Friday, October 05, 2007

Recent Acquisitions

[ahem, not my own]

- The Stones River National Battlefield in Tennessee has acquired a copy of William D. Bickham’s Rosecrans’ Campaign with the Fourteenth Army Corps, or the Army of the Cumberland: A Narrative of Personal Observation, with an Appendix Consisting of Official Reports of the Battle of Stones River (1863), "one of a few first-hand accounts of the Battle of Stones River published during the war." "This copy is even more valuable to the park because a Civil War soldier, Corporal Dewitt C. Markle, of the 57th Indiana Infantry owned it, and wrote extensive notes inside the covers of the book. Markle’s regiment helped secure the Federal left against several Confederate attacks on Dec. 31, 1862."

- The University of South Carolina recently purchased a first edition of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). The university says it will be making a fully-searchable digital version of the book available online. Wheatley (1753-1784), a Boston slave, was one of the first published African-American authors; fewer than 100 first editions of her book exist. The University of South Carolina paid $35,000 for their copy.