1865 1ST EDITION OF SOUTHERN GENERALS,
WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY HAVE DONE – A RARE ORIGINAL
PRINTING OF AN EARLY BIOGRAPHY OF THE NOTABLE GENERALS
OF THE CONFEDERACY: A very well preserved first
edition of this famous 473 page volume, published in
1865 by Charles B. Richardson of New York City. This
collection of biographies of 18 of what the author
considered to be the most prominent generals of the
Confederacy. Each biography, save for General Johnston,
is accompanied by a etching of the general in his dress
uniform and each portrait is protected with a tissue
guard – again, all the tissues are intact.
The inside fly leaf is signed by what was presumably the
owner of this copy, David M. Anderson, and dated August,
1865. Written in pencil on the title page below the
title is “By Edward A. Pollard”. Comparing the writing
style of this entry to the owner’s name cited above, I
suspect this author attribution was written in by
Anderson.
This collection of biographies was originally published
as an anonymous work, the title page bearing no author’s
name, however the advertisement posted by the Richardson
Publishing Company stated “By A Virginian”. This lack
of author’s name on the title page has been the subject
of some discussion. The lack of attribution continued
through the second printing in 1866, but in a subsequent
printing in 1907 the by line was attributed to William
Parker Snow, an English explorer, missionary and
author. While this book has since been credited to
Snow, I believe Pollard was the true author.
Pollard was a native Virginian who was a newspaper
editor of the Richmond Examiner, and a prolific writer
before and during the Civil War. He was an unapologetic
supporter of slavery, and an advocate of the Confederate
military leaders while being an acid-tongued outspoken
critic of the Confederacy’s civilian leadership – to the
point that his criticisms cost him his position at the
Examiner. Pollard wrote three accounts of the progress
of the war titled The First Year of the War,
The Second Year of the War, and The Third Year of
the War, each published as the respective year drew
to a close as an ongoing commentary and offered by the
same Richardson publishing company.
After Pollard resigned from the Examiner, and in the
face of increasing criticisms from the supporters of
Davis and the other Confederate leadership, he decided
to move to England to resume his writing career. His
voyage was cut short when the ship upon which he was
sailing was stopped by one of the Union blockade ships,
and once Pollard was identified he was arrested as a spy
and interned in Boston. The federal authorities
eventually determined he was not a spy and he was
released, where upon he moved to New York City to resume
his pro-Confederacy/anti-Northern writings. Once again,
his writings angered the authorities – this time the
Union – and he was arrested and jailed. Pollard won
his release from jail in January of 1865, and shortly
returned to Richmond where he returned to the staff of
the Examiner. Pollard continued to be an active writer,
publishing The Lost Cause in 1866. His writings
dwindled thereafter and he died in Virginia in 1872.
William Parker Snow was born in England and educated at
the Royal Naval College. By the 1830’s he began a brief
career in the merchant marine and the Royal Navy which
apparently ended with his marriage to a London
housemaid. He led a varied life across the globe,
becoming involved in a swindle of immigrants to
Australia, working for a library in Tuscany, and
performing editorial and transcription work for
benefactors in England. He eventually joined a
missionary society and mastered their schooner into the
south Atlantic, visiting the Falkland Islands,
publishing a well known account of the voyage. In 1857,
Snow was employed as a lecturer to raise funds for Lady
Franklin in support of an expedition to determine the
fate of her husband, Sir John Franklin and his ill fated
Artic exploration. Her expedition failed to find her
husband, but it did find sufficient artifacts to
determine that he and his crew had perished. Snow
subsequently attempted unsuccessfully to mount two other
expeditions to located Franklin’s burial site and his
records which reportedly had been buried with him,
however neither effort came to fruition. That Snow did
not succeed in mounting the expeditions did not keep him
from writing about other expeditions and lecturing about
the subject, much of it while living in New York City.
Upon the assassination of President Lincoln, it was
reported in the New York Herald that “Captain Parker
Snow, the distinguished commander of the Artic and
Antarctic exploring expeditions” presented some
relics from Sir Franklin’s expedition to be interred
with the president’s body. Apparently, in the short
time Snow had been in New York, he was able to create
quite a public persona for himself as well as assuming
the mantle of a legendary explorer.
While there is no question that Snow led a storied life
and he certainly was a man of letters who authored a
number of different well read works, two qualities he
most certainly did not possess - he was not a
“Virginian”, and he never showed any indication in his
previous or subsequent writings as having the least
interest in the American Civil War, specifically in the
Confederacy. He had not lived in the south during his
short time in North America and he’d had no access to
the famous personalities chronicled in this book. It is
known that Snow returned to England in 1867 and died in
London in 1895, so there would have been no benefit to
him by attaching his name to the 1907 edition of this
book.
I suspect what transpired is fairly simple – the
publisher, wanting to reissue the book to meet the
demand, and not wanting to risk raising a legal issue
over the proceeds with any of Pollard’s descendants,
decided to credit the book to a well known author of the
period who was dead and whose descendants living in
England would likely never be aware Snow’s name was
being used.
This volume is in very good condition with tight
original covers and the original spine. It does show
some shelf wear, but all of the pages are well attached,
intact and full form. There is foxing to the pages
throughout, but all of the text is legible. (0302)
$175
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