Between the Covers

Hardcover. Tall folio. Measuring 6.5" x 16". Marbled paper boards with leather spine and corners. A tanner's ledger with 22 of the pages used as a scrapbook before and during the American Civil War. Moderate age-toning and rubbing, very good The original ledger was used by a tanner in Utica, New York from about 1835 to 1845 and all pages were completely filled in by the tanner. It was reused 15 years later as a scrapbook with newspaper clippings, many of which are from the *Utica Morning Herald*, affixed over the customer information, with many additional clippings laid in throughout. The majority are short stories, serials, poems, and satire written in the late 1850s such as "Rules for Sleeping in Church," "The Maiden's Confusion" by Mrs. Ann S. Stevens, "The Occultation of Orion" by Longfellow, and a piece entitled "On April" by Henry Ward Beecher. One article with the headline, "The New Era: Important Speech by the President," from April 11, 1865, includes the entire transcript from Abraham Lincoln's last public address given two days after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army. Other war related clippings include: "Our Ships of War in Foreign Ports: A Proclamation by the President," "Abraham Lincoln: Interview between the President and Goldwin Smith," a poem entitled "The Flag of the Union," "To the Heroes of America" by Joseph Rodman Drake, "Sumner's Place in History," and a poem "There's Victory with Grant" by James W. Husted. The laid in articles continue after the war with two articles about Lincoln's death and some about Andrew Johnson's presidency, with one article quoting General Ambrose Burnside's speech in New York following Lincoln's death, "it is our duty and the duty of the country now to support Andrew Johnson; and I am glad to be able to say that he is worthy of the support of the people." An interesting accumulation of ephemera collected during the Civil War-era.

Item #397863