Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - January - 2007 Issue
Confederate Military History Part II from Chapel Hill Rare Books
Kit Dalton's remembrances of Quantrill's raiders.
Some Confederates hung on even longer than Watie. The remnants of Quantrill's raiders, a group of pro-Confederate Missouri guerrilla fighters/outlaws continued to harass local Union lawmen for years after the war, though William Quantrill died before the war's end. Already noted for attacking civilians with unrestrained brutality (today we would call them "terrorists"), they would evolve more and more from defenders of the old ways to common criminals. Their most famous "graduates" would be the James and Younger brothers. Item 53 is Under the Black Flag. A Guerrilla Captain under the Fearless Leader Quantrell [sic], and a Border Outlaw for Seventeen Years Following the Surrender of the Confederacy, by Captain Kit Dalton. Dalton's biography, Chapel Hill notes, is "filled with inaccuracies." Dalton may never have gained the prominence of other gang members, but he did managed to get himself portrayed by Tony Curtis in the 1950 movie "Kansas Raiders" (he would have enjoyed this, but Dalton died in 1920). $275.
What is this book doing here? Item 33 is James Havelock Campbell's McClellan: A Vindication of the Military Career of General George B. McClellan. Published in 1916 (it took that long to get a sympathetic biography), it has been described as "a necessary handbook for McClellan's friends." Perhaps it is in this collection because the South preferred McClellan's stewardship of Union forces to that of Grant. $175.
James Madison Page was a Union soldier, and his book is The True Story of Andersonville Prison. This seems another strange title for this collection, except that Page was surprisingly sympathetic to his captors. He defends the prison's superintendent, William Wirz, the only Confederate executed after the Civil War for war crimes. Page also placed part of the blame for Andersonville on the Union for failing to make prisoner exchanges. Item 211. $450.
Item 164 is a very rare book, Adventures and Recollections of General Walter P. Lane...by Walter Paye Lane. This book is described as one of the best of Texas military memoirs, Lane having fought during the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, several Indians wars, and finally, the Civil War. Somehow, he survived them all. Item 164 is the rare first edition of this book from 1887. $8,500. Item 165 is the revised and expanded second edition from 1928, with additions by Lane's niece. $175.
The review of Part I of the Hobday Collection may be found at http://www.americanaexchange.com/NewAE/aemonthly/review.asp?f=2&page=1&id=359&m=10&y=2006. The website for Chapel Hill Rare Books is www.chapelhillrarebooks.com, telephone 919-929-8351.
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