USA

Arnold Whitridge on the former Senator from Mississippi, who led the Government of the South during the Civil War in the United States.

It is not the least tragedy of a tragic life that Lincoln was obliged to face the most terrible decision of all, before he had grown to the full height of his Presidential stature. 

In the autumn of 1776 Benedict Arnold, whose name in American annals is now synonymous with treachery, saved the embattled Colonies from a crushing British-Canadian blow by his gallant naval delaying action upon the waters of Lake Champlain. By John A. Barton.

It fell to Shelburne in his public offices to wrestle with the problems of the American colonies. During his Prime Ministership in 1782-83, writes W.O. Simpson, Shelburne concluded the treaty of peace that recognized their independence.

Twenty years after the Declaration of Independence, writes Louis C. Kleber, the Americans, now at peace with Britain, were involved in tortuous negotiations with the Directory of the French Republic.

Besides La Fayette, writes Arnold Whitridge, many French volunteers joined the American forces to fight for a freedom they had not yet won in France.

G.G. Hatheway describes how British-Canadian and American companies entered upon a nineteenth century contest in transatlantic crossings.

Thomas J. Brady offers a study of a fashionable photographer who became the great visual recorder of the American Civil War.

Arnold Whitridge introduces a musician, a financier, and a playwright who was also a secret agent; Beaumarchais believed in the success of American arms, and organized a flow of supplies and munitions from France to the hard-pressed colonists.

Astonished by the hustle of American life, and awed by the immensity of the country, Richard L. Rapson describes how visitors from Britain returned home both chastened and invigorated.