Between the Covers

Hardcover. First edition. Foreword by Anthony L. Powell. Oblong folio (17" x 7 5/8"). 88pp. Illustrated, plates, folding panorama of the fort with fold repaired. Original cloth with printed title label. Rebacked with new endpapers, soiling and moderate tears on a number of leaves, cloth soiled and frayed, still a good, solid copy of a fragile and very rare book. Includes group photographs of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and each troop in the regiment, with rosters (including the hometown of each soldier), a year-by-year history of the regiment from its formation in 1866 (including details of engagements with first Native American and later Spanish forces), and numerous candid photographs of the men at work and at recreation. A number of photographs show the soldiers in athletic and equestrian contests and drills. In 1886, Congress formed four black regiments, the famous “Buffalo Soldiers.” Three of these regiments, including the ninth, were stationed at Fort Russell, which became the largest cavalry post in the United States. The fort is still in operation today as the Frances E. Warren Air Force Base. In addition, the book contains a prefatory poem, "Soldiers," that is stated as having been "written expressly for this publication" by Alfred Damon Runyon. Although best known today for his humorous stories of Broadway that were collected in the book *Guys and Dolls*, Runyon spent years as a journalist and columnist and, in the early 1900s, wrote poetry in a Kiplingesque vein. Some of this light-hearted military verse was based on his (limited and vastly self-exaggerated) experiences in the Philippines at the end of the Spanish-American War. The poem written for this volume, "Soldiers," describes a crowd's peacetime enthusiasm and reverence for a large military parade, but makes specific allusions to African-American soldiers ("... the faces brown") and its refrain ("Silence! The Colors! The Colors pass!") plays on the duality of the colors of the flag and the "Colored" soldiers. This volume precedes Runyon's first book (*The Tents of Trouble*, a 1911 collection of verse), and this poem was reprinted two years later in his second book (*Rhymes of the Firing Line*, a 1912 verse collection). Runyon's father was a newspaper editor and Damon Runyon began publishing short reportage as a teenager. Prior to 1910 his articles, poems, and stories had appeared in newspapers and magazines. Of the three book appearances we could locate published before his 1911 first book, the other two were reprintings of previously published poems. This publication is his first previously unpublished book appearance, issued by a short-lived, Colorado-based publishing house whose sole output was a handful of contemporary military reviews. Not in *Work* or the *Catalogue of the Blockson Collection*; *OCLC* locates two copies, at Yale and the Library of Congress.

Item #299269