Item #3634 King & Baird’s Edition Zouave Light Infantry Tactics.

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King & Baird’s Edition Zouave Light Infantry Tactics.

Philadelphia: King & Baird, [1861]. Illustrated broadside printed in red and blue, 36" x 23.5"

A rare and visually striking broadside advertising a tactics book for Zouave soldiers at the outset of the Civil War.

This bold and patriotically colored poster advertises an 1861 edition of The Zouave's Light Infantry Tactics, by J. H. DeWitt and revised by John M. Gosline. DeWitt was a member of the 72nd Regiment, known for its organizer and leader, DeWitt Clinton Baxter, and for having volunteers from almost every fire company in Philadelphia—as "Baxter's Fire Zouaves." It depicts a Union Zouave soldier, outfitted in the characteristic short jacket and flowing pantaloons and poised, with determined intensity, over his fatally overpowered Confederate opponent.

Originally designating a class of light infantry regiments that began in North Africa in the 1830s, the ethos and style of Zouaves swept the western world and inspired one young Colonel, Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth, to train the Chicago National Guard Cadets in the loose, agile tactics and maneuvers practiced by the Zouave soldiers in Algeria. His drill team, with its exotic dress and unusual routine, became nationally famous and sparked a Zouave craze throughout the Union and, to a lesser extent, in the Confederacy. Baxter's Fire Zouaves—the 172nd Infantry Regiment of the Philadelphia Brigade—fought with the Army of the Potomac in several major battles, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, where they were instrumental in the defense against Pickett's Charge. The inconvenience and expense of Zouave attire precipitated, by the end of the Civil War, a return to standard uniforms.

This broadside is not recorded in OCLC, and the book itself is also quite scarce, with just two copies recorded.

REFERENCES: Taylor, Frank H., Philadelphia in the Civil War, 1861–1865, pp. 91-92.

CONDITION: Good, repairs on verso at folds, half-dollar size brown stain and smaller stain in upper margin, faint offsetting, tack holes in upper corners.

Item #3634

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