Memoirs of the war in the southern department of the United States
A PRESENTATION COPY FROM JUDGE RICHARD PETERS
IN THE PUBLISHER’S BOARDS
Two volumes. Philadelphia: Fry and Kammerer for Bradford and Inskeep & New York: Inskeep and Bradford, 1812. First edition.
Octavo in 4s (9” x 5 7/8”, 230mm x 147mm).
Vol. I: binder’s blank, π2 A-3G4, binder’s blank [$1 signed]. 214 leaves, pp. [4] (half-title, blank, title, copyright) 1 2-423, blank. With an engraved portrait frontispiece of General Greene by Edwin after Peale.
Vol. II: π2 A-3P4 (3P4 blank), binder’s blank [$1 signed]. 246 leaves, pp. [4] (half-title, blank, title, copyright) 1 2-486, 2 blanks. With an engraved portrait frontispiece of Marquis Cornwallis by Edwin.
Bound in the publisher’s blue boards with a paper spine. On the spine, author, title and number printed. All edges of the text-block untrimmed. Presented in a blue morocco-backed clamshell box.
The text-blocks of both volumes split in several places. Tanned generally, with some marginal foxing. Wholly unsophisticated. With the ink ownership presentation “From/ Judge Peters/ of Philadelphia.” to the recto of the front free end-paper of vol. I. Graphite marginalium to p. 360 of vol. II.
Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee III (1756–1818) was a cavalry officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Though rising eventually to the rank of lieutenant colonel, it was as mere major in charge of a unit of mixed infantry and cavalry that Lee earned his moniker. His troops were vital not only in combat but also in reconnaissance, which made Lee a nexus of a great deal of intelligence in the southern theatre of the War of Independence. Lee’s Legion (an American answer to the British Legion) was vital in the rout of the British from South Carolina and Georgia; Lee himself was present at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in Virginia.
After the war Lee served as Virginia’s delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, eventually rising to be governor of Virginia 1791–1794. He was called to serve by Washington in the Whiskey Rebellion, attained the rank of major general, and was commissioned again by Jefferson to organize the Virginia militia in anticipation of the War of 1812. Madison, however, declined to commission him in 1812, the year in which the present memoir was published. His reputation as a fighting man as well as a long-serving magistrate made the Memoirs immensely popular, though published nearly thirty years after the Revolution’s end. Lee’s son was Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general.
The set was presented — but to whom? — by Judge Richard Peters (1744–1828) of Philadelphia (his home was the Belmont Mansion, which is today the home of the Underground Railroad Museum and gives its name to the neighborhood of Belmont). Peters was educated in law at the College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, and was appointed by Washington as judge of the Pennsylvania District Court, later the Eastern District. He also served in the Revolutionary War, principally as Secretary of the Continental Board of War. After the war he would serve in the Congress of the Confederation, albeit before Lee, and later as speaker of both the Pennsylvania House and then the Pennsylvania Senate.
The marginalium on p. 360 of vol. II is tantalizing; against “The author was present at this ceremony,” viz. the surrender of the British at Yorktown, is written “And so was I… to the conviviality” (the intervening words are difficult to make out). Was this written by Peters before it was presented to someone, or was the recipient, with the author of the Memoir, celebrating at Yorktown? Though the question defies solution, its very asking brings the volume close not only to the author but to a key moment of success in the Revolutionary War’s conclusion.
Howes L 202; Sabin 39741.
Item #JLR0702
Price: $1,450