This book outlines the World War II experiences of Carl E. Meyers, an Ohio man, from registering for the draft in 1940 to fighting in the European Theater of Operations in 1944. A large part of the book is the letters Meyers wrote home from his basic training and from Europe. This volume traces his military experiences from 1940 to 1944, showing how an average American went through registering for the draft, being drafted, basic training, and combat during World War II. The primary theme is an examination of the ordeals of a common, everyday American draftee, Carl E. Meyers, as he experienced World War II. He registered for the draft when the Selective Service Act passed in 1940, and surprisingly enough was drafted in 1944; his being selected was surprising because he was a Pre-Pearl Harbor father and Selective Service tried not to draft those men. He experienced the boredom and monotony of basic training in a state far from home, and after completing his training was shipped to Europe and fought in that theater, in General George S. Patton's 3rd Army. In Europe he again experienced the mundane of waiting for his unit to be sent into combat, which happened in the November 1944 offensive. He was killed in that campaign, making the ultimate sacrifice for his country.

John A. McClernand was a career politician, and those ambitions and qualities continued during his Civil War service. A member of the Illinois General Assembly and a U.S. Representative for 10 years, McClernard was connected to other prominent figures of the time such as Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. However, he is best known for his rivalry with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and this biography balances McClernard's political career with his military leadership and his place in the Union command structure.

Here is a brief, balanced, and up-to-date history of Georgia from the early Native Americans into the twenty-first century. Based on the most recent research, this second edition surveys the people and events that shaped our state's history in a style that reads easily and flows effortlessly. Beginning with the earliest Native American settlements, the story tells of first contacts between area natives and Spanish from Florida, British from Carolina, and James Oglethorpe leading the effort to found a colony called Georgia. That colony passed out of the British Empire during the American Revolution, a conflict that was as much a civil war as a war for independence. In the following decades, the Creek and Cherokee were driven out as Georgia was transformed into a cotton kingdom dominated by a minority of slaveholders, who finally sought to make slavery perpetual in a war that often pitted Georgians against each other. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the state struggled with the consequences of the conflict, political, social, and economic. The postwar years were highlighted by economic stagnation, questions over the meaning of freedom, and one-party politics. Race relations pervaded the state's history after the Civil War and those struggles are traced from Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the Civil Rights Era and twenty-first century voter suppression. In the latter half of the twentieth century, and carrying into the twenty-first, Georgia drifted away from the provincialism that characterized its history and moved toward modernity.

This work offers a look at the history of Georgia through over 100 primary documents. ""The Empire State of the South: Georgia History in Documents and Essays"" offers teachers of Georgia history an alternative to the traditional narrative textbook. In this volume, students have the opportunity to read Georgia history rather than reading about Georgia history. Encompassing the entirety of Georgia history into the twenty-first century, ""The Empire State of the South"" is suitable for all courses on Georgia history. This text is divided into 16 chapters comprising 129 documents and 33 essays on various topics of Georgia history. The primary documents represent a wide range of genres, including speeches, newspaper columns, letters, treaties, laws, proclamations, state constitutions, court decisions, and many others. Some documents outline general themes or movements in Georgia history while others address more narrow issues. The thirty-three essays are excerpts from larger pieces that were written by specialists in Georgia history. Each chapter consists of several parts. First is a short narrative introduction. The second part contains the documents themselves. Following the documents are two essays written by historians regarding some topic relevant to the chapter. At the end of each chapter is a short list of suggested readings. The documents themselves range from the usual: state constitutions, laws, and speeches, to the inordinate: plans for constructing what is regarded as the state's first concrete home, a corny campaign song for Eugene Talmadge, an attempt by the General Assembly in 1897 to ban the playing of football, and a 1962 letter Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from an Albany prison that preceded his more well-known Birmingham letter. Georgia has indeed had a colorful history and ""The Empire State of the South"" tells that story.