Memorial of William Kirkland Bacon, Late Adjutant of the Twenty-Sixth Regiment of New-York State Volunteers. By His Father. Boston: The American Tract Society, Depositories, 28 Cornhill, Boston; and 13 Bible House, Astor Place, New York. American Tract Society shield device with cross, dated 1814, on the title page.

The author was the young officer's father, Judge William Johnson Bacon (1803-1889) of Utica, N.Y., later a member of Congress. The memorial was first published at Utica in 1863 and was subsequently taken up by the American Tract Society, which issued it in this edition for wide circulation.

Frontispiece is a steel-engraved bust portrait of Adjutant Bacon in a frock coat bearing first lieutenant's shoulder straps, with a facsimile of his closing "Your Loving Son / Willie" beneath. Tissue guard present.

The front free endpaper carries a period pencil presentation inscription, which appears to read: "To / Mrs. [Earl? Goode?] / with kind regards / of The Author / May 1865." The recipient's name is not clearly legible. An author-inscribed copy of a father's memorial to his fallen son, presented one month after Appomattox.

William Kirkland Bacon (1842-1862) served as adjutant of the 26th New York Volunteer Infantry, the "2nd Oneida" or Utica Regiment, raised largely in Oneida County. The regiment served in the First Corps, Army of the Potomac, at South Mountain and Antietam, and suffered its heaviest loss at Fredericksburg, where some 170 of roughly 300 men engaged were killed, wounded or missing. Adjutant Bacon was among those mortally wounded in that engagement.

Publisher's blue wavy-grain cloth, covers blind-stamped with a panel border and central ornament; spine with blind bands and gilt-stamped title and decoration.  Measures approx. 4 1/4 x 6 1/4 inches.

Wear and fraying at the spine ends and corners, rubbing to the cloth, spine gilt dulled. Front inner hinge cracked with the mull exposed; text block remains attached. Foxing and toning to the frontispiece, tissue guard and title page. Pencil inscription clear and unsmudged. A sound, honest copy.  [ss][ph:L]

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