Murphy's interest in history was evident early in his writing career in books such as Weird and Wacky Inventions (1978), Baseball's All-Time Stars (1984), and even The Custom Car Book (1985). It was in the 1990s that he began publishing the complex, heavily illustrated, histories for which he is probably best known. The Boys' War:Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk about the Civil War (1990) features the careful interweaving of firsthand testimony from participants in historical events with Murphy's account of the context in which the events take place that is typical of not only Across America on an Emigrant Train, but The Long Road to Gettysburg (1992), The Great Fire (1995), A Young Patriot: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy (1996), and Gone a-Whaling: The Lure of the Sea and the Hunt for the Great Whale (1998).

Like Across America on an Emigrant Train, A Young Patriot is a biography that...