Hero Tales from American History (Civil War Classics)
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Two of America’s finest statesman, a man who would become the first Senate Majority Leader and a man who would become President, present tales that illustrate the bravery, the perseverance, and the dangers that went into building a great nation. This entertaining volume captures America at its most rough-and-tumble, with stories to enthrall both young and old.
Read more from Henry Cabot Lodge
The Education of Henry Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hero Tales from American History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Greece 484 BC to 200 AD from Best of the World's Classics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oxford Book of American Essays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hero Tales from American History (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHEODORE ROOSEVELT Boxed Set: Memoirs, History Books, Biographies, Essays, Speeches & Executive Orders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeorge Washington, Volume II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of George Washington: Complete Edition (Vol. 1&2) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHero Tales from American History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of George Washington (Vol. 1&2) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Collected Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeorge Washington, Volume I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Essential Roosevelt Collection: History Books, Biographies, Memoirs, Essays, Speeches & Executive Orders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best of the World's Classics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of Theodore Roosevelt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Hero Tales from American History (Civil War Classics)
Related ebooks
George Washington: The Wonder of the Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lee and Grant: A Dual Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Brad Meltzer & Josh Mensch's The Lincoln Conspiracy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeronimo: My Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFredericksburg! Fredericksburg! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In the Balance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Trial of Aaron Burr Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's Blood and Treasure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrossing the Great Divide: Walking with God Through Nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boys of '67: From Vietnam to Iraq, the Extraordinary Story of a Few Good Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dawn's Early Light: The War of 1812 and the Battle That Inspired Francis Scott Key to Write "The Star-Spangled Banner" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNavajo Code Talkers: Secret American Indian Heroes of World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistoric Speeches: The Greatest Speeches of All Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgony and Eloquence: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and a World of Revolution Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Writings of Abraham Lincoln: All 7 Volumes in a Single File Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Autobiography of James Monroe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eight Days at Yalta: How Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin Shaped the Post-war World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"Co. Aytch"; Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment; A Side Show of the Big Show Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of a Cavalryman: The Civil War Memoirs of Bvt. Brig. Gen. Edward F. Winslow, 4th Iowa Cavalry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiberty's First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5King Coal: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsrael Disarmed: What the October 7 Attack Teaches Americans about the Right to Bear Arms Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Houston Texans Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
History For You
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Grief Observed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Secrets, Conspiracies, Cover Ups, and Absurdities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Shakespeare: The World as Stage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - 10th anniversary edition: A Year of Food Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Hero Tales from American History (Civil War Classics)
11 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hero Tales is a starter kit for what one needs to know to be an American. This is a basic book that every child should read. The book is harder to read because the stories are laced with nineteenth centuries moralism which slows down the story for those in the 21st century.
Book preview
Hero Tales from American History (Civil War Classics) - Henry Cabot Lodge
Hero Tales from American History
By Henry Cabot Lodge
and Theodore Roosevelt
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com
First Diversion Books edition June 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62681-315-1
Dedication
Hence it is that the fathers of these men and ours also, and they themselves likewise, being nurtured in all freedom and well born, have shown before all men many and glorious deeds in public and private, deeming it their duty to fight for the cause of liberty and the Greeks, even against Greeks, and against Barbarians for all the Greeks."
—PLATO: Menexenus.
TO E. Y. R.
To you we owe the suggestion of writing this book. Its purpose, as you know better than any one else, is to tell in simple fashion the story of some Americans who showed that they knew how to live and how to die; who proved their truth by their endeavor; and who joined to the stern and manly qualities which are essential to the well-being of a masterful race the virtues of gentleness, of patriotism, and of lofty adherence to an ideal.
It is a good thing for all Americans, and it is an especially good thing for young Americans, to remember the men who have given their lives in war and peace to the service of their fellow-countrymen, and to keep in mind the feats of daring and personal prowess done in time past by some of the many champions of the nation in the various crises of her history. Thrift, industry, obedience to law, and intellectual cultivation are essential qualities in the makeup of any successful people; but no people can be really great unless they possess also the heroic virtues which are as needful in time of peace as in time of war, and as important in civil as in military life. As a civilized people we desire peace, but the only peace worth having is obtained by instant readiness to fight when wronged—not by unwillingness or inability to fight at all. Intelligent foresight in preparation and known capacity to stand well in battle are the surest safeguards against war. America will cease to be a great nation whenever her young men cease to possess energy, daring, and endurance, as well as the wish and the power to fight the nation’s foes. No citizen of a free state should wrong any man; but it is not enough merely to refrain from infringing on the rights of others; he must also be able and willing to stand up for his own rights and those of his country against all comers, and he must be ready at any time to do his full share in resisting either malice domestic or foreign levy.
HENRY CABOT LODGE. THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WASHINGTON, April 19, 1895.
"Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all
I shall not look upon his like again."
—Hamlet
Washington
The brilliant historian of the English people [John Richard Green] has written of Washington, that no nobler figure ever stood in the fore-front of a nation’s life.
In any book which undertakes to tell, no matter how slightly, the story of some of the heroic deeds of American history, that noble figure must always stand in the fore-front. But to sketch the life of Washington even in the barest outline is to write the history of the events which made the United States independent and gave birth to the American nation. Even to give alist of what he did, to name his battles and recount his acts as president, would be beyond the limit and the scope of this book. Yet it is always possible to recall the man and to consider what he was and what he meant for us and for mankind He is worthy the study and the remembrance of all men, and to Americans he is at once a great glory of their past and an inspiration and an assurance of their future.
To understand Washington at all we must first strip off all the myths which have gathered about him. We must cast aside into the dust-heaps all the wretched inventions of the cherry-tree variety, which were fastened upon him nearly seventy years after his birth. We must look at him as he looked at life and the facts about him, without any illusion or deception, and no man in history can better stand such a scrutiny.
Born of a distinguished family in the days when the American colonies were still ruled by an aristocracy, Washington started with all that good birth and tradition could give. Beyond this, however, he had little. His family was poor, his mother was left early a widow, and he was forced after a very limited education to go out into the world to fight for himself He had strong within him the adventurous spirit of his race. He became a surveyor, and in the pursuit of this profession plunged into the wilderness, where he soon grew to be an expert hunter and backwoodsman. Even as a boy the gravity of his character and his mental and physical vigor commended him to those about him, and responsibility and military command were put in his hands at an age when most young men are just leaving college. As the times grew threatening on the frontier, he was sent on a perilous mission to the Indians, in which, after passing through many hardships and dangers, he achieved success. When the troubles came with France it was by the soldiers under his command that the first shots were fired in the war which was to determine whether the North American continent should be French or English. In his earliest expedition he was defeated by the enemy. Later he was with Braddock, and it was he who tried, to rally the broken English army on the stricken field near Fort Duquesne. On that day of surprise and slaughter he displayed not only cool courage but the reckless daring which was one of his chief characteristics. He so exposed himself that bullets passed through his coat and hat, and the Indians and the French who tried to bring him down thought he bore a charmed life. He afterwards served with distinction all through the French war, and when peace came he went back to the estate which he had inherited from his brother, the most admired man in Virginia.
At that time he married, and during the ensuing years he lived the life of a Virginia planter, successful in his private affairs and serving the public effectively but quietly as a member of the House of Burgesses. When the troubles with the mother country began to thicken he was slow to take extreme ground, but he never wavered in his belief that all attempts to oppress the colonies should be resisted, and when he once took up his position there was no shadow of turning. He was one of Virginia’s delegates to the first Continental Congress, and, although he said but little, he was regarded by all the representatives from the other colonies as the strongest man among them. There was something about him even then which commanded the respect and the confidence of every one who came in contact with him.
It was from New England, far removed from his own State, that the demand came for his appointment as commander-in-chief of the American army. Silently he accepted the duty, and, leaving Philadelphia, took command of the army at Cambridge. There is no need to trace him through the events that followed. From the time when he drew his sword under the famous elm tree, he was the embodiment of the American Revolution, and without him that revolution would have failed almost at the start. How he carried it to victory through defeat and trial and every possible obstacle is known to all men.
When it was all over he found himself facing a new situation. He was the idol of the country and of his soldiers. The army was unpaid, and the veteran troops, with arms in their hands, were eager to have him take control of the disordered country as Cromwell had done in England a little more than a century before. With the army at his back, and supported by the great forces which, in every community, desire order before everything else, and are ready to assent to any arrangement which will bring peace and quiet, nothing would have been easier than for Washington to have made himself the ruler of the new nation. But that was not his conception of duty, and he not only refused to have anything to do with such a movement himself, but he repressed, by his dominant personal influence, all such intentions on the part of the army. On the 23d of December, 1783, he met the Congress at Annapolis, and there resigned his commission. What he then said is one of the two most memorable speeches ever made in the United States, and is also memorable for its meaning and spirit among all speeches ever made by men. He spoke as follows:
"Mr. President:—The great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, and of presenting myself before them, to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country.
Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignity and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with diffidence; a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.
The successful termination of the war has verified the most sanguine expectations, and my gratitude for the interposition of Providence and the assistance I have received from my countrymen increases with every review of the momentous contest.
While I repeat my obligations to the Army in general, I should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge, in this place, the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the Gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the war. It was impossible that the choice of confidential officers to compose my family should have been more fortunate. Permit me, sir, to recommend in particular those who have continued in service to the present moment as worthy of the favorable notice and patronage of Congress.
I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them to His holy keeping.
Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action, and, bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take my leave of all the employments of public life."
The great master of English fiction, writing of this scene at Annapolis, says:
Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed—the opening feast of Prince George in London, or the resignation of Washington? Which is the noble character for after ages to admire—yon fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable and a consummate victory?
Washington did not refuse the dictatorship, or, rather, the opportunity to take control of the country, because he feared heavy responsibility, but solely because, as a high-minded and patriotic man, he did not believe in meeting the situation in that way. He was, moreover, entirely devoid of personal ambition, and had no vulgar longing for personal power. After resigning his commission he returned quietly to Mount Vernon, but he did not hold himself aloof from public affairs. On the contrary, he watched their course with the utmost anxiety. He saw the feeble Confederation breaking to pieces, and he soon realized that that form of government was an utter failure. In a time when no American statesman except Hamilton had yet freed himself from the local feelings of the colonial days, Washington was thoroughly national in all his views. Out of the thirteen jarring colonies he meant that a nation should come, and he saw—what no one else saw—the destiny of the country to the westward. He wished a nation founded which should cross the Alleghanies, and, holding the mouths of the Mississippi, take possession of all that vast and then unknown region. For these reasons he stood at the head of the national movement, and to him all men turned who desired a better union and sought to bring order out of chaos. With him Hamilton and Madison consulted in the preliminary stages which were to lead to the formation of a new system. It was his vast personal influence which made that movement a success, and when the convention to form a constitution met at Philadelphia, he presided over its deliberations, and it was his commanding will which, more than anything else, brought a constitution through difficulties and conflicting interests which more than once made any result seem well-nigh hopeless. When the Constitution formed at Philadelphia had been ratified by the States, all men turned to Washington to stand at the head of the new government. As he had borne the burden of the Revolution, so he now took up the task of bringing the government of the Constitution into existence. For eight years he served as president. He came into office with a paper constitution, the heir of a bankrupt, broken-down confederation. He left the United States, when he went out of office, an effective and vigorous government. When he was inaugurated, we had nothing but the clauses of the Constitution as agreed to by the Convention. When he laid down the presidency, we had an organized government, an established revenue, a funded debt, a high credit, an efficient system of banking, a strong judiciary, and an army. We had a vigorous and well-defined foreign policy; we had recovered the western posts, which, in the hands of the British, had fettered our march to the west; and we had proved our power to maintain order at home, to repress insurrection, to collect the national taxes, and to enforce the laws made by Congress. Thus Washington had shown that rare combination of the leader who could first destroy by revolution, and who, having led his country through a great civil war, was then able to build up a new and lasting fabric upon the ruins of a system which had been overthrown. At the close of his official service he returned again to Mount Vernon, and, after a few years of quiet retirement, died just as the century in which he had played so great a part was closing.
Washington stands among the greatest men of human history, and those in the same rank with him are very few. Whether measured by what he did, or what he was, or by the effect of his work upon the history of mankind, in every aspect he is entitled to the place he holds among the greatest of his race. Few men in all time have such a record of achievement. Still fewer can show at the end of a