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Civil War and Reconstruction |
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The Drafter of the 14th Amendment Quotes Abolitionist Congressman Thaddeus Stevens
STEPHEN NEAL,
Autograph Note Signed. 1 p., 8¼ x 4¼ in.
Item #23151, $1,200
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A Map of the Baruch College Area of New York City
ALEXANDER STEWART WEBB,
Autograph Letter Signed “Webb,” as President of City College of New York, to General F.A. Walker. New York, N.Y. March 20, 1888. 3 pp., 8⅜ x 13 in. With holograph map.
Stewart sending thanks, urging General Walker to visit.
Item #22259, $1,250
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Jefferson Davis’ Hope for a Future Union Based on Confederate Principles
JEFFERSON DAVIS,
Autograph Letter Signed, “Jefferson Davis”, to Mr. Clegg, Beauvoir, Mississippi, September 3, 1885. 2 pages.
Davis expresses his hope for a future Union based on Confederate principles: “…The sentiment to which you refer as ‘common,’ is I hope the utterance of time serving self seekers, rather than of the people who dared and did and sacrificed so much for principle, and the rights their Fathers left them. I trust your four boys will imbibe the patriotism of their Father and when in the fullness of time the restoration shall come that they may enjoy the blessings of liberty and community independence which the Constitution of the Union was designed to secure. With this I enclose the autograph for which you asked…”
After the North’s retreat from Reconstruction, Davis’s vision of individual rights, limited government, and white racial superiority still held great sway in the South.
Item #7543, $3,900
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William T. Sherman Talks Politics, Religion, and Princeton-Yale Football with a Suitor
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN,
Five Autograph Letters Signed to Mrs. Mary Audenried, widow of Sherman’s former Chief of Staff. 18 pages, April 21, 1885 – February 8, 1887.
“Rachel went to Princeton last week. Thanksgiving Day – to witness the ball play – the day was horrid and she has been under the weather ever since having taken cold.”
Sherman, during an affair with a young widow, advises her on handling her teenage daughter: “Let her play her own game…Tell her to take her own way and you choose yours. If she becomes a nun she can do no harm and is dead to the world” while criticizing the power of the Catholic Church. He also muses about his own mortality, complains that he “shall not stay long” at his Senator-brother John’s home because “there is too much politics there to suit my taste,” and relates that his daughter caught a cold at the Yale-Princeton Thanksgiving Day football game.
Item #20856, $9,000
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Civil War Hero David Dixon Porter Expresses Support for the Chinese in a Time of Hostility
DAVID DIXON PORTER,
Autograph Letter Signed, to “Reverend Dr. Newman.” Washington, D.C., March 14, 1879. 3 pp., 5 x 8 in.
“As you and I have both expressed friendly sentiments towards the citizens of the Flowery Kingdom, we may hope to be in high favor should we live till that time.”
Item #22730, $950
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Mary Lincoln’s Signed Copy of The Life of Marie Antoinette Queen of France
MARY LINCOLN,
Signed Book. “Mary Lincoln. / 1878,” in her copy of Charles Duke Yonge, The Life of Marie Antoinette Queen of France, 2d rev. ed. (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1877), xvi, 432 pp., 8vo. bound in tooled purple cloth boards with titled spine. A carte-de-visite portrait of Mary Lincoln has been affixed to the front free endpaper.
“she bore her accumulated miseries with a serene resignation, an intrepid fortitude, a true heroism of soul, of which the history of the world does not afford a brighter example.”
Item #24759, $5,000
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Seesaw - Gloucester, MA - Drawn by Winslow Homer
[HARPER’S WEEKLY],
Newspaper. Harper’s Weekly, September 12, 1874.
Item #H-9-12-1874, $295
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Franklin Buchanan Sends His Autograph – The First Commander of CSS Virginia and the Confederacy’s Only Full Admiral
FRANKLIN BUCHANAN,
Autograph Letter Signed, to John Neafie, April 25, 1874. 1 p., 5 x 8 in.
“The only public office I have held since the war was the Presidency of the Maryland Agricultural College which I resigned at the expiration of the first year…”
More than a decade after its destruction, the first commander of the CSS Virginia responds to a request for an autograph. On March 8, 1862, Captain Franklin Buchanan and the crew of the CSS Virginia gave the U.S. Navy its worst defeat to that point, and not eclipsed until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor nearly eighty years later. Wounded during the battle, Buchanan did not participate in the second day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, when the USS Monitor confronted the CSS Virginia in an hours-long battle of the ironclads.
Item #24006.03, $450
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Jewish Physician Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen Signs a Death Certificate
[JUDAICA]. JACOB DA SILVA SOLIS-COHEN,
Partially Printed Document Signed, Death Certificate for H. M. Richards, ca. October 10, 1873, Philadelphia, Pa. 1 p., 8¼ x 10½ in.
Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen served in the Civil War and went on to become a pioneer in the field of head and neck diseases and surgery.
Item #22402, $275
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Civil War Veteran and Photographer Writes His Wife about the Devastating Chicago Fire
[GREAT CHICAGO FIRE]. THOMAS BLAIR WILSON,
Autograph Letter Signed, to his wife Mary R. Wilson, October 20, 1871, Washington, Illinois. 4 pp., 5 x 8 in.
“I suppose you have ere long this heard of the destruction of the city of Chicago. 20,000 houses burned and 200 to 300,000,000 dollars loss It was the biggest fire on record Gid Hornish lost about 75 dollars by Insurance Companies breaking up since the great Chicago fire. The Company I am insured in, has gone up the spout.”
Item #24481, ON HOLD
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Membership Certificate to the Naval Library and Institute for Lt. Cmdr. George Dewey
[GEORGE DEWEY],
Printed Document. A lithographed membership certificate to the Naval Library and Institute. Signed by Charles Steedman, President, & witnessed twice by Oliver L. Fisher. Navy Yard, Boston, Mass October 15, 1871. 11½ x 16½ in.
Item #22023.01, $750
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A Georgia Man Writes from Frederic City, Maryland, Hoping to Liberate Some ‘greenies’ from the “Hamites or the ‘freedmen’” Celebrating Passage of the “dirty 15th Amendment”
THOMAS FAYETTE,
Autograph Letter Signed, to “Dearest cousin Mattie & Co.,” Frederic County, Maryland, June 3, 1870, 4 pp. 7¾ x 9¾ in.
The Fifteenth Amendment provides that voting rights could not be based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude (slavery). It was ratified by enough states to become part of the Constitution on February 3, 1870. Maryland rejected it on February 26, 1870 – but finally did ratify it on May 7,1973.
Item #22490, $375
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A Huge Print of the Great Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON,
Photograph. Mammoth Plate Albumen print, approximately 15 x 19 in. Mounted on original light card board approximately 19 x 24 in. Board worn, some cracks not touching print; minor staining in image area. “William Lloyd Garrison” printed on mount inder image. c. 1870s
An image of an older Garrison, as he appeared after his life’s work of abolition had been successfully completed.
Item #22464, $2,000
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Fisk University Co-Founder John Ogden Asks Merriam Publishers if the Gift of a Pictorial Dictionary Was Meant for Him or the University
JOHN OGDEN,
Autograph Letter Signed, to George and Charles Merriam. Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 18, 1869. 1 p., 8½ x 5¼ in. On Fisk University letterhead.
In this brief note, Ogden thanks the famous Springfield, Massachusetts dictionary publishers the Merriams for a gift of a copy of their Pictorial Dictionary. Ogden references one “Mr. Gamble” as having stated that the volume was intended as a personal gift, but notes that the dictionary has “the name of our institution inscribed upon, or rather in it, from which I infer you intended it for the institution.” He then asks the Merriams to “decide the quarrel.”
Item #24172.01-.02, $550
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“General Grants election has brought such actual Peace, that there is not a part of a peg even, to hang an excitement on”
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN,
Autograph Letter, to an unnamed general. Annapolis, Maryland, December 8, 1868. 2 pp., quarto. Sherman originally wrote this content as part of a longer letter; he marked this leaf “copy” and ends it with marks that show this section to be complete.
Sherman turns down an invitation to a “Grand Reunion of the Western Armies at Chicago.”
Item #23562.02, $1,650
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President Andrew Johnson’s Copy of “New-York Daily Tribune” Detailing Proposed Regulations for Alaska
[ALASKA],
Newspaper. New-York Tribune, July 17, 1868. Featuring the terms of the “Aliaska” Bill as passed by the Senate. Copy belonging to President Andrew Johnson. New York: Horace Greeley. 8 pp., 18 x 23¾ in.
This copy is stamped “THE PRESIDENT” at the top of the front page, indicating it belonged to President Andrew Johnson. The President would have read this copy of the act before Congress submitted it to him with some amendments on July 25. The report uses the early variant spelling of “Aliaska” for the territory and peninsula.
Item #25042, $2,000
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Lincoln’s First Vice President Mulls His Replacement’s Impeachment Trial
HANNIBAL HAMLIN,
Autograph Letter Signed, to Sidney Perham, May 9, 1868, Bangor, Maine. 2 pp., 5 x 8 in.
“My impression is … that Mr Wade will not offer me any place, if he shall become Prest… You can hardly tell how we all feel humiliated & mortified here at home, that the vote of Mr. F[essenden]. is the subject of bets on the street by gamblers.”
Item #22863.02, $2,200
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“War is a hard master.”
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN,
Autograph Letter Signed, to his foster brother and former General Thomas Ewing Jr. Saint Louis, Missouri, June 30, 1867, 4 pp., quarto.
The Commander of the Department of the Missouri and the future Commanding General of the U.S. Army is not about to show favoritism to family when it comes to duty. He has some stern advice for his younger foster brother, Charley, delivered through his older brother.
Item #23562.01, $1,850
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Responding to Grant’s Postwar Request for a Report of Guns Captured at Fort Donelson, His First Success
[ULYSSES S. GRANT]. FRANKLIN D. CALLENDER,
Manuscript Letter Signed as Lt. Col of Ordnance and Brevet Brigadier General, to Adam Badeau, Grant’s Military Secretary, St. Louis, Arsenal, Mo., August 1, 1866. 2 pp., 7¾ x 9½ in.
Item #22955, $495
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Edwin M. Stanton Portrait, Based on a Photograph by Matthew Brady
[HARPER’S WEEKLY],
Newspaper. Harper’s Weekly, May 26, 1866.
Item #H-5-26-1866, $250
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