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Based on years of exhaustive and meticulous research, David C. Keehn’s study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret southern society that initially sought to establish a slave-holding empire in the “Golden Circle” region of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Keehn reveals the origins, rituals, structure, and complex history of this mysterious group, including its later involvement in the secession movement. Members supported southern governors in precipitating disunion, filled the ranks of the nascent Confederate Army, and organized rearguard actions during the Civil War.

The Knights of the Golden Circle emerged in 1858 when a secret society formed by a Cincinnati businessman merged with the pro-expansionist Order of the Lone Star, which already had 15,000 members. In 1860, during their first attempt to create the Golden Circle, several thousand Knights assembled in southern Texas to “colonize” northern Mexico. Due to insufficient resources and organizational shortfalls, however, that filibuster failed. Later, the Knights shifted their focus and began pushing for disunion, spearheading prosecession rallies, and intimidating Unionists in the South.

According to Keehn, the Knights likely carried out a variety of other clandestine actions before the Civil War, including attempts by insurgents to take over federal forts in Virginia and North Carolina, and a planned assassination of Abraham Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore in early 1861 on the way to his inauguration. Once the fighting began, the Knights helped build the emerging Confederate Army and assisted with the pro-Confederate Copperhead movement in northern states. With the war all but lost, various Knights supported one of their members, John Wilkes Booth, in his plot to assassinate President Lincoln.

Keehn’s fast-paced, engaging narrative demonstrates that the Knights’ influence proved more substantial than historians have traditionally assumed and provides a new perspective on southern secession and the outbreak of the Civil War.

David C. Keehn is an attorney from Allentown, Pennsylvania, with a history degree from Gettysburg College and a juris doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

April 15, 2013
328 pages, 6 x 9, 41 halftones
ISBN 978-0-8071-5004-7
Cloth $39.95

At Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, a Union force composed predominantly of former slaves met their Confederate adversaries in one of the bloodiest engagements of the war. This small yet important fight received some initial widespread attention but soon drifted into obscurity. In Milliken’s Bend, Linda Barnickel uncovers the story of this long-forgotten and highly controversial battle. Controversial charges made after the battle eventually led to a congressional investigation and contributed to the suspension of prisoner exchanges between North and South.

Barnickel’s compelling and comprehensive account of the battle illuminates not only the immense complexity of the events that transpired in northeastern Louisiana during the Vicksburg Campaign but also the implications of Milliken’s Bend upon the war as a whole. The battle contributed to southerners’ increasing fears of slave insurrection and heightened their anxieties about emancipation. In the North, it helped foster a commitment to allow free blacks and former slaves to take part in the war to end slavery. And for African Americans, both free and enslaved, Milliken’s Bend symbolized their never-ending struggle for freedom.

Linda Barnickel is an archivist and freelance writer with master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and The Ohio State University. Passionate about discovering the hidden and fascinating stories of history, she is interested in local history, military history, oral history, and the cultural power of archives.

April 15, 2013
320 pages
6 x 9, 15 halftones, 4 maps
978-0-8071-4992-8
Cloth $39.95, ebook available

For over a quarter of a century, award-winning journalist Henry Bradsher reported stories from around the world. In this lively and engaging account, Bradsher recounts episodes from a distinguished career that took him to the Himalayas, the jungles of Bhutan, Kremlin caviar receptions, China’s Forbidden City, and the battlefields of Vietnam. Throughout, Bradsher emphasizes the unpredictability of a correspondent’s life and the strains, perils, and privileges of standing witness to momentous world events.

In South Asia, Bradsher reported the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet in 1959 and the last five years that Jawaharlal Nehru led India—with a side trip to hunt tigers in Nepal with Queen Elizabeth. In Moscow he covered the downfall of Nikita Khrushchev, and he later suffered the KGB bombing of his car in response to his tenacious reporting. His incisive coverage from Hong Kong led Chinese officials to label Bradsher as “the most despicable” journalist. But after a power shift, they welcomed him as the first American journalist allowed to work in China in over a year. Bradsher predicted and reported Bangladesh’s independence struggle, and he worked in the Middle East, covering Egyptian-Israeli peace arrangements.

Access to the events that shaped the Cold War also led to Bradsher’s meeting many world leaders, including Nehru, Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Zhou Enlai, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Anwar Sadat, and Menachem Begin. Although Bradsher’s reporting riled officials in Moscow, Beijing, and even the United States—prompting Henry Kissinger’s attempts to thwart the publication of his reports—history has proven its accuracy. Bradsher’s relentlessness in his own work accompanied a profound respect for fellow journalists worldwide who endanger themselves to keep the public informed.

Henry S. Bradsher, a correspondent for the Associated Press and the Washington Star, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for international reporting in 1972 and won the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 1973. Now retired, he lives in Louisiana.

April 8, 2013
344 pages, 6 x 9, 17 halftones, 6 maps
978-0-8071-5050-4
Cloth $34.95, ebook available

“Sternberg guides us to that rare intersection of lively writing and intellectual curiosity in her book about Louisiana’s famous River Road. Many travel it; few see it this well. From a Convent grotto made of bagasse, the charred remains of sugarcane, to a museum that explains what life was like at Carville’s home for those once called lepers, the author finds new information along this old, romantic road.”—Rheta Grimsley Johnson, author of Poor Man’s Provence and Hank Hung the Moon

The River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge hosts a fascinating mix of people, traditions, and stories. Author Mary Ann Sternberg has spent over two decades exploring this historic corridor, uncovering its intriguing and often-underappreciated places. In River Road Rambler, she presents fifteen sketches about sites along this scenic route. From familiar stops, such as the National Hansen’s Disease Center Museum at Carville and the perique tobacco area of St. James Parish to lesser-known attractions such as Our Lady of Lourdes grotto in the town of Convent and the Colonial Sugars Historic District, Sternberg provides a new perspective on some of the region’s most colorful places.

These sketches brim with insights and observations about everything from the fire that razed The Cottage plantation to the failed attempts to salvage the reproduction of the seventeenth-century French warship Le Pelican from the bottom of the Mississippi. River Road Rambler links us to both past and present while revealing delightful and unexpected surprises only found along this storied byway.

Mary Ann Sternberg is the author of Along the River Road: Past and Present on Louisiana’s Historic Byway, now available in a new and updated edition, and Winding through Time: The Forgotten History and Present-Day Peril of Bayou Manchac.

April 15, 2013
152 pages
5 1/2 x 8
15 b&w illustrations, 1 map
978-0-8071-5078-8
Cloth $24.95, ebook available

“In the frightening and uncharted world of war, servicemen and women could count on the transport given by horses and mules, the protection offered by dogs, the communication delivered by pigeons, and the solace provided by mascots and pets.”—from Loyal Forces

At a time when every American was called upon to contribute to the war effort—whether by enlisting, buying bonds, or collecting scrap metal—the use of American animals during World War II further demonstrates the resourcefulness of the U.S. military and the many sacrifices that led to the Allies’ victory. Through 157 photographs from the National World War II Museum collection, Loyal Forces captures the heroism, hard work, and innate skills of innumerable animals that aided the military as they fought to protect, transport, communicate, and sustain morale.

From the last mounted cavalry charge of the U.S. Army to the 36,000 homing pigeons deployed overseas, service animals made a significant impact on military operations during World War II. Authors Toni M. Kiser and Lindsey F. Barnes deftly illustrate that every branch of the armed forces and every theater of the war utilized the instincts and dexterity of these dependable creatures, who, though not always in the direct line of enemy fire, had their lives put at risk for the jobs they performed.

Lindsey F. Barnes, senior archivist and digital projects manager at the National WWII Museum, earned her master’s in library and information science from Louisiana State University.

Toni M. Kiser, assistant director of collections and exhibits and registrar at the National WWII Museum, earned her master’s in museum studies at the George Washington University.

March 18, 2013
152 pages, 8 x 10, 28 color photos, 129 halftones, 2 maps
978-0-8071-4996-6
Cloth $35.00