61. CARRINGTON, Margaret. Ab-Sa-Ra-Ka Home of
the Crows: Being the Experience of an Officer’s Wife
on the Plains.... Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott &
Co., 1868. 284 pp., illustrations, folding map. 8vo,
original cloth, blind fillet borders on sides, title in
gilt on backstrip. A very fine copy.
First
edition. Field 244: "The most valuable portion of the
book is that in which she gives the personal narrations of
some restored captives, scarcely to be deemed happy in
surviving the awful massacres of their families. They were
all married women, who, having witnessed the slaughter of
their husbands and children, were reserved by the savages
for a worse fate. It is now well know, that although the
Algonquin and Iroquois tribes never violated their female
captives, the Indians of the Plains almost as invariably
subject them to the most horrible personal outrages." Graff
596: "An excellent personal account fortified by invaluable
additional material from the author’s husband, Colonel
Henry B. Carrington." Howes C175. Jones 1504. Field 244.
Malone, p. 2. Myres, Following the Drum, p. 6: "An
extensive description of the flora, fauna, and native
peoples of the northern plains along with an eye-witness
account of the events leading up to and following the
Fetterman ‘massacre’ at Fort Phil Kearny, 1866.
Carrington expressed sympathy for the Indians involved in
the affair." Smith 1536. One of the best army wife accounts
of the West.
($150-300)