your high school history textbook. Author Paul Herbert brings interesting American historical references to life through time of war and peace. This action packed gem will keep you turning pages as 64 short stories are presented for your reading pleasure. Thought you knew all about Abe Lincoln? Civil War? Presidents who have served in the military? These stories and events of our actual history are presented with informative interesting narrative, and amazing factual references. Beginning with the Revolutionary War, this is your guided tour of military men, congressional leaders, and common people who sometimes were forced to take sides. History is dusted off and given a new purpose that will inspire you as you read stories of courage, intrigue, and adventure. In summary, this is a great book - and a great reference - that you will read several times.

Why was history boring in school

An excellent book that is both informative and enjoyable to read. It could easily be used as a high school or college text book and unlike most of the history I was forced to read, these rapid fire stories relate to what is going on in the world today. Who knew that the debate over English as the official language of the United States was a prime political topic in the late 1700's or that vacinations and the desparity between health care for the rich and poor were a hot topics in the early days of the Revolutionary War. Spies, generals, bakers, farmers and the roles they all played in various plots and subplots that were oft overlooked in the history books of my day. This book is so enjoyable to read it is hard to imagine how my history teacher made it all so boring in high school.

Fascinating, Informative, Must Read

It is with some sadness that I can report I have just finished the wonderful book, God Knows All Your Names. The only explanation I can offer for my melancholy state is due to that rare feeling you get after completing something you really enjoyed; you don't want it to end, you are left wanting more. I so enjoyed becoming engrossed in each story, and alternately, looking forward to reading the next installment, that I now regret it's completion! This excellent book is a must read for any American history buff. I enjoyed the 65 well researched stories, which the author brings to life with unique and obscure information, lost or untold in history books I've read. The stories cover all kinds of unique episodes. The main commonality being that I found myself thinking over and over after each story: "wow, that's amazing." The "history-light" folks will appreciate that they don't have to plow through 400 pages on a single topic, but can pick and choose whichever of the fast-paced highly readable accounts to check out. The serious history aficionados will find enough sufficiently well researched meaty nuggets of information to fulfill their quest to learn something meaningful on every page. It is rare indeed for a book to please both camps. Somehow this book succeeds. If you asked me to name my favorite story, it would be comparable to asking me which candy in the dish I enjoyed most. Every story was a deliciously satisfying treat, a tasty nugget of history, seasoned with amazing prose. I not only learned a great deal of new information, but was always entertained by the author's amusing and unique delivery style. Often the writing shows that that the author is truly an artist, utilizing the perfect combination of words and imagery. In the story of Revolutionary War Finances, this talent is epitomized with a perfect metaphor to illustrate the point of how the U.S. stayed alive in the final sentence, "In the end, trade and a raft of loans from France, Spain and Holland kept the struggling country afloat in a bloody sea of red ink". However, it does not end there, the composition skills are wonderful. For example, the story of the Lee Highway Blues discusses Lincoln and Lee "like bookends of history, their paths to greatness ran together through the Civil War. Their fates romanticized in American hearts, profiles chiseled in granite on Stone Mountain and Rushmore. Their names indelibly in parallel routes that connected the country and heralded the coming of the future, the automobile age." That consummate paragraph perfectly ties the two great men indelibly together for the reader! But I would be bereft if I did not applaud one of the most superlative stories, I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag, which incidentally, happens to include my favorite passage as well, "regardless of the endless contentious and bitter arguments over political matters among strangers and friends, enemies and families in the courts and in offices and taverns, in health clu