ADJUTANT STEARNS — 1862 MEMORIAL OF THE 21ST MASSACHUSETTS ADJUTANT KILLED AT NEW BERN, EX-MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE LIBRARY

ADJUTANT STEARNS — 1862 MEMORIAL OF THE 21ST MASSACHUSETTS ADJUTANT KILLED AT NEW BERN, EX-MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE LIBRARY

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ADJUTANT STEARNS. Boston: Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, Depository No. 13 Cornhill, [1862]. Copyright entered 1862 by the Society in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts; stereotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton, Riverside, Cambridge.

A wartime memorial biography of 1st Lieut. Frazar Augustus Stearns, Adjutant of the 21st Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, mortally wounded while leading his men at the Battle of New Bern, North Carolina, March 14, 1862, during Burnside's North Carolina Expedition. Stearns was the son of the Rev. William Augustus Stearns, President of Amherst College, who compiled this memoir in the months following his son's death. The young officer's loss was keenly felt in Amherst; his death is noted in the correspondence of Emily Dickinson, whose brother Austin was a close friend of the family, and a field piece captured by the 21st at New Bern is understood to have been presented to Amherst College in his memory. The volume opens with a dedication to the officers and men of the 21st Regiment and to the soldiers of the United States.

Small octavo, approx. 4 1/2 x 6 3/4 inches. Publisher's dark green pebble-grain cloth, covers blind-stamped with an ornamental frame border. Gilt pictorial spine featuring a spread eagle above a shield lettered ADJUTANT STEARNS, flanked by crossed cannon and flags over a battlefield vignette with stacked shot; Society imprint and library number 35 at foot.

Front free endpaper inscribed in a period hand: "A Present to / Henry Blackmer / from Aunt Caroline." Front pastedown bears the ink stamp "No longer the property of The Library, Mount Holyoke College," with a red "GIFT COLLECTION" stamp — a fitting provenance, Mount Holyoke lying just across the Connecticut Valley from Amherst.

Good overall. Cloth sound and tight with light rubbing to extremities and spine gilt, minor wear at spine ends and corners. Hinges intact. Foxing to the preliminary leaf facing the title; title and text leaves with light toning and scattered spotting. Library deaccession stamp as noted.

A scarce Massachusetts regimental memorial of an officer whose death resonated well beyond his regiment.  [ss][ph:L]

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