Looking down upon the Potomac from his verandah at Mount Vernon, recently retired General George Washington imagined a route through the mountains to the vastness of the West. He was wrong about the river, but not about his country's destiny.

Even before the guns fell silent at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee was preparing for the arduous task of getting his defeated Confederate army back safely into northern Virginia. It was an enormous, complex, and exceedingly dangerous undertaking—all in a pouring rainstorm and all under the shadow of a possible attack from the Federal Army of the Potomac. Lee first needed to assemble two wagon trains, one to transport the wounded and the other to deliver the tons of supplies acquired by the army as it roamed across Pennsylvania and Maryland on the way to Gettysburg. Once the wagon trains were set, he mapped routes for his infantry and artillery on different roads to speed the journey and protect his command. The victor of Gettysburg, George Meade, remained unsure of Lee’s next move and dispatched Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s VI Corps on a reconnaissance-in-force. The thrust found the Confederate army in full retreat: Lee was heading back to Virginia. Meade launched a pursuit along different routes hoping to catch his beaten enemy without unduly exposing his own battle-exhausted troops to a devastating counterattack or ambush. Union cavalry moved out after the vulnerable Confederate wagon trains. The encounters that followed—including several engagements with Jeb Stuart’s horsemen—resulted in the loss of hundreds of vehicles, the capture of large numbers of wounded, and the seizure of tons of valuable supplies. The majority of Lee’s wagons reached Williamsport, Maryland, only to find the pontoon bridge had been cut loose by Union troops. Lee’s army, meanwhile, reached Hagerstown, Maryland, largely unscathed and erected a strong defensive line while racing to build a pontoon bridge across the swollen Potomac at Falling Waters. Even as Meade hurriedly pursued Lee, he sought opportunities to launch an attack that might crush Lee’s army—and even end the war—once and for all. Bradley M. Gottfried and Linda I. Gottfried share the high-stakes story of Gettysburg’s aftermath in Race to the Potomac: Lee and Meade After Gettysburg, July 4–14, 1863.

Even before the guns fell silent at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee was preparing for the arduous task of getting his defeated army back safely into Virginia. It was an enormous, complex, and exceedingly dangerous undertaking, told here in exciting fashion by Bradley M. Gottfried and Linda I. Gottfried in Race to the Potomac: Lee and Meade after Gettysburg, July 4-14, 1863, the latest Emerging Civil War series entry. General Lee's first major decision was the assembly of two wagon trains, one to transport the wounded and the other to deliver the tons of supplies acquired by the army as it roamed across Pennsylvania and Maryland on the way to Gettysburg. Once the wagons trains were set, he mapped out routes for his infantry and artillery on different roads to speed the journey and protect his command. Unsure of his opponent's next move, George Meade, the victor of Gettysburg, dispatched Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's VI Corps on a reconnaissance-in-force. The thrust found the Confederate infantry in full retreat; Meade finally had the confirmation he needed that Lee was heading back to Virginia. Meade decided to launch a pursuit along different routes hoping to catch his beaten enemy without unduly exposing his own troops to a devastating counterattack or ambush. Union cavalry moved out after the vulnerable Confederate wagon trains, and the encounters that followed, including several engagements with Jeb Stuart's horsemen, resulted in the loss of hundreds of vehicles and the capture of large numbers of wounded and tons of valuable supplies. The majority of Lee's wagons reached Williamsport, Maryland, only to find the pontoon bridge gone--cut loose by Union troops in the area. Lee's army reached Hagerstown, Maryland, largely unscathed and began building a strong defensive line while a pontoon bridge was built across the Potomac at Falling Waters. Meade refused to rush headlong against attack Lee's new position, and the Confederates began crossing the river on the night of July 13-14. The last of Lee's troops crossed on the morning of the 14th, thus ending the high-stakes drama of the "race to the Potomac."

This is the history of American whitewater canoeing and kayaking, tracing the evolution of whitewater padding through the people, rivers and events of the last 60 years. Covers wood/canvas canoes and folding kayaks to composites and plastics, from slalom and squirt to rodeo and extreme boating.

“A fascinating account” of the secret Virginia facility code-named PO Box 1142, where the US gathered intelligence and interrogated German prisoners (Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International). About fifteen miles south of Washington, DC, Fort Hunt, Virginia is a green open space enjoyed by residents. But not so long ago, it was the site of one of the highest-level clandestine operations of World War II. Shortly after the US entered the war, the military realized it had to work on exploiting any advantages it might gain on the Axis Powers. One part of this endeavor was to establish a secret facility not too close to—but also not too far from—the Pentagon, which would interrogate and eavesdrop on the highest-level Nazi prisoners and also translate and analyze captured German war documents. That complex was established at Fort Hunt, known by the code name: PO Box 1142. The American servicemen who did the interrogating and translating were young, bright, hardworking, and absolutely dedicated to their work. Many of them were Jews who’d escaped Nazi Germany as children—some had come to America with their parents, others had escaped alone, but their experiences, and what they’d been forced to leave behind, meant they had personal motivation to do whatever they could to defeat Nazi Germany. They were perfect for the difficult and complex job at hand. They never used corporal punishment in interrogations of German soldiers but developed and deployed dozens of tricks to gain information. The Allies won the war against Hitler for a host of reasons, discussed in hundreds of volumes. This is the first book to describe the intelligence operations at PO Box 1142 and their part in that success. It will never be known how many American lives were spared, or whether the war ended sooner with the programs at Fort Hunt, but it’s doubtless that they made a difference—and gave the young Jewish men stationed there the chance to combat the evil that had befallen them and their families. “Fills a gap in World War II intelligence history by documenting the origins of a number of European Theater intelligence successes thanks to the work of Ft. Hunt interrogators.” —Studies in Intelligence Includes photographs

The third installment of this award-winning Civil War series offers a vivid and authoritative chronicle of Meade and Lee’s conflict after Gettysburg. The Eastern Theater of the Civil War during the late summer and fall of 1863 was anything but inconsequential. Generals George Meade and Robert E. Lee clashed in cavalry actions and pitched battles that proved that the war in Virginia was far decided at Gettysburg. Drawing on official reports, regimental histories, letters, newspapers, and other archival sources, Jeffrey Wm Hunt sheds much-needed light on this significant period in Meade and Lee at Rappahannock Station. After Gettysburg, the Richmond War Department sent James Longstreet and two divisions from Lee’s army to reinforce Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. Washington followed suit by sending two of Meade’s corps to reinforce William Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland. Despite his weakened state, Lee launched a daring offensive that drove Meade back but ended in a bloody defeat at Bristoe Station on October 14th. What happened next is the subject of Meade and Lee at Rappahannock Station, a fast-paced and dynamic account of Lee’s bold strategy to hold the Rappahannock River line. Hunt provides a day-by-day, and sometimes minute-by-minute, account of the Union army’s first post-Gettysburg offensive action and Lee’s efforts to repel it. In addition to politics, strategy, and tactics, Hunt examines the intricate command relationships, Lee’s questionable decision-making, and the courageous spirit of the fighting men.

From the Kennedy administration through the end of the Reagan era, the Potomac Institute gave vital, behind-the-scenes support to countless public-and-private-sector initiatives related to equal opportunity, urban social problems, and race relations. Part history and part memoir of Harold C. Fleming, the institute's leader, The Potomac Chronicle tells for the first time how the institute served as a creative broker of talent, ideas, and resources among minorities, activists, and interest groups. Owing to Fleming's dedication, coolheadedness, and low-key approach, no other such organization was as well linked to—and as trusted by—both government policymakers and southern civil rights leaders. In the context of major national trends and events, The Potomac Chronicle tells of the institute's role in the Kennedy administration's civil rights policy debates, in helping the Defense Department set up what would become model guidelines for civil rights compliance by federal contractors, and in informing, educating, and reassuring Americans about Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights Act. Other accomplishments discussed include the institute's involvement in forming the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, tying civil rights requirements to government programs and private practices in education, housing, and employment, and, in the years before it closed in 1988, helping defend affirmative action.