History of the First Maine Cavalry 1861-1865

Boston: The First Maine Cavalry Association and Emery & Hughes, 1887. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Fair/No DJ present. xix, [3], 732, [4] pages. Marbled endpapers. Frontis Illustration. Illustrations. Occasional footnotes. Roster. Insert about the publisher (single sheet printed on one side). Cover worn and soiled. Some front board weakness. Substantial rear board weakness and it has been restrengthened with glue. Edward Parsons Tobie, Jr. (March 19, 1838 - January 21, 1900) was a United States soldier who received his nation's highest award for bravery during combat, the U.S. Medal of Honor, while fighting with the Union Army during the American Civil War as a sergeant-major with the 1st Maine Volunteer Cavalry. According to his Medal of Honor citation, despite having been severely wounded during the Battle of Sailor's Creek, Virginia on April 6, 1865 and again at Farmville on April 7, he refused hospitalization, choosing instead to remain with his regiment in order to perform the duties of the 1st Maine's regimental adjutant who had recently fallen in combat. Those duties included services rendered by Tobie at Appomattox. Sometime during the 1870s, Tobie was appointed as the historian of his former Civil War regiment, which had been reconstituted as the First Maine Cavalry Association, and charged with researching and writing that regiment's history. The result was the 1887 publication of History of the First Maine Cavalry 1861-1865. Includes a single sheet noting that the printer was a member of the regiment, offered good prices, and encouraged members to patronize this printer. The 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment was a volunteer United States cavalry unit from Maine used during the American Civil War. The regiment was organized in Augusta, Maine, on October 31, 1861, and served for three years. The original members were detached from the regiment on September 15, 1864, when their service was up, and mustered out back in Portland on November 25. Later recruits, along with the Maine men of the 1st District of Columbia Cavalry (men recruited in the Augusta, Maine area between January and March 1864 and consolidated into seven companies) and those who chose to reenlist, were retained in the regiment. The regiment's mustered out at Petersburg, Virginia, on August 1, 1865.