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Nice thread. Leech also did a book on Washington, DC during the Civil War, Reveille in Washington. I learned a lot of my history from reading Matthew Josephson, but don't imagine his conspiracy theories have held up very well (one of the risks in his muckraking trade is that people actually take his villains as heroes -- the creatures from Wall Street and Jekyll Island being far more exciting than the pious farmer, unfortunate immigrant or suffering widow). It's going back a long way but what about Thomas Beer on Hanna and The Mauve Decade? Constance Rourke was also a delight writing about the American Victorians in The Trumpets of Jubilee.

Freeman's Lee is more a work of mythology or hagiography than a reliable biography. Its inclusion on the list looks like a sop to the mint julep school. The Education of Henry Adams is a classic. Certainly worthy, but doesn't it deserve to be knocked off its pedestal every once in a while? By contrast, Adams's books on History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison are undiscovered and underappreciated classics. At their great length they are likely to remain unappreciated and unread (or at least unfinished), but it's good to see Adams try to say something solid, rather than simply hint at this or that conclusion or throw up his hands and sigh over his era.

I wish I could add some great biographical milestone here. Maybe Richard Brookhiser's recent books on Washington and other founders might qualify. Or Benjamin Thomas's Lincoln. My own favorite biographies were about more recent and troubled Presidents: the Roosevelts, Wilson, Harding, JFK, LBJ, RMN. Fascinating reading, but hardly what you'd give to kids to inspire them, anymore than you'd want them taking Hamlet, Othello or Macbeth as role models.