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Letters Attempting to Clear the Record of a Dishonorably Discharged Civil War Veteran

Letters Attempting to Clear the Record of a Dishonorably Discharged Civil War Veteran by [Civil War – 1st Missouri Cavalry (Union) – Veterans' Affairs] Williams, Thomas W.

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Seller: Auger Down Books
Title
Letters Attempting to Clear the Record of a Dishonorably Discharged Civil War Veteran
Author
[Civil War – 1st Missouri Cavalry (Union) – Veterans' Affairs] Williams, Thomas W.
Seller
Auger Down Books (United States)
Condition
Near fine with normal wear.
Description
Butte, Montana, 1922. Approximately 113 pieces: fifty-one letters to Thomas Williams; thirteen to various politicians, mainly members of Congress; and twenty to Williams’ advocates, mostly from Congresspeople; fifteen miscellaneous items, including Grand Army of the Republic materials and Williams’ citizenship document; and fourteen empty envelopes. Materials date from between 1911 and 1922. Near fine with normal wear.. Thomas W. Williams (1845–1931) was born outside of Swansea, Wales, and died in a Soldier’s Home in Los Angeles, California. According to his obituary, he came to the United States in about 1857 as a very young boy, briefly left to learn blacksmithing in Toronto, Canada, and then returned stateside. He enlisted with the Union army at the outbreak of the Civil War, shortly before he turned 16, and served in the 1st Missouri Cavalry of Volunteers, Company C. After the war, he was a resident of Butte, Montana, to or from which many of these letters are written. Offered here is a large lot of materials relating to Williams’ efforts, late in life, to secure a veteran’s pension for his service – or at least to have his 1864 dishonorable discharge expunged from his record. Williams enlists a number of people to help him with this task, including fellow 1st Cavalry veteran Abraham Brokaw, several local attorneys, and the mayor of Butte. Their letters on Williams’ behalf are mainly addressed to congressmen, mostly from Montana, whose replies start out with polite deferrals—they would of course love to do anything in their power to help, but these matters are difficult and now is simply not the right time—but devolve into accusations and firm denials. According to Williams, he had served with Company C until his honorable discharge in May of 1864, at which point he immediately reenlisted. He received a thirty-day furlough on reenlistment, and decided to visit his uncle in Hamilton, Ontario, as he had no other family on the continent. On attempting to return to his post: “As I was not of age my uncle held me and prevented me from returning to my command. I tried to get away so as to get back, ran away twice, but was recaptured twice, my uncle having a letter from my mother instructing him to hold me as I would only be 19 on Sept 15, 1864. I was branded as a deserter when I applied for a copy of my discharge.” (December 11, 1919) His record prior to this, he claims, had been stellar, as he lays out in an eleven-page notarized statement as part of his appeal (May 3, 1922). He describes being sent, as a member of General Frémont’s bodyguard, into the First Battle of Springfield: “we were sent to lexington to drive Price and the Rebels out of Mo. we camp about 20 miles [away] in a viliage before we reached Springfield and General Freemont called the Body guard out at 2 oclock in the morning for volenteers we came out [...] we did not know where we were [going...] after we had gone a few miles we had a fight with the Rebels pickets and whiped and drove them away and we went two or three miles towards Springfield [...] we made the charge and drove the rebels out there were 2200 of them. we laid out in the [prairies] all night without Hat Coat or Blanket to keep us warm and Held our Horses by the Bridel all night”. The men “formed a camp near Springfield and you can see cut in a large rock the name of Camp Bliss which I cut and the dait of the year.” When Frémont was ordered back to Washington, he ordered a dispatch sent from Springfield to Sedalia, which Williams carried “132 miles from 8 oclock in the morning on our same Horses. and only one drink of water for our selves + our Horses from the time we left camp that night untill 11 oclock when we arrived in Seidailia we then returned to Springfield with General Hunters comand escorted General fremont to Rolla”. The men go on “to Levenworth Kansas and the Bushwackers fought us all the way”. They winter in Leavenworth and are then sent to “Independence Mo to drive Quantrell and his gang out of North Mo” – that is, William Quantrill and his Raiders, an infamous pro-Confederate guerilla group. Williams writes: “We left the Sargent of Co E. in Kansas City to get our mail and a citizen and his son was with him Quantrell gang captured them and striped the both and placed them in a fence corner and killed them Both and placed fence rail over them and Burned them up and left the Boy see them do this he came to our Captain Miles Kehoe who sent us out in squads on all the roads and we captured 9 of the Rebles Captain line them up and told the Boy to pick out the man that killed his father [...] they coart Marcheled him and Hanged him the next morning at 8 oclock Capt Kehoe let the others go and told them if they were caught in any thing But a fair fight he would Hang [them] too”. Quantrill’s men heed Keogh’s warning, and go much easier on six of the company’s men who are captured while searching for more feed for the horses: “Quantrals gang caugh[t] them after disarming took them to a farm house gave them supper and sent some of his men around and collected all the young ladies they could get and an old Mo fidler they danced all night and then Quantral gave them Brekfast and sent them to there camps this was the last trouble we had with him and his gang”. At this point, Williams does admit to running into some trouble himself: another soldier “started to curse queen Victoria and I hit him [...] my Welch Blood could not stand to hear him”. Williams asks the soldier what he “would do to a man if he dam[n]ed presedent Lincoln”, and the soldier “went and swore I dam[n]ed the president and I was Coart Marceled and sent to Alton then a Military Prison and at the Cort Marshal they did not alow me to say one word to protect myself when I arrived at Alton I explained the whole afair to the officer who had charge of this prison he advised me to write to president Lincoln”. Williams is shortly released from prison and sent back to his post at Little Rock; in later tellings of the story by Williams’ advocates, including in a resolution of the Grand Army of the Republic, Lincoln personally ordered Williams released. Willliams’ company fights in the Battle of Prairie D'Ane and then camps with “a comand of Jenensons coulered troops”—probably Colonel Charles Jennison—who were “attac[k]ed by the rebles” and “shot at them and then went at them with Bainets and drove them for miles it was a Sight to see the dead rebles how they were Killed”. Shortly before his initial discharge, Williams’ company goes on to Camden, where: “some of our troops were on picket and those not on guard were asleep around a fire and the rebles made a charge and shot the Boys around the fire after that the Boys took logs and put Hats and overcoats on the logs and the Rebles tryed the same game But was caught in a trap”. Finally, Williams is discharged, reenlists and is furloughed, and heads to Canada, where his troubles begin. He first appeals to fellow 1st Missourian Abraham Brokaw, since Brokaw could act as a witness to his claims. In their correspondence, Brokaw sometimes recalls interesting anecdotes from the war, including the “dirty irishman thief, and libertine” Kelley, “who the boys you will call to mind was going to hang at Little Rock for steeling our postals” (April 18, 1912) and a “band of gurillas from Ark. that had captured and was holding the little town” of Ozark, Missouri, who “had got word of our coming and left for parts unknown a few hours before our coming” (January 26, 1915). The letters to Williams and his advocates are frustrating – what he’s told is inconsistent and he makes little progress. First, he has to get confirmation of his first honorable discharge, which he seems to receive around September of 1916. Then he applies for a pension; however, the office of the Bureau of Pensions writes to him the following year that his pension “claim was rejected November 13, 1916, on the ground that you were never honorably discharged from the only contract of service you entered into during the Civil War” (August 31, 1917). A month later, the Missouri Adjutant General writes a certificate of his service which “clears your record both here and in Washington”, and congratulates him “on receiving at last your just due as a Veteran so richly merited” (September 20, 1917). By the end of the year, though, he is still trying to clear the desertion charge, and has now resorted to trying to pass a bill in congress to do so. Montana Senator Thomas Walsh writes that “I have tried very hard to secure a favorable report [...] but have been unable to induce the Military Committee to take action thereon” (December 11, 1917). The congressmen to whom he appeals—including Senators Walsh, Tom Stout, and Henry Myers, and Representatives Frank W Mondell, Carl W Riddick, and Henry Z Osborne—are less than helpful. They often claim that there is insufficient time remaining in the current congressional session, remind him that such bills are difficult to pass even in favorable circumstances, and ask him to furnish them with the same information he has already provided. After years of this, Senator Myers suddenly tells Charles Juttner, one of Williams’ advocates, a very different story about Williams’ service: “The report of the War Department shows that in March, 1863, Mr. Williams was tried by court-martial on a long list of serious charges and that he was found guilty on all of them; that he was sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for the duration of the war or, at least, until his term of enlistment should expire and that other penalties were assessed against him, one of which was that at the expiration of his term of imprisonment he should be dishonorably discharged from the Army. It appears, however, that, after having been imprisoned nearly a year, the remainder of his sentence was remitted and that he was allowed to rejoin his company and that he did rejoin it in February, 1864. The records of the War Department, however, show that July 4, 1864, at St. Louis, while on furlough, Mr. Williams deserted and never rejoined the army.” (July 18, 1921) A letter from the War Department Adjutant General adds the details that he “was found guilty [...] of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline, and of disobedience to orders”, and that his sentence had included “a ball and chain weighing twelve pounds attached to his leg” and the forfeiture of all present and future pay and allowances (January 16, 1922). It is difficult to say which account is true. Myers, however, had given some telling further reason that Williams’ bill might have been rejected: “There is an intense prejudice in Congress against such bills. [...] The senators and representatives seem to think that such a bill is merely a prelude to an application for a pension and the expenses of the government are now so enormous and the expenses of providing for the veterans of the World War are so great [...] that there seems to be a general disposition in Congress not to increase the Civil War pension list any more by a single dollar.” Overall, a record of one veteran’s experience dealing with the federal government. Of interest to scholars of the American Civil War and postbellum civilian life, both for its firsthand accounts of engagements in the trans-Mississippi theater and for the look it offers at the treatment of veterans.
The Walton Periwinkle. [High School Yearbook Featuring Bella Abzug's Inscribed Senior Class Portrait. ]

The Walton Periwinkle. [High School Yearbook Featuring Bella Abzug's Inscribed Senior Class Portrait. ] by [Abzug, Bella]

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Seller: Langdon Manor Books LLC
Title
The Walton Periwinkle. [High School Yearbook Featuring Bella Abzug's Inscribed Senior Class Portrait. ]
Author
[Abzug, Bella]
Seller
Langdon Manor Books LLC (United States)
Description
Bronx, New York, 1938. 10 ¾" x 7 7/8". Blue cloth. Pp. 100. Very good: boards unevenly faded with spots of soiling and some loss at corners and spine tips; shaken but holding firmly. The senior high school yearbook of the Bronx's Walton High School, an all girls school at the time. This copy features Bella Abzug (Savitzky) in her senior year with a prophetic inscription, "Despite Schein/we'll all/get to the top/together. " Miss E. Hedwig Schein was chair of the music department. The printed quote next to her portrait reads, "it is not in mortals to command success, but she will do more-she will deserve it. " Abzug's image also appears at least three other times including group photos of senior officers (she was class president) and who's who (she was voted most popular). This item is offered by Langdon Manor Books, LLC, antiquarian booksellers. Please do not hesitate to contact us for additional information and/or photos and we will respond promptly. We package our items carefully, ship daily, and have a no hassle returns policy--your satisfaction is guaranteed. We are members of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) , the International League of Antiquarian Booksllers (ILAB) and the Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA) and adhere to their rules of ethics.
General Chemistry of the Enzymes

General Chemistry of the Enzymes by Euler, Hans; Pope, Thomas H. (translator)

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Seller: Swan's Fine Books
Title
General Chemistry of the Enzymes
Author
Euler, Hans; Pope, Thomas H. (translator)
Seller
Swan's Fine Books (United States)
Condition
Near Fine
Description
New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1912. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. Octavo size, 352 pp. First English edition of this work on enzymes. The author, Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin (1873-1964) was a Swedish biochemist, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1929. Chapters include Special Chemistry of the Enzymes, Physical Properties of the Enzymes, Activators, and more. ___DESCRIPTION: Black cloth binding with blind-embossed rules on the front, spine and rear boards, brown endpapers, "First Edition, First Thousand" printed on title page with publication date of 1912, stated "Translated from the Revised and Enlarged German Edition". 8vo, (i-ii), iii-x, (1), 2-323, followed by publisher's catalog of 19 pp. ___CONDITION: Overall near fine with a strong, square text block, solid hinges, straight corners with a minimum of rubbing; the interior is clean and bright, and other than some penciled notations on the rear flyleaf it is free of prior owner markings. ___POSTAGE: International customers, please note that additional postage may apply, please contact seller for details. ___Swan's Fine Books is pleased to be a member of the ABAA, ILAB and IOBA and we stand behind every book we sell. Please contact us with any questions you may have, we are here to help.
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The Mathematical Theory of Investment by Skinner, E B

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Seller: Palinurus Antiquarian Books
Title
The Mathematical Theory of Investment
Author
Skinner, E B
Seller
Palinurus Antiquarian Books (United States)
Condition
A very good copy.
Description
Boston: Ginn and Company, 1913. First Edition.. orig. publisher's cloth.. A very good copy.. 8vo. An early work on the application of advanced mathematics to financial problems. The third section of the book is given over to probablity applied to insurance and annuities. The second section addresses problems of bond valuation, building and loan associations, and issues of depreciation.
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Mediaeval Italy from Charlemagne to Henry VII by Professor Pasquale Villari

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Seller: Appledore Books, ABAA
Title
Mediaeval Italy from Charlemagne to Henry VII
Author
Professor Pasquale Villari
Seller
Appledore Books, ABAA (United States)
Condition
Collectible; Very Good
Description
New York: Charles Scribner, 1910. Decorative Cloth. Collectible; Very Good/Very Good. 1910 1st American edition, IN THE VERY UNCOMMON ORIGINAL DUSTJACKET. Solid and VG+, with bright gilt-design and lettering to front panel and spine. And in a bright, VG/VG+ pictorial dustjacket, with very light chipping at the spine ends and along the tips. Thick octavo, 392 pgs. Very light offseting at the endpapers, small former owner blindstamp to front free endpaper.
The Wall: An Anachronistic Concept of Separation

The Wall: An Anachronistic Concept of Separation by WIEDENHOFER, Kai

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Seller: Jeff Hirsch Books, ABAA
Title
The Wall: An Anachronistic Concept of Separation
Author
WIEDENHOFER, Kai
Seller
Jeff Hirsch Books, ABAA (United States)
ISBN
9783865211170
Description
Gottingen, Germany: Steidl, 2007. First edition. Oblong hardcover. 104 pages. A powerful look at the wall in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Includes 50 color illustrations. A very fine copy in a very fine dust jacket. An as new copy and still in the publisher's shrinkwrap.
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GEORGETOWN HISTORIC WATERFRONT by WERNER, Constance W.

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Seller: The Bookpress, Ltd.
Title
GEORGETOWN HISTORIC WATERFRONT
Author
WERNER, Constance W.
Seller
The Bookpress, Ltd. (United States)
Description
(WASHINGTON D.C.) WERNER, Constance W. GEORGETOWN HISTORIC WATERFRONT. (Washington): U.S. Commision of Fine Arts and Office of Archeology and Histo Preservation, 1968. Oblong 4to. Wrappers. 92 pages. First edition. This review of canal and riverside architecture in the Georgetown Waterfront area is the sixth in the series issued by the Commission; illustrated with o hundred and two photographs and architectural drawings. Very good.
Desert Rough Cuts: A Haywire History of the Borego Desert

Desert Rough Cuts: A Haywire History of the Borego Desert by Harry Oliver

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Seller: Eclectibles
Title
Desert Rough Cuts: A Haywire History of the Borego Desert
Author
Harry Oliver
Seller
Eclectibles (United States)
Condition
Very Good
Description
1938: Ward Ritchie Press, Los Angeles. Very Good. 64 pp. illustrated paper covered boards. A humerous history of the Borego Desert. There are twenty (20) chapters with titles like "Gold is Where You Find It", "Music and Booze", "Petrified Pete". There are also thirty-six (36) B&W woodcuts (including the two on the covers). Slight cover wear & rubbing. The covers have faded in places with a small water stain on the top right of the front cover. Binding is loose in some areas. Measures 9 3/4" x 6 1/2",
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Hiroshima Joe by Martin Booth

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Seller: Jeff Bergman Books ABAA/ILAB
Title
Hiroshima Joe
Author
Martin Booth
Seller
Jeff Bergman Books ABAA/ILAB (United States)
ISBN
9780871130563
Condition
As New
Description
Little Brown, 1986 Book. As New. Soft cover. F. As New. First Edition. Galley/Proof. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. ISBN:0-87113-056-4..
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Treasures of the State Library of Victoria by Roberts, Bev

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Seller: L'Estampe Originale
Title
Treasures of the State Library of Victoria
Author
Roberts, Bev
Seller
L'Estampe Originale (United States)
Description
Bondi Junction, Focus Publishing Pty., LTD., 2003. 176pp. 4to.
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Ants on the Melon: A Collection of Poems. by ADAIR, Virginia Hamilton.

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Seller: Jeff Maser, Bookseller-ABAA
Title
Ants on the Melon: A Collection of Poems.
Author
ADAIR, Virginia Hamilton.
Seller
Jeff Maser, Bookseller-ABAA (United States)
Description
NY: Random House, (1996).. First edition.. 158 pp w/an afterword by Robert Mezey. Fine in near fine dust jacket.