Philadelphia: Printed for Private Circulation by J.B. Lippincott Company, 1903.
Price: $2,000.00
Hardcover. First edition. Thick small quarto. 561pp., gravure frontispiece, folding map, 34 plates and portraits. Leaves are mostly unopened. Brown cloth gilt. A trifle rubbed at the edges, some scuffing on the spine, but otherwise a near fine copy. Copy number 110 of 300 copies privately printed. Laid in is a printed slip sending the book with the compliments of Emily Roebling, and which is Signed beneath the printed presentation by her husband: "also of Washington A. Roebling."
An extensive volume of genealogy of the Warren family, an early history of Westchester County, as well as an account of a controversy during the Civil War concerning a member of the Warren family (see below).
Laid in is a six-page Autograph Letter Signed by Washington A. Roebling of approximately 900 words dated in 1920, and written on one side only of six leaves of his Trenton stationary, to Scott Scammnell [?] presenting the volume, mentioning his first wife Emily's (Emily had died in 1903, and Roebling had remarried in 1908) discovery of the *Journal* at Cold Spring, New York.
Additionally in the letter Roebling summarizes a part of the book, giving a long account of the Civil War Battle of Five Forks involving Generals Grant and Sheridan, detailing Emily's brother Major-General Gouverneur K. Warren's disputed leadership in the battle.
In the letter Roebling deplores Sheriden's part in the matter no uncertain terms, accusing Sheridan of cashiering Warren "...in a drunken fit of raging jealousy, fearing the Warren would get the credit in place of himself." He goes on in great detail about the events, and comments about the subsequent controversy, gives the private opinions of President Grant, and Grant's complicity in preventing a court of inquiry requested by Warren in order not to discomfit his favored subordinate Sheridan. A later court of inquiry, convened after Grant left office, exonerated Warren, and seems to have borne out some of Roebling's revelations.
A few years after the end of the Civil War, Washington A. Roebling became the "Chief Engineer" in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge after the 1869 death of his father John Roebling, who had designed the Bridge (and died as the result of an accident connected to the Bridge). Washington himself was early on badly debilitated with decompression disease as a result of his work on the Bridge's construction and was consigned to his bed.
It fell upon Emily Roebling to convey her husband's orders and to oversee the day-to-day construction of the Bridge. Emily's previous interests in bridge construction stood her in good stead and she served for over a decade as a full-partner to her husband in the design solutions and innovations in the construction of the world’s first steel-wire suspension bridge and the longest suspension bridge of any sort. Less well-known was how she managed to control the scheming of corrupt politicians and crooked contractors attempting to profit from the construction. Emily's part in the realization of the Brooklyn Bridge, which has to some degree been acknowledged, has been constantly underestimated. Described by one biographer as a woman of "strong character" with an "almost masculine intellect," in later life Emily attained a law degree, arguing in an Albany law journal article for equality in marriage, and further devoted herself to women's causes.
A pleasing volume with an interesting peripheral primary source letter.
Item #438215
