A Soldier's Story of his Regiment (61st Georgia). And Incidentally of the Lawton-Gordon-Evans Brigade, Army Northern Virginia
Jesup, GA: [1898]. Quarter Leather. Very Good binding. Item #10672
12mo.291, [1 (blank)], [2 (index)] pp., ports. First edition. Modern quarter-morocco binding with cloth over boards. Binding is quite handsome with little wear; internally, a few leaves with loss to the margin having been conserved; some leaves with closed tears at the fore-edge, a few with neat, early mends; early library pressure stamp to several leaves, quite faint; a few leaves are trimmed closely removing parts of page numbers, but no text is lost on these dozen leaves (it's worth noting that this trimming appears to have been from the original binding—the soiling to the textblock edges suggests it was not trimmed when rebound); several full-page, in-text engraved portraits throughout—those of Stonewall Jackson and Lt. Col. Stephen Kennedy have been neatly outlined in a thick graphite or grease pencil, Kennedy has had his civilian dress deftly transformed into a uniform.
Originally appeared in the Pioneer and Eagle newspaper of Statesboro, GA in 1887. It was revised and expanded for this first edition in book form a decade later. As is so often the case with such memoirs, this book was very crudely printed with uneven inking throughout. Harwell calls the style of the narrative "primitive but lively and refreshing" In Tall Cotton, 131. And Coulter writes: "Nichols enlisted in 1861 and stopped briefly at Brunswick before going to Savannah. His unit, the Seventh Georgia Battalion, afterwards the Sixty-first Georgia Regiment, went from Savannah to Charleston, by rail to Richmond, and was assigned to Stonewall Jackson's army in the Shenandoah Valley. Nichols participated in Jackson's famous Valley campaign, followed his commanders to the Peninsula to help drive McClellan to the protection of his gunboats on the lower James River, fought through Second Manassas, and took part in the Sharpsburg campaign. Becoming sick on this march, he was sent to hospitals in Lynchburg, Richmond, and Danville, but recovered in time to fight at Chancellorsville in May, 1863, and to join the Gettysburg campaign" Coulter 341. Remarkably rare in commerce. Howes N-142; CWB I, 137.
Price: $3,500.00