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• Hanging Henry Gambrill: The Violent Career of Baltimore's Plug Uglies, 1854-1860 [top]
  Written by Tracy Matthew Melton
  First published in 2005 in the United States by The Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore in hardback with dustjacket, 493pp, ISBN 0938420933
  Jacket design by James F. Brisson
  Printed on alkaline paper
  Subject categories:
  1. Political violence-Maryland-Baltimore-History-19th Century
  2. Baltimore (Md.)-Politics and government-19th Century
  3. Baltimore (Md.)-Social conditions-19th Century
  4. Gambrill, Henry C., d. 1859
  5. Nativism-History-19th Century
  6. Murders-Maryland-Baltimore-Biography. I. Title

Contents/Synopsis: On a warm night in September, a number of well-dressed young men started out from a restaurant in Baltimore's west end to serenade newly-wed friends. These were not just any young men, but leaders of Baltimore's most feared "political club", a.k.a the Plug Uglies, whose reputation and exploits were fast spreading across the country. By the time the night was over they had crashed a party; a police officer lay dead in the street; and one of their number-handsome soft-spoken Henry Clay Gambrill-was in jail. This book puts the reader amid the raw colour and mayhem of Baltimore's tumultuous streets as never before; the author has really brought to life the gangs behind the anti-catholic anti-immigrant violence of the 1850s: The Rip Raps, Black Snakes and Blood Tubs; the Regulators, Rough Skins, Double Pumps, and Calithumpians. The author also writes about the New Market Fire Company and their deadly rivals the Mount Vernon Hook and Ladder, whose members paraded under the Plug Ugly banner.

"Country" Thompson, Petty Naff and Arch McAleese lurk and swagger through the pages of this book alongside Crab Ashby, "Ready" Craig, Kitty Chambers, and Boney Lee, assassinating rivals, battling at the polls and even provoking intervention by the US Marines, who were brought in to protect the ballot in the US capital.

As the reader moves through the book, they will see that the Baltimore mayors, Maryland governors and congressmen fully exploited the large and sophisticated gangs in operation, who hid behind an apparently impregnable wall of power, influence and judicial corruption; that is they did until that night of the 6th September when a crime and subsequent arrest set in motion a chain of events that led to their betrayal and downfall

About the Author: At the time of publication, Tracy Matthew Melton wrote and taught 19th Century urban history; and lived with his wife and three children in Oakton, Virginia

2006, The Maryland Historical Society, pbk

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• Pioneer America (The History of Human Society Series) [top]
  Written by John R. Alden; and James B. Duke
  Series General Editor: J. H. Plumb
  First published in 1966 in Great Britain by Hutchinson in hardback with dustjacket, 309pp, ISBN 0090798104
  Jacket Design by Ralph Mabey
  Original UK retail price: 50 shillings net

Contents: The epic story of American society, from pre-Colonial times to the end of the Civil War is unfolded here in a swift and sweeping synthesis. John Alden has sought primarily to put the multitudinous facets of the rich and varied past, so often separately studied by others, into a clear and just perspective. He begins with a notable chapter on the American Indians, and then goes on to the English, French, and other pioneers, emphasizing the educaitonal, religious and political heritage each brought from Europe. He presents a swift and lucid picture of the Colonial Period, usually shown as an intricate morass of sectarian bickering.

He puts the American Revolution, the writing of the constitution, and the opportune Louisiana Purchase into the panorama of world history. He shows how the aristocratic federalists were ousted by a second and more democratic revolution, the Jacksonian, and makes clear the powerful social forces at work. As the pioneers moved west, the very foundations of American society were altered. And the Civil War was a crucial social as well as political turning point

Chapters:
List of illustrations and maps
1. The American Indians
2. The English Plantings
3. Jewels of Empire
4. The Colonial Americans
5. The Onset of the Revolution
6. The Revolutionary Climax
7. A New Order
8. A Stronger Union
9. The Federalists in the Saddle
10. The Jeffersonian Republic
11. Over the Appalachians
12. Gentlemen and Democrats in Washington
13. The Peculiar South
14. The American Renaissance
15. The Offensive Against Slavery
16. To The Pacific
17. Toward Tragedy
18. The Union against the Confederacy
19. The Overthrow of the Confederacy
20. Changing America
Essay Upon Authorities
Index

Includes the maps:
1. American Regions
2. British North America After the Seven Years' War
3. Expansion of the United States, 1783-1819
4. American Settlements, 1830
5. American Settlements, 1850
6. The Texan Revolution
7. Division of the Oregon Country
8. Expansion of the United States, 1845-1853
9. The Confederacy

About the Author:
At the time of publication, John R. Alden was James B. Duke Professor of History at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina