123 Quotes by Nathaniel Philbrick

In 1634, smallpox and influenza ravaged both the Indians and the English in the region. William Brewster, whose family had managed to survive the first terrible winter unscathed, lost two daughters, Fear and Patience, now married to Isaac Allerton and Thomas Prence, respectively.

Without the discovery of Arnold’s treason in the fall of 1780, the american people might never have been forced to realize that the real threat to their liberties came not from without but from within.

Soon after, Tom, all of twenty years old, became the only soldier in the Civil War to win two Medals of Honor. In.

Atrocities were expected in both European and Native conflicts. And yet, the English had to admit that compared to what was typical of European wars, the Indians had conducted themselves with surprising restraint.

Hindsight has a way of corrupting people’s memories, inviting them to view a past event not as it actually occurred but as they wished it had occurred given the ultimate result.

Only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out.

That Church according to Church is too brave, too cunning, and too good to be true is beside the point. America was destined to become a nation of self-fashioned and self-promoting men. What makes his story so special, I believe, is that he shows us how the nightmare of wilderness warfare might one day give rise to a society that promises liberty and justice for all.

How much of assumed national and personal character comes from the fact that we have never truly known need to the point of having our character tested? Willing conscientious objectors underwent controlled starvation and confirmed how quickly it impacts the initiative and generosity we like to think of as “American” characteristics.

By the 1770s, the Teton Sioux had overrun the Arikara, or Ree, on the Missouri River and made it as far west as the Black Hills, where they quickly ousted the Kiowa and the Crows. Over the next hundred years the Sioux continued to expand their territory, eventually forcing the Crows to retreat all the way to the Bighorn River more than two hundred miles to the west, while also carrying on raids to the north and south against the Assiniboine, Shoshone, Pawnee, Gros Ventre, and Omaha.