These are some of author Aren Lerner’s favorite research books for writing Beneath Old Glory. (They are all good reads in general too!)

The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West: 1840-1900, by Candy Vyvey Moulton (Writer’s Digest Books; 1st edition, March 1999).

Frontier Children, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith. (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002)

Covered Wagon Women, Volumes 1-11: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, by Kenneth L. Holmes and other authors (Bison Books, 1995 and on).

Pioneer Women: The Lives of Women on the Frontier, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith. (University of Oklahoma, 1998).

Children of the Western Plains: The Nineteenth Century Experience, by Marilyn Irvin Holt. (Irvin R. Dee, 2003).

Children of the West: Family Life on the Frontier, by Cathy Luchetti. (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001).

The American West: Living the Frontier Dream, by James R. Arnold and Roberta Wiener. (London: Blandford, 1996).

Settling the West 1860-1895 (The American Story), by Time-Life Books. (Time Life Education, 1996).

The Prairie Traveler: A Handbook for Overland Expeditions, by Captain Randolph B. Marcy. (Applewood Books, reprint of original 1859 edition).

Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier, by Joanna L. Stratton. (Simon & Schuster, 1981).

They Fought for the Union, by Francis Alfred Lord. (Stackpole Company, 1960).

Unconditional Surrender: U. S. Grant and the Civil War, by Albert Marrin. (Atheneum, 1994).

Virginia’s General: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War, by Albert Marrin. (Atheneum, 1994).

Daily Life in Civil War America, by Dorothy Denneen Volo and James M. Volo. (Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press, 1998).

Mary’s World: Love, War, and Family Ties in Nineteen-century Charleston, by Richard Cote. (Corinthian Books, 2003).

All for the Union: The Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, by Elisha Hunt Rhodes. (Vintage Civil War Library, 1992).

The Townsmen, by the editors of Time-Life Books.

The Miners, as above. (1976).

The Indians, as above. (1973).

The Pioneers, as above. (1974).

The Cowboys, as above. (1973).

The Reservations, as above. (1995).

The Soldiers, as above. (1973).

Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, by Mary Boykin Chestnut. (Yale University Press, 1993).

Pioneer Girl: Growing Up on the Prairie, by Andrea Warren. (HarperTrophy, 2000).

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, by James M. McPherson. (Oxford University Press, 2003).

For Cause and Comrades, by James M. McPherson. (Oxford University Press,1997).

Letters of a Civil War Nurse 1863-1865, by Cornelia Hancock. (Bison Books, 1998).

Tenting Tonight: The Soldier’s Life, by James Robertson. (Time Life Books, 1984).

War on the Frontier, by Alvin Josephy. (Time Life Books, 1994).

Kansas Guard Museum website/historic guard unit page: http://www.kansasguardmuseum.org/units.php

The Virginia Housewife (aka The Methodical Cook), by Mary Randolph, includes 1860’s recipes, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12519