John Bakeless

Besides reexamining in fresh perspective such well-known figures as Paul Revere, Nathan Hale, Benedict Arnold, and John André, the author, a former general staff intelligence officer in World War II, reveals the exploits and tribulations of scores of other spies: Ann Bates, the Tory agent who spied at Washington's headquarters and who, when fleeing for her life, paused to count American artillery the high-ranking traitor Dr. Benjamin Church, the Continental Army's Director General of Hospitals, caught as a result of a careless mistress Sergeant Major John Champe, who posed as a deserter from the rebel army in order to capture Benedict Arnold and many others. From the plot to kidnap George Washington to the fall of Yorktown, here are the clandestine activities of the spies, counterspies, and double agents who risked life and honor in a silent, anonymous shadow war.

The life story of Daniel Boone, American explorer, pioneer and frontiersman and one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colourful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes a biography of John Bakeless, theme discussions and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom and at home to further engage the reader in the story. The Classics Illustrated comic book series began in 1941 with its first issue, Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers," and has since included over 200 classic tales released around the world. This new CCS Books edition is specifically tailored to engage and educate young readers with some of the greatest works ever written, while still thrilling older readers who have loving memories of this series of old.

When the Atlantic seaboard was winning its Revolution against England, and the new West, undecided which camp to join, hung back, one mane stood out among the scattered handful of pioneers who were opening the great road to the plains… …a stirring blend of biography, Americana, and history restoring in complete, human, authentic detail one of the most thrilling stories in our American past. In pages as exciting as an old dime novel, John Bakeless introduces to us all Daniel Boone—trapper, Indian fighter, contact to the forest people, surveyor of the Dark and Bloody Ground, law-giver to unruly frontier settlers, pathfinder, hunter… a figure already half-legendary in his own time. To explore the legend and recreate reality is John Bakeless’s achievement in this unmatched adult biography of a man and an era. Drawing upon much hitherto unpublished material, he sorts fact and fancy to provide this documented portrait…and at the same time, a stirring chronicle that captures the spirit of these uniquely America,

In 1803, when the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France (for a scant $15 million), it doubled the size of the young country. Stretching north from New Orleans to the Canadian border and westward from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, the area contained over 800,000 square miles. That same year, President Thomas Jefferson designated two young men -- Meriweather Lewis and William Clark -- as leaders of an expedition to explore this vast new acquisition, as well as other lands of the West. In the spring of 1804, the two men and an intrepid band of hunters, carpenters, gunsmiths, and blacksmiths, known as the "Corps of Discovery," embarked on a perilous journey that would truly give meaning to the term "Wild West." In this exciting, action-packed young reader's edition, based on the author's acclaimed earlier study of the two great American explorers, historian John Bakeless chronicles the daily challenges these men faced -- from encounters with indigenous people, snake-infested waterways, prairie fires, floods, heat, and thirst, to illness, famine, and frigid mountain passes. The result is a saga of epic proportions, an amazing story of courage and determination sure to delight readers with its authenticity and vivid, dramatic style. It's a "thrilling account of one of the most magnificent expeditions in all history . . . absorbing and inspirational from start to finish." -- New York Times Book Review.

In his introduction to this edition of Daniel Boone: Master of the Wilderness, Michael A. Lofaro, a professor of English at the University of Tennessee and the author of The Life and Adventures of Daniel Boone, assesses John Bakeless's achievement: ""After fifty years his is still the standard by which all other biographies of the frontiersman are judged.""