Bibliophemera

During America's Civil War, Charles Carroll Soule of Boston joined the 44th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment to fight for the North. John W. Park , of prominent Southern heritage, joined the Confederate cause, signing up with the Regimental Staff of the 1st Georgia Reserves . It is doubtful that their paths ever crossed on the battlefield, but they did cross about a quarter-century later in a business transaction involving books. Charles C. Soule, a Harvard graduate, became a bookseller sometime after the war and was the proprietor of the Boston Book Company. John W. Park became a prominent lawyer and was one of the organizers of the Georgia Bar association and eventually served as its president. In those professional capacities, these two accomplished men would cross paths because of their chosen fields after the fields of battle. I have evidence of this in the correspondence below. On September 6th, 1890, Soule wrote to Park about a credit to his account and enclosed a list of sec...

As the Civil War (American) was coming to a close, a Philadelphia publisher of "Practical and Scientific Books," Henry Carey Baird, sent a letter to a soldier serving on the U.S.S. Gertrude in the Western Gulf of Mexico. U.S Army General Winfield Scott devised the Anaconda Plan , so called because the intent was to "choke off" the Southern ports from supplies and goods with a naval blockade and end the war quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible. The U.S.S. Gertrude was originally a Confederate blockade runner, a ship used to try to break through the blockade and get to port with supplies. She was captured in 1863 and converted into a Union blockade ship. After capturing a few blockade runners of her own, she was assigned to the Western Gulf Blockade Squadron, which is identified on the publisher's cover as Western Gulf B. Squadron . One of the officers on board the U.S.S. Gertrude was Acting Third Assistant Joseph H. Nesen, the recipient ...

This is about a letter about a book. A very important book to the letter writer. A few years ago, I purchased a letter written in 1922 by an old Civil War soldier--a veteran of the Confederacy living in Austin, Texas at the Home for Confederate Veterans. The envelope bears the Confederate insignia flag and address of the home. The letter was addressed to a Mr. J.J. Wolfe of Houston, whom I have presumed to be a bookseller. I wrote about this in another blog a few years back and now it seems more fitting that it be posted here, especially if my assumption about Wolfe's occupation is right. For the sake of this post, let's say I'm correct and Wolfe was a Houston bookseller in the 1920s. But even if I'm not correct, the letter is still about a book. So either way, we have a bibliophemera connection. The writer of the letter--the old Rebel vet--thought Mr. Wolfe might be able to help him momentarily escape his "prison" (he states he is an "inmate of the Ho...