WAR TALKS OF CONFEDERATE VETERAN

Petersburg, Va: Fenn & Owe, 1892. [2],xxiv,335,[5]pp. including two pages of errata, plus frontispiece, twenty plates, and three maps (two folding). Original grey pictorial cloth, spine gilt. Cloth a bit faded and rubbed, corners and spine ends worn. Front blank leaf coming loose. Internally quite clean except for tanning where advertisement was laid in. Contemporary gift inscription on verso of frontispiece. Bookplate on front pastedown, eight page prospectus laid in. Very good. A collection of testimonials and reports about the Civil War, by eyewitnesses and Confederate veterans. "It is a series of graphic sketches of war experience and adventure, and stirring descriptions of how battles and campaigns were lost and won. It is a page from the romance of history, telling her story through the lips of the participants, and more thrillingly and truthfully than is possible in general when it is told at second hand." - Baltimore SUN, Feb. 10, 1893. The Defense of Petersburg and The Battle of the Crater are discussed in particular detail, supplemented by folding maps; the plates are mostly portraits of the soldiers presenting their stories. Also laid in to this copy is a contemporary advertisement for the book which contains a variety of testimonials from papers, publishers, and soldiers, along with an address with ordering instructions.

This copy bears the bookplate of Charles B. Allen on the front pastedown. Allen was a West Point and Yale graduate who was an active service member in the South Pacific during World War II and aided the Department of Commerce with logistics during the Korean War. He eventually settled in Connecticut, where he was president of the Waterbury Chapter of the National Accountants Association and was active in CT politics, particularly in Waterbury and Watertown. The gift inscription is to another member of the Allen family, and predates Charles by a few years. NEVINS I, p.58. DORNBUSCH III, p.399. WRIGHT, COMPENDIUM OF THE CONFEDERACY B633.