Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler

Joseph Alexander Altsheler was born on April 29, 1862, in Three Springs, Kentucky. In 1888, he became a reporter, then editor at a newspaper in Louisville, then began working for New York World in 1892 as a Hawaiian correspondent. In 1888, he married Sarah Boles and they had one son. Because of a shortage of stories, Altsheler began writing children's stories for a magazine. Eventually, he began writing short stories and novels in 1895, completing...

"The Free Rangers, a Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi" is a 1909 historical novel written by Joseph A. Altsheler. The fifth novel in the "The Young Trailers Series", this exciting adventure romp in the American Old West is highly recommended for children with an interest in history and is not to be missed by collectors of classic Western fiction. Joseph Alexander Altsheler (1862 – 1919) was an American journalist, editor and author...

Excerpt: "It would soon be Christmas and Harry Kenton, at his desk in the Pendleton Academy, saw the snow falling heavily outside. The school stood on the skirt of the town, and the forest came down to the edge of the playing field. The great trees, oak and ash and elm, were clothed in white, and they stood out a vast and glittering tracery against the somber sky."

"The Sword of Antietam" tells a complete story, but it is one in the chain of Civil War romances, begun in "The Guns of Bull Run" and continued through "The Guns of Shiloh" and "The Scouts of Stonewall." The young Northern hero, Dick Mason, and his friends are in the forefront of the tale.