Category Archives: history

James “I Didn’t Start the Fire” Buchanan

Posted on December 18, 2025 by smellincoffee

What do I know about Mr. James Buchanan? Well, he’s our only bachelor president, leaning on his niece to be his hostess at White House functions; he was very chummy with the founder of my hometown, William Rufus King, and … Continue reading →

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1858

Posted on December 17, 2025 by smellincoffee

1858 is a history of the second year of James Buchanan’s administration, a year notable less for what Buchanan did than for what he refused to do while the slavery debate burned white-hot. He maintained that slavery was no longer … Continue reading →

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The Expatriation of Franklin Pierce

Posted on December 16, 2025 by smellincoffee

Continuing in the tragedy of Franklin Pierce, I chose to follow a short biography of him with this, a more focused look Pierce’s exit from the presidency, when he found himself wholly isolated. Four years ago, he had earned a … Continue reading →

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From Hero to Zero: Franklin Pierce

Posted on December 13, 2025 by smellincoffee

Franklin Pierce wasn’t high on my interest list of presidents to read about for this America @ 250 project until I learned that he was intimate friends with Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina. Pierce and Davis served together in … Continue reading →

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Martin Van Buren

Posted on December 12, 2025 by smellincoffee

Who is Martin Van Buren? When I cast the name into the pool of my imagination, I can see his face reflected there, framed by wild sideburns and seeded by a guide to the US Presidents I read cover to … Continue reading →

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Confederate Women

Posted on December 11, 2025 by smellincoffee

Continuing in my march through Bell Irwin Wiley’s social histories of the Civil War,   I bought Confederate Women immediately after reading Billy Yank.    Confederate Women looks at the diaries and letters of three socially prominent southern belles and … Continue reading →

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The Battle Cry of Freedom

Posted on December 9, 2025 by smellincoffee

Battle Cry of Freedom is widely regarded as the finest single-volume history of the Civil War — and after finally reading it, I understand why. McPherson compresses an era of extraordinary complexity into a narrative that feels both sweeping and … Continue reading →

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Man of Iron

Posted on December 4, 2025 by smellincoffee

Grover Cleveland may have lost his claim to fame in being the only president to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms, but he is nevertheless a striking and memorable figure. Hailed as ‘the last Jeffersonian’  by another biography,  his two … Continue reading →

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The Plain People of the Confederacy

Posted on November 28, 2025 by smellincoffee

The Plain People of the Confederacy takes a look at three often overlooked demographics of the South: poor whites, whom everyone forgets exist; women; and blacks. As it happens, Wiley has written volumes on each of these categories (poor whites … Continue reading →

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Billy has Gone for a Soldier: the Life of Billy Yank

Posted on November 26, 2025 by smellincoffee

Shortly after Bell Irvin Wiley penned The Life of Johnny Reb, a social history of southern soldiery, he wondered: what about the other fellows? What brought them to the colors, pulled them away from lives of comfort to march thousands … Continue reading →

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