Cursed days

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Jacob R. Hildebrand

A Mennonite Journal is a unique story of Civil War home-front life recorded by Jacob R. Hildebrand, a devout father, faithful Mennonite, and successful farmer. It provides insight into his political activities, support of the Southern cause, and the military service of his three sons, not all fully consistent with Mennonite beliefs. Jacob Hildebrand took practical steps to assist his three sons in the Army of Northern Virginia; often traveling to their camps to deliver food and clothing necessary to supplement inadequate army rations. The family's story shows that the strong pacifist beliefs of the Mennonite church were not always observed by many of its members who supported the Southern cause and honored days of prayer and humility proclaimed by Jefferson Davis. The Journal describes Augusta County's contribution of men and supplies to three Virginia regiments: the 5th and 52nd Infantry and the 1st Cavalry: it includes Jacob's observations of Jackson's 1862 Valley Campaign, the 1864 raids by Hunter and Sheridan, the Battle of Piedmont and the death of General W. E. "Grumble" Jones and the Battle of Waynesboro, which marked the end of Jubal Early's military career and the last major battle in the Valley. The Journal also describes the war's many impacts on families in the Augusta County farming community just north of Staunton and Waynesboro, Virginia.

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Susan Campbell Bartoletti

It is 1871 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and fourteen-year-old Pringle Rose, still grieving from the death of her parents, takes her brother Gideon, who has Down syndrome, escapes from her uncle and aunt, and takes a train to Chicago--but disaster seems to follow her there.

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Jan Shipps and John W. Welch

For years, William E. McLellin (1806-1883) has been a mystery to Mormon historians. Converted in 1831, he served missions with Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Parley Pratt, and others. He was also ordained one of the twelve original Latter-day Saint Apostles in 1835. Yet seeds of doubt and difficulty were already evident in his brief period of excommunication in 1832 and in various points of tension and later conflict with Church leaders. In the early 1980s, the fabled McLellin journals were reportedly located by the infamous document forger, Mark Hofmann. Little did anyone know that they were soon to be found in the holdings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had acquired the journals in 1908. These six detailed and fascinating journals, written from 1831 to 1836 during McLellin's most faithful years, now shed new light on the nature of early Mormon worship and doctrine, as well as on religious attitudes in America in the 1830s. They document his daily travels, meetings, preachings, healings, sufferings, and feelings. They offer many clues toward solving the mystery of McLellin in early Mormon history.

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introduction by Robert K. Massie

"The last Tsaritsa of Russia, Alexandra Fyodorovna, was murdered with her family on the night of 16-17 July 1918 by agents acting on behalf of the revolutionary Bolshevik government. The dramatic story of the demise of the Romanov dynasty has been recounted many times and has captivated the imagination of generations of readers throughout the world." "The recently declassified 1918 diary of Alexandra - published here for the first time in its entirety - provides something no other account could do: a glimpse of the Tsaritsa's thoughts and activities from 1 January 1918 until the night of her death. As the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Alexandra wrote in English, though her native language was German and she became fluent in Russian after her marriage to Nicholas. The 1918 diary takes us into her private world, revealing the care she lavished on her children during this period of revolutionary turmoil, how she felt toward her husband, Tsar Nicholas, and what she imagined about the profound struggle - between past and present, old and new worlds, the sacred and the profane - then occurring over the destiny of Russia. The diary reveals that even in her most intimate reflections, she remained the representative of a great system of belief that had prevailed for hundreds of years in Russia and that she and Nicholas hoped to perpetuate. We see in painful detail the tragic daily confrontation between this system of belief and the reality of the modern world that had, in every sense, broken free of her and Nicholas's control."--BOOK JACKET.