Wave High the Banner: A Novel Based on the Life of Davy Crockett
(Reissued for the first time since its original publicatio...)
Reissued for the first time since its original publication in 1943, "Wave High the Banner" is the little-known first novel by Dee Brown, one of the most prolific, influential, and popular writers on the American frontier experience. Brown skillfully weaves fact and fiction to recount Crockett's earliest apprenticeships and first loves, his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, his numerous moves ever deeper into the wilderness, his turbulent years as a frontier politician in Tennessee, and his part in the doomed and bloody defense of the Alamo in Texas. Brown re-creates a complex and richly textured Crockett who was a soldier, lover, husband, father, widower, Indian fighter, hunter, humorist, local politician, and champion of the common people, both white and Indian. Historian Paul Andrew Hutton discusses the significance of "Wave High the Banner" in the Crockett literature and reviews the wide-ranging, distinguished career of Dee Brown.
(The improbable Civil War raid that led to the Siege of Vi...)
The improbable Civil War raid that led to the Siege of Vicksburg, recounted by the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. For two weeks in the spring of 1862, Colonel Benjamin Grierson and 1,700 Union cavalry troopers conducted a raid from Tennessee to Louisiana. It was intended to divert Confederate attention from Ulysses S. Grant's army crossing the Mississippi River, a maneuver that would set the stage for the Siege of Vicksburg. Led by a former music teacher whose role in the Union cavalry was belied by his hatred of horses, Grierson’s Raid was not only brilliant but improbably successful. The cavalrymen ripped up railway track, destroyed storehouses, took prisoners, and freed slaves. Colonel Grierson lost only three men through the whole expedition.
(All aspects of western feminine life, which include a goo...)
All aspects of western feminine life, which include a good deal about the western male, are covered in this lively, informal but soundly factual account of the women who built the West. Among those whose stories are included are Elizabeth Custer; Lola Montez, Ann Eliza Young, Josephine Meeker, Carry Nation, Esther Morris, and Virginia Reed.
(When scout John Singleterry and his partner Dunreath enco...)
When scout John Singleterry and his partner Dunreath encounter a renegade group of Cheyenne Indians, the braves take Dunreath hostage in order to force the removal of the cruel Indian agent. But the Army plans a brutal double-cross, and only Singleterry has the power to stop a bloodbath.
The Bold Cavaliers: Morgan's Second Kentucky Cavalry Raiders
(An "exciting" Civil War history of the Confederate cavalr...)
An "exciting" Civil War history of the Confederate cavalrymen, Morgan's Raiders, by the New York Times-bestselling author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Kirkus Reviews). In this vibrant and thoroughly researched Civil War study, Dee Brown tells the story of Morgan’s Raiders, the Kentucky cavalrymen famed and feared for their attacks on the North. In 1861, Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan and his brother-in-law Basil Duke put together a group of formidable horsemen and set to violent work. They began in their home state, staging raids, recruiting new soldiers, and intercepting Union telegraphs. Most were imprisoned after unsuccessful incursions into Ohio and Indiana years later, but some Raiders would escape, regroup, and fight again in different conflicts, participating in the so-called Great Conspiracy in Canada. The Bold Cavaliers is as engrossing in its historical detail as in its rich adventure. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dee Brown including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.
The Fetterman Massacre: Fort Phil Kearny and the Battle of the Hundred Slain
(The Fetterman Massacre occurred on December 21, 1866, at ...)
The Fetterman Massacre occurred on December 21, 1866, at Fort Phil Kearny, a small outpost in the foothills of the Big Horns. The second battle in American history from which came to no survivors, it became a cause célèbre and was the subject of a congressional investigation.
(Here is the fascinating and little-known story of the Gal...)
Here is the fascinating and little-known story of the Galvanized Yankees, who stood watch over a nation that they had once sought to destroy. They were Confederate soldiers who were recruited from Union prison camps in the North to serve in the West. On the condition they would not be sent south to fight their former comrades, they exchanged gray for blue uniforms. From 1864 to 1866 six regiments of Galvanized Yankees fought Indians, escorted supply trains along the Oregon and Sante Fe trails, accompanied expeditions, guarded surveying parties for the Union Pacific Railroad, and manned lonely outposts on the frontier. Dee Brown, the author of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," tells what happened to a lost legion, unhonored and unsung.
(Acclaimed western author Dee Brown supplies a thrilling y...)
Acclaimed western author Dee Brown supplies a thrilling you-are-there account of Custer's Last Stand. From contemporary reports, diaries, letters, and testimonies of those involved, he recounts one of the most famous and ill-fated battles ever fought.
(Dee Brown's sparkling account of a momentous year in Amer...)
Dee Brown's sparkling account of a momentous year in American history In 1876, America was eager to celebrate its centenary but questioned what might lie ahead. The American Republic had grown to four times its original population and was in the midst of enormous changes. Industrialization was booming, and new energy sources were being used for fuel and power. People were suddenly less bound to agriculture, and there were revolutions in transportation and communication. It was a time of Indian wars, the first stirrings of the labor movement, and the burgeoning struggle form women’s and other civil rights. Historian Dee Brown takes the measure of America in a rare moment of reflection on the nation's past, present, and future. "The Year of the Century" was one of Brown’s favorites among his works.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
("Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the ...)
"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West" is a 1970 book by American writer Dee Brown that covers the history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century.
Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans: American Battles and Campaigns
(The Battle of New Orleans was the final act in a drama th...)
The Battle of New Orleans was the final act in a drama that began long before it was fought. When General Andrew Jackson led his soldiers against the Creek Indians under Red Eagle, he knew that the enemy basically was the British, who had armed the Creeks and set them against the American frontier settlements. Dee Brown, author of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," begins his vivid historical account with the Battle of Horseshoe Bend between the Creeks and Jackson's forces. Dramatic events lead one with a sense of mounting excitement to the climax -the last battle fought between British and Americans.
Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroads
(From the author of the best-selling "Bury My Heart at Wou...)
From the author of the best-selling "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," Dee Brown's classic account of the building of the transcontinental railroad.
In February 1854 the first railroad from the East reached the Mississippi; by the end of the nineteenth century, five major transcontinental railroads linked the East Coast with the Pacific Ocean and thousands of miles of tracks crisscrossed in the West, a vast and virginal land just a few years before.
The story of this extraordinary undertaking is one of breathtaking technological ingenuity, otherwordly idealism, and all-too-worldly greed. The heroes and villains were Irish and Chinese laborers, intrepid engineers, avaricious bankers, stock manipulators, and corrupt politicians. Before it was over more than 155 million acres (one-tenth of the country) were given away to the railroad magnates, Indian tribes were decimated, the buffalo were driven from the Great Plains, millions of immigrants were lured from Europe, and a colossal continental nation was built.
(Proud and beautiful Creek Mary dominates a saga that span...)
Proud and beautiful Creek Mary dominates a saga that spans the years from the American Revolution to the pre-World War I era and portrays such characters as Tecumseh, Andrew Jackson, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Teddy Roosevelt.
Conspiracy of Knaves: A Novel of Civil War Espionage
(Dee Brown’s captivating novel based on the true story of ...)
Dee Brown’s captivating novel based on the true story of the Chicago Conspiracy Dee Brown, author of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," turns to the Civil War for this rollicking tale of romance and intrigue. The story is based on the undercover scheme known as the Chicago Conspiracy, a plan by which Confederate agents and sympathizers in the North tried to free rebel prisoners in Chicago. Brown's thrilling tale revolves around Charley Heywood, a Confederate major, and Belle Rutledge, an actress and quick-minded double agent tasked with spying on the object of her affections.
Wondrous Times on the Frontier: America During the 1800s
(In his first work of nonfiction in twelve years, celebrat...)
In his first work of nonfiction in twelve years, celebrated historian Dee Brown, bestselling author of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," draws on over 50 years of research in this good-humored celebration of the diversity of the American frontier.
(Renowned storyteller Dee Brown recreates the struggles of...)
Renowned storyteller Dee Brown recreates the struggles of Native Americans, settlers, and ranchers in this stunning volume that illuminates the history of the old West that’s filled with maps and vintage photographs. Beginning with the demise of the Native Americans of the Plains, Brown depicts the onrush of the burgeoning cattle trade and the waves of immigrants who ultimately "settled" the land. In the retelling of this oft-told saga, Brown has demonstrated once again his abilities as a master storyteller and an entertaining popular historian. By turns heroic, tragic, and even humorous, The American West brings to life American tragedy and triumph in the years from 1840 to the turn of the century, and a roster of characters both great and small: Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Dull Knife, Crazy Horse, Captain Jack, John H. Tunstall, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Wyatt Earp, the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, Wild Bill Hickok, Charles Goodnight, Oliver Loving, Buffalo Bill, and many others.
Dee Brown was a historian, librarian, and author. His classic study "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is widely credited with exposing the systematic destruction of American Indian tribes to a world audience.
Background
Dorris Brown, born Dorris Alexander Brown, was born on February 29, 1908, in Louisiana, United States. His father, Daniel Alexander Brown, died when he was 5, and his mother, Lulu Cranford Brown, a brother, and two sisters moved to Ouachita County, Arkansas, where his mother worked as a store clerk. The family lived with Brown's maternal grandmother, whose father had known Davy Crockett. She told stories to her grandson about the famous frontiersman and how her family survived the Civil War in Arkansas.
Education
Brown attended Little Rock High School. He and some friends published a neighborhood tabloid, The Live Wire, to expose the oil "flimflammers" in Stephens. Brown admired a Native American baseball player for the Arkansas Travelers.
After graduating from high school, Brown worked as a printer and reporter in Harrison, Arkansas, and then entered Arkansas State Teachers College (present-day University of Central Arkansas) as a history major, working in the college library.
He received a bachelor's degree in library science from George Washington University in 1937. Later Dee earned his master's degree from the University of Illinois (the present-day University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) in 1952.
Dee Brown's first job was as a library assistant for the United States Department of Agriculture during the late 1930s, followed by librarianship at the Beltsville Research Center in Maryland. During World War II, Brown served in the United States Army, returning home to become a technical librarian for the United States War Department in Aberdeen, Maryland. The remainder of his career was spent at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was a librarian from 1948 to 1972 and a professor of library science from 1962 to 1975.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Brown wrote many westerns, a humorous novel, more histories, and many books for young adults, such as "Showdown at Little Big Horn" (1964). One of the histories, "Grierson's Raid" (1954), was praised by academic reviewers as "a minor classic of its kind... turning unusually interesting source materials (an unpublished autobiography, family journals, letters, papers) into a graphic story of military adventure" about a 600-mile Union foray into Confederate territory in 1863.
In the late 1960s, Brown began writing his groundbreaking book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," which has sold more than five million copies around the world. The New York Times described the book as "a grim, revisionist tale of the ruthless mistreatment and eventual displacement of the Indian by white conquerors from 1860 to 1890." However, Brown said the best compliment he ever received for the bestseller came from a Native American: "You didn't write that book. Only an Indian could have written that book!" "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" continues to be translated into many foreign languages, most recently in Korean, Serbian, and Turkish.
Brown spent twenty-seven productive years after retirement in Little Rock, writing such works as a bestselling novel, "Creek Mary's Blood" (1980), and a critical account of the Union Pacific Railroad, "Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow" (1977). "Way To Bright Star" (1998), written when he was ninety, was the last of the eleven novels he wrote.
His attachment to Arkansas surfaced in his writings during these later years. His illustrated history, "American Spa: Hot Springs, Arkansas" (1982), includes candid stories about the state’s mecca for tourism, such as the dispute, in 1877, among town leaders concerning the use of Hot Springs Reservation’s thermal waters by the poor.
Brown was frequently consulted by filmmakers and writers as an expert on Native American history.
Achievements
Dee Brown was a celebrated historian, librarian, and author of both fiction and nonfiction. He is the only contributor to Arkansas literature included in "The New York Public Library's Books of the Century" (1996), a selection of the "most significant works of the past 100 years."
His daytime profession as a librarian was the key to his international success as a writer: he knew how to find primary sources, such as Indian Treaties written in their own Native American words. His most famous bestseller "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" has a rare distinction among historians of being considered an indispensable reference for Native American studies.
Brown's writings won several awards, as well, including the Best Western for Young People award in 1981 for "Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: Railroads in the West" and the Saddlemen Award (present-day Owen Wister Award) in 1984, both from the Western Writers of America.
The Central Arkansas Library System named a branch library in Little Rock in his honor.
Dee Brown thought that European settlers committed many horrifying injustices against native peoples, including mass, slaughters, theft repeated broken treaties, and unjust relocations of entire tribes.
Quotations:
"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it."
"To the Indians, it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature - the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy grades, the water, the soil, the air itself."
"The white people were as thick and numerous and aimless as grasshoppers, moving always in a hurry but never seeming to get to whatever place it was they were going to."
"I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there are no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath. I want to die there and not within walls. I know every stream and every wood between the Rio Grande and Arkansas. I have hunted and lived over that country. I lived like my fathers before me, and, like them, I lived happily."
"I call it magic, the crossing of our paths with the paths of others, how quickly, how completely, these magic meetings can turn us into directions we never dreamed of."
Personality
Brown had been sympathetic to the plight of the American Indian since he was a boy growing up in Oklahoma, where he made many Native-American friends and learned that the Indians portrayed in theaters were not at all like the real people. The stories his grandmother told him about his great-grandfather, a friend to Davy Crockett, also sparked his interest in the Old West. Brown maintained his fascination for the history of the American West into adulthood, and while he worked as a librarian he spent his spare time researching and writing about this period.
Physical Characteristics:
Brown was a hefty six-footer with relaxed confidence.
Interests
History of the American West
Sport & Clubs
Baseball, Arkansas Travelers
Athletes
Chief Yellow Horse
Connections
In 1934, Dee married Sara Baird Stroud. He had a son, J. Mitchell Brown of Sacramento, and a daughter, Linda Luise Brown.
