May 11th, 2012
The Carolina regions of the United States of America were settled in large numbers during the 18th century by tens of thousands of Ulster-Scots Presbyterians, who left their native shores for reasons of religious persecution and economic deprivation.
In this third volume of the series on the hardy Scots-Irish communities who tamed the wilderness of the American frontier, journalist-author Billy Kennedy heads on a journey from the north of Ireland to the port of Charleston, South Carolina and the Carolina Piedmont, along the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania, through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, into the western highlands of North Carolina and down to the historic Waxhaws, where President Andrew Jackson spent his childhood and early youth.
On this trail of the Scots-Irish in the Carolinas, five American Presidents emerge as direct descendants of the first frontier Carolina settlers. Also, John C. Calhoun, American Vice President for two terms, was the son of an Ulsterman who settled in the Carolina upcountry and literally hauled himself up by his bootlaces from a log cabin to a position as one of the nation’s most influential policy makers.
The culture, political heritage, and legacy of the Scots-Irish so richly adorn the historical fabric of American life. Through this series on the Scots-Irish, people on both sides of the Atlantic may develop an awareness of our illustrious past which will assist them in facing the future with renewed insight and wisdom. The contributions of the Scots-Irish to the building of the great American nation were profound and deserve our full recognition.
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March 20th, 2012
Recounts the long trek of the Scotch-Irish from their adoptive Irish homeland to the mountains of southwestern North Carolina. Focuses on the Scotch-Irish who settled in the present-day North Carolina counties of Buncombe, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, Mitchell, Swain, Transylvania, and Yancey. Graphically describes the religion, occupations, living conditions, social life, and customs of these migrants.
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March 7th, 2012
This book is a replica, produced from digital images of the original. It was scanned at the University of Toronto Libraries and may contain defects, missing pages or blemishes due to the original source content. The UT libraries have worked with various digital partners to provide the best possible customer experience and hope you enjoy the results.
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January 21st, 2012
More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of Englandâs Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in the eighteenth century, traveling in groups of families and bringing with them not only long experience as rebels and outcasts but also unparalleled skills as frontiersmen and guerrilla fighters. Their cultural identity reflected acute individualism, dislike of aristocracy and a military tradition, and, over time, the Scots-Irish defined the attitudes and values of the military, of working class America, and even of the peculiarly populist form of American democracy itself.
Born Fighting is the first book to chronicle the full journey of this remarkable cultural group, and the profound, but unrecognized, role it has played in the shaping of America. Written with the storytelling verve that has earned his works such acclaim as âcaptivating . . . unforgettableâ (the Wall Street Journal on Lost Soliders), Scots-Irishman James Webb, Vietnam combat veteran and former Naval Secretary, traces the history of his people, beginning nearly two thousand years ago at Hadrianâs Wall, when the nation of Scotland was formed north of the Wall through armed conflict in contrast to Englandâs formation to the south through commerce and trade. Webb recounts the Scotsâ odysseyâtheir clashes with the English in Scotland and then in Ulster, their retreat from one war-ravaged land to another. Through engrossing chronicles of the challenges the Scots-Irish faced, Webb vividly portrays how they developed the qualities that helped settle the American frontier and define the American character.
Born Fighting shows that the Scots-Irish were 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army; they included the pioneers Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston; they were the writers Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain; and they have given America numerous great military leaders, including Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Audie Murphy, and George S. Patton, as well as most of the soldiers of the Confederacy (only 5 percent of whom owned slaves, and who fought against what they viewed as an invading army). It illustrates how the Scots-Irish redefined American politics, creating the populist movement and giving the country a dozen presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. And it explores how the Scots-Irish culture of isolation, hard luck, stubbornness, and mistrust of the nationâs elite formed and still dominates blue-collar America, the military services, the Bible Belt, and country music.
Both a distinguished work of cultural history and a human drama that speaks straight to the heart of contemporary America, Born Fighting reintroduces America to its most powerful, patriotic, and individualistic cultural groupâone too often ignored or taken for granted.
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January 7th, 2012
Dispelling much of what he terms the ‘mythology’ of the Scotch-Irish, James Leyburn provides an absorbing account of their heritage. He discusses their life in Scotland, when the essentials of their character and culture were shaped; their removal to Northern Ireland and the action of their residence in that region upon their outlook on life; and their successive migrations to America, where they settled especially in the back-country of Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, and then after the Revolutionary War were in the van of pioneers to the west.
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