Books with author Fred C Kelly

"This fascinating book will make the Civil War come alive with thoughts and feelings of real people." The Midwest Book Review The Civil WAR You Never Knew... Behind the bloody battles, strategic marches, and decorated generals lie more than 100 intensely personal, true stories you haven't heard before. In Best Little Stories from the Civil War, soldiers describe their first experiences in battle, women observe the advances and retreats of armies, spies recount their methods, and leaders reveal the reasoning behind many of their public actions. Fascinating characters come to life, including: Former U.S. Senator Robert Toombs of Georgia, who warned the Confederate cabinet not to fall for Lincoln's trap by firing on reinforcements, thereby allowing Lincoln to claim the South had fired the first shots of the war at Fort Sumter. Brig. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut, who disbanded the 13th Independent Battery, Ohio Light Artillery, scattered its men, gave its guns to other units, and ordered its officers home, accusing all of cowardly performance in battle. Thomas N. Conrad, a Confederate spy operating in Washington, who warned Richmond of both the looming Federal Peninsula campaign in the spring of 1863 and the attack at Fredericksburg later that year. Private Franklin Thomson of Michigan, born as Sarah Emma Edmonds, who fought in uniform for the Union during the war and later was the only female member of the postwar Union Grand Army of the Republic. (20100125)

On December 17, 1903, in a fragile little plane which they had built at home for less than $1,000, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered flights in the history of mankind—and opened the Air Age.Why did these two brothers, mechanics by trade, succeed where trained scientists—working with unlimited funds and the backing of great institutions—had repeatedly failed?In this biography, authorized by Orville Wright and first published in 1943, Fred Kelly separates fact from legend and recreates the dramatic achievements of two men, self-taught inventors, who solved the “impossible” problem of flight.The Wright Brothers is a story of total adventure—the sharp physical adventure of flight in perilously frail machines, and the breathtaking intellectual adventure of minds discovering through tireless research and sudden, brilliant hunches the solution to the “impossible” problem of flight.Fred Kelly is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Wright brothers—their growth, their struggles, their disappointments and their ultimate triumph. For more than thirty years he was a personal friend of Orville Wright and talked with him daily while writing this book. The result is a vivid recreation of the birth and pioneer days of aviation and an intimate, affectionate portrait of two men whose inventive genius changed the world.“A gripping book on a fascinating subject...”—Boston Globe