Item #1121 Life in the Open Air, and Other Papers. Theodore Winthrop.
Life in the Open Air, and Other Papers
Life in the Open Air, and Other Papers
Detailed First Hand Account of Annapolis at the Start of the Civil War

Life in the Open Air, and Other Papers

Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863. Frontispiece portrait, one black and white plate. Original cloth over boards. Octavo. vi, 374 pages. Bound in brown cloth over boards with gilt-stamped spine titles, blind-stamped rules and ornamentation to both boards, dark brown endpapers. Spine somewhat sunned, shallow bumps to extremities. Bookplate residue on front pastedown, front free endpaper lacking. Hinges sound. Good overall.

Volume of essays that includes one of the most detailed and valuable accounts of the arrival of Union soldiers in Annapolis and the march to reinforce Washington at the start of the Civil War. Winthrop was with the 7th New York Regiment, which reached Annapolis on April 22, 1861.

There is much information on their landing at the Naval Academy, the sentiments of the town, the restoration of the Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad between Annapolis and its connection with the B&O Railroad to reach Washington. Winthrop's essay herein is the source of the wonderful anecdote about a soldier recognizing a damaged A&ER RR locomotive as one he had helped build, and therefore quite capable of putting back in running order.

The fate of the national capital hung in the balance in those early days of the Civil War, and the 7th New York Regiment was the one to reach Washington first and ensure it remained under Union control. That crucial reinforcement came through Annapolis, and this is one of the best first hand accounts of those movments.


Item #1121

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