127.     [CIVIL WAR]. LARSON, James. Sergeant Larson, 4th Cav. San Antonio: Southern Literary Institute, 1935. [14], 1-42, [2], 43-140, [2], 141-326 pp., frontispiece (photograph of author), text illustrations after author’s sketches. 8vo (23.7 x 16 cm), original blue gilt-decorated cloth. Pp. 196/197 browned at top where newspaper clipping was laid in, otherwise fine. Presentation copy from author’s daughter to Mrs. Walter Schaefer, dated 1940. Laid in is a printed leaflet by Blum giving a short biography of her father.

     First edition, limited edition (#122 of 300 copies) of this uncommon and obscurely published memoir of service with the 4th Cavalry, edited and with an introduction by Annie Larson Blum, Sergeant Larson’s daughter. Coulter, Travels in the Confederate States 284. Dornbusch II:1618.

     James Larson (1841-1921) was born in Wisconsin and enlisted in the U.S. Army in St. Louis, where for more than a year he saw frontier service with officers like John Sedgwick and J.E.B. Stuart fighting Native Americans, mostly in the vicinity of Fort Riley. During the Civil War he saw much fighting in the campaigns in Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. At the end of the war, he accompanied his unit by boat from New Orleans to Matagorda Bay and marched from there to San Antonio.

($150-300)

Auction 22 Abstracts