![Item #7500 [Autograph letter by a private in the 4th Texas Regiment.]. J. M. Adams](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7500_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1653420076)
A letter written by a Confederate Second Sergeant from Texas to a sweetheart on a range of subjects relating to the Civil War, both Northern and Southern. J. M. Adams enlisted as a private in Company C of the 4th Texas Infantry Regiment in Robertson County, TX on 15 July.....
A vivid letter composed two days after the Great Fire of Belfast, which destroyed over a hundred buildings across some twenty-two acres, comprising an account of the writer’s visit to the city the day after the disaster. Nelson Allen, Esq. (1806–1873) was born and lived in Montville, some eighteen miles.....
A compelling archive of letters, a cabinet photo, and other items relating to Col. Thomas Aspinwall who was U.S. Consul to London, having been appointed by President James Madison and serving in London until his removal by President Franklin Pierce in 1853. These items all date to 1853 and 1854.....
![Item #7526 [Brothers in the 12th Missouri Cavalry write to their parents back home in Missouri.]....](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7526_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1656439259)
An engaging group of six Civil War letters written by two brothers to their parents. Both brothers saw action in the pivotal 1864 Battle of Nashville, and one later died from wounds received there. Born in McDonough County, Illinois, Joseph Gilmer Banning (1843–1908) and Pinkney “Pink” Asa Banning (1845–1865) moved.....
A resonant pair of P. T. Barnum communications addressed to the editor of the New York Herald, correcting the paper’s statement that the majority of animals in his menagerie are stuffed, and including a poignant remark about the beloved and now taxidermied Jumbo the elephant, the most famous circus animal.....
![Item #8146 [With autograph notes] Une maison au bout du monde [The Outermost House]. Henry Beston](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/8146_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1689807662)
First French edition. Includes two signed notes by Beston from 1960 on Chimney Farm notecards. Both addressed to Jasper Jacob Stahl, a historian of Waldoboro, Maine. First note reads “Dear Jasper, Thank you a world for your warm and erudite congratulations. When I saw a letter from you in the.....
Five letters, all written in 1853, supporting future Confederate Brig-Gen. Richard Griffith’s (successful) effort to be appointed U.S. Marshall of Mississippi, including some Mexican War and Jefferson Davis content. A native of Pennsylvania, Richard Griffith (1814–1862) moved to Mississippi around 1840, where he lived until the outbreak of the Mexican.....
![Item #4192 [Archive Relating to the Founding of the Town of Brewer, Maine. Etc.]. Josiah Brewer,...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/4192_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1560462960)
A substantial archive of manuscript documents and letters, many of which relate to the early development of the town of Brewer, Maine and the role of Samuel B. Stone as “father of the town,” with letters concerning the administration and development of land in nearby Eddington, etc. The earliest document.....
![Item #7401 [Autograph letter, signed, by the head of a boarding and day school for young ladies.]...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7401_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1714744145)
A letter by a Southern Catholic widow soliciting support for her school for young women, written soon after the Civil War and shortly before she joined a convent. Addressed to her student “Mary,” this letter written by schoolmistress Adeline Brisbane begs that “your Mother, & Self, will use your influence.....
A letter by the acting president of the Pennsylvania executive council, relaying orders from General Washington for a guard of militia to march British and Hessian prisoners of the Battle of Saratoga—the so-called “Convention Army”— through Pennsylvania on their way from Boston to Virginia. The letter, dated “In Council” and.....
![Item #4898 [Typed letter, signed, from Richard Byrd to Ms. Margaret Attwood.]. Richard E. Byrd](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/4898_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1684874648)
A brief but evocative thank you note by U.S. polar explorer Richard Byrd, regarding a photograph of the first African American Coast Guard officer and their common Arctic vessel, the U.S.S. Bear. The letter reads in full: My dear Miss Attwood, Thank you very much for sending me the photograph.....
![Item #8298 [Boston Silver Company letter archive.] Letters From Colorado [spine-title]. Col....](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/8298.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1694526178)
A rich and extensive archive comprising 117 letters documenting two years of the Boston Silver Mining Company’s operation in Saints John, Colorado, including much content relating to labor and the concurrent mining boom in Leadville, Colorado. The bulk of these letters are written by a company manager, who ran the.....
A pair of letters from a young man in the new silver-mining boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona to his father, reporting on recent experiences in Tuscon as well as in his new home, including getting married, getting “swindled” (twice), and running a store on a tight margin. The first of these.....
An intriguing letter by a renowned archaeologist and numismatist reporting on his effort to obtain the text of the inscriptions on the Roman crabs that once supported Cleopatra’s Needle, evidently in connection with the creation of a medal commemorating the installation of the obelisk in Central Park. Likely addressed to.....
A brief but interesting letter from an important period in US–Indian relations, with mention of William Clark. George Gibson, then the Commissary General of Subsistence responsible for feeding the military, informs Lieutenant A.M. Wright that “deputation of Indians amounting to 28 persons will pass Mackinw on their return from the.....
A rich letter from a recent settler in Lampasas, Texas, written at the time of the first session of Texas’s Constitutional Convention and offering detailed accounts of agriculture, stock, and town, as well as military rule, political sentiment, population movement, and the spread of yellow fever. Written the year after.....
![Item #9703 [Collection of letters of an Arizona pioneer, miner, and real estate broker.]. L. E....](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/9703_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1779358919)
A substantive gathering of letters by an early figure involved in the Arizona Territory scene, with discussions of mines, horseback riding and local travel, real-estate projects, and more. Levi Edward “Ned” Hewins was a prominent real estate and mining agent in Arizona before and after it became a state. Born.....
A Confederate surgeon’s letter illuminating medical aspects of the Civil War. Tazewell Howard, newly arrived assistant surgeon to George Paul Harrison’s training camp outside Savannah, Georgia, describes his new appointment and attempts to use his connections to secure a higher paying post. He reports a certain dissatisfaction with his lot.....
![Item #8357 [Autograph letter, signed, touching on a machinists’ strike in Lowell, Mass.]. Ayro...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/8357_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1699977430)
A letter from a man sympathetic to the cause of labor with an update on the ultimately unsuccessful strike by Lowell machinists for a ten hour work day. The letter, addressed to one “Mr. French,” reads in part: As regards the strike, the Company seem determined to hold out to.....
An interesting group of letters from an English merchant based in Cádiz, Spain to a Philadelphia merchant and shipbuilder, touching on a variety of trans-Atlantic business matters, European politics, and the ill-fated 1733 Spanish flotilla (in which the author had a stake but was insured) wrecked by a hurricane off.....
A vivid eyewitness account of a nearly disastrous stagecoach accident in upstate New York, in which—miraculously—no lives were lost. Solomon Sherwood Kimball (1806–1890) was traveling with his wife Emily Ann (1823–1917) via stagecoach from Epserance, New York to Albany and then New York City when the accident occurred. Writing to.....
![Item #8933 [Autograph letter, signed, on the development, etc. of Paris, Illinois.]. Isaac...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/8933_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1709482622)
A substantive letter on circumstances in Paris, Illinois one year before it became a city. Born in Albany, New York, Isaac LaGrange, Sr. (1799–1881) moved to Paris, Illinois as early as the mid-1850s. Paris is the county seat and largest city of Edgar County, and in this 1868 letter LaGrange.....
A letter detailing preparations for the upcoming Kansas City Sanitary Fair—auxiliary to the grand Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair held in St. Louis—as well as the author’s recent dental treatments. The author of this letter opens by detailing the severe toothache that has incapacitated her for the past month:For the last.....
A compelling group of letters, all retained copies, written in response to the upcoming election of 1848 by a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Lewis Cass. Marshall argues for the removal of the Quartermaster General of New Orleans, Major Daniel D. Tompkins (1798–1863), whose scheming on behalf of Whig.....
![Item #7793 [Autograph letter, signed, touching on Indian raids in Kansas in the summer of 1885.]....](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7793_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1694018648)
A letter by a Kansas settler and militia member who distinguishes truth from falsehood in light of reports in eastern newspapers of Indian raids in Kansas. Morrison belonged to the Coldwater Militia, Company A, which was formed in Coldwater, Kansas to defend against a possible attack by hostile Cheyennes. As.....