Organized in the fall of 1862, the 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was commanded by the aggressive and ambitious Colonel Emerson Opdycke, a citizen-soldier with no military experience who rose from lieutenant to brevet major general. Part of the Army of the Cumberland, the 125th first saw combat at Chickamauga. Charging into Dyer's cornfield to blunt a rebel breakthrough, the outnumbered Buckeyes pressed forward and, despite heavy casualties, drove the enemy back, buying time for the fractured Union army to rally. Impressed by the heroic charge by an untested regiment, Union General Thomas Wood labeled them "Opdycke's Tigers." After losing a third of their number at Chickamauga, the 125th fought engagements across Tennessee and Georgia during 1864, and took part in the decisive battles at Franklin and Nashville. Drawing on both primary sources and recent scholarship, this is the first full-length history of the regiment in more than 120 years.

The definitive account of audacious con woman Cassie Chadwick, the Carnegie Imposter. Queen of the Con tells the true story of Cassie Chadwick, a successful swindler and "one of the top 10 imposters of all time," according to Time magazine. Born Betsy Bigley in 1857 in Canada, she first operated as Madame Devere, a European clairvoyant, and in 1890 was arrested for defrauding a Toledo bank of $20,000. In the mid-1890s, while working as a madam in Cleveland, Cassie met and married a widowed physician with a coveted Euclid Avenue address. At the dawn of the 20th century, Cassie borrowed $2 million (worth roughly $50 million today) throughout northern Ohio, Pittsburgh, New York, and Boston by convincingly posing as the illegitimate daughter of wealthy industrialist-turned-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. When the fraud collapsed in 1904, it was a nationwide sensation. "Yes, I borrowed money in very large amounts," she told reporters, "but what of it? You can't accuse a poor businesswoman of being a criminal, can you?" Carnegie, who never responded to the claim, merely joked that Mrs. Chadwick had demonstrated that his credit was still good. This meticulously researched book is the first full-length account of this fascinating woman's notorious career, the forerunner to more recent female scammers like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes or fake heiress Anna Sorokin, the "Soho Grifter." Crowl's engaging storytelling also leads readers to consider aspects of gender stereotypes, social and economic class structures, and the ways in which we humans can so often be fooled.