Uncommon American Imprints from David M. Lesser Antiquarian Books

David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books has issued their Catalogue 205 of Rare Americana – A Catalogue of Significant and Unusual Imprints Relating To America. Offered are antiquarian items, 19^th century or earlier. We primarily find broadsides and documents, concentrated in the 19^th century. We see a young America trying to deal with its own problems while making its mark on the world. Here are a few examples.

The American Revolution ended in a glorious victory...for the Americans. It came to an end with the ignominious defeat of the Redcoats at Yorktown. General Henry Clinton was in charge of the overall campaign while General Cornwallis directed the troops at Yorktown. When it was all over, they both jumped up and took responsibility for the defeat. Not. They engaged in a pamphlet war blaming each other. Item 27 is The Narrative of Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, K.B. Relative to His conduct During Part of His Command of the King's Troops in North America; Particularly that which Respects the Unfortunate Issue of the Campaign of 1781. It is bound with An Answer to that Part of the Narrative of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton which Relates to the Conduct of Lieutenant-General Earl Cornwallis... You can read the back and forth and reach your own conclusion as to who was at fault, but perhaps it would be more accurate to put the blame on the King and Parliament for thoroughly offending the colonists and then trying to subdue them from an ocean away. Add to that the colonists' assistance from the French Navy and the British generals were dealt a bad hand. Priced at $950.

There was not much good about the Civil War other than the final outcome, the end of slavery. Andersonville was an extreme example of the horrors of war. It was a Confederate prison camp for Union soldiers. Four times the number of people it was designed to hold were crammed in. As many as 45,000 prisoners were held inside, 13,000 of whom died from the unsanitary conditions, disease, insufficient food and water. Item 5 is an elephant folio print of the prison with info about it in the margins. It was taken from a pencil sketch by Felix de la Baume, a Union sergeant held in the prison from July 9, 1864 – April 19, 1865. Seven small insets depict prisoners, including the lithographer of this image, John W. January, and S.H. Nelson, who Baume said was stomped to death by the head of the prison, Henry Wirz. The depiction of Andersonville is headed by the words, Let Us Forgive, But Not Forget. $2,000.

Of all the people who turned on their country and joined the Confederacy, a cause that led to the deaths of an estimated 360,000 Union soldiers, only one paid for his actions with his life. That was the aforementioned Henry Wirz. Here is an account of his trial that was sent to Congress. The title is Trial of Henry Wirz. Letter from the Secretary of War ad interim, in Answer to a Resolution of the House of April 16, 1866, Transmitting a Summary of the Trial of Henry Wirz. A Harper's Weekly publication of photographs of prisoners at Andersonville stirred up public sentiment for those responsible to be punished. Wirz, being in charge of the prison, was the obvious target for public wrath. He was hanged on November 10, 1865. Item 134. $500.

Lincoln didn't have much support from living U.S. Presidents when he was elected. Buchanan had been more than accommodating to every southern demand, Pierce was more sympathetic to the South than to the North, and even Van Buren, who headed the Free Soil Party in 1848, favored the more southern-accommodating Stephen Douglas in the 1860 election. The only living southern ex-President, John Tyler, became an official in the Confederate government. Only Millard Fillmore had been supportive of Lincoln's policies, so his actions in 1864 must have been very disappointing to the then President. Fillmore endorsed his opponent, George McClellan. Item 46 is a broadside of a letter Fillmore sent to the Copperhead-filled Keystone Club shortly before the 1864 election. He claims, “Everything seems to have been done to unite and exasperate the South and intensify its hatred to the North, so as to render union impossible...Our country is on the verge of ruin, and unless policy which governs our national affairs can be changed, we must soon end in national bankruptcy and military despotism.” He goes on to say the only remedy is a change in administration. Fillmore didn't get a lot right and this was no exception. Item 46. $850.

This is really wrong. It is the Message of President Jeff. Davis, in the Charleston Daily Courier - 1 May 1861, announcing the ratification of the Confederate Constitution, the commencement of hostilities, and the purpose of the war. Davis begins by saying it is his “pleasing duty” to announce the ratification of the constitution. He then blames the war on Lincoln, saying “...all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms.” Speaking of subjugation, Davis may not have wanted to be subjugated, but he went to war to subjugate others. There has been some revisionism to the effect that the Civil War was not about slavery, but Davis clears that up. He explains, “Under the supervision of a superior race their labor had been so directed as not only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition, but to convert hundreds of thousands of square miles of the wilderness into cultivated lands covered with a prosperous people; towns and cities had sprung into existence, and had rapidly increased in wealth and population under the social system of the South; the white population of the Southern slaveholding States had augmented from about 1,250,000 at the date of the adoption of the Constitution to more than 8,500,000 in 1860; and the productions of the South in cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, for the full development and continuance of which the labor of African slaves was and is indispensable, had swollen to an amount which formed nearly three-fourths of the exports of the whole United States and had become absolutely necessary to the wants of civilized man.” They forced hard labor for no pay, and brutalized a people so they could have all of this wealth and prosperity, and Davis refers to them as the “civilized man?” Emancipation couldn't have come too soon. Item 34. $2,000.

David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books may be reached at 203-389-8111 or dmlesser@lesserbooks.com. Their website is www.lesserbooks.com.