PRESENTATION FIELD MANUAL TO THE LT. COLONEL OF THE 1st RHODE ISLAND

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Item Code: 2024-2381

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A very good copy of Coppee’s “Field Manual of Evolutions of the Line …” Green cloth binding with impressed eagle with shield and strars on the covers and gilt title on the spine. Printed by Lippincott, Philadelphia, dated 1862. This was meant to supplement to the US infantry tactics and provides detailed explanations of the movements of the troops, or what movements there should be in response to various commands and what commands the officers should give and when as the movements are being executed.

This bears a former owner’s book plate pasted inside the front cover and on the flyleaf an original brown ink presentation to Lt. Col. J.F. Pitman “with the compliments” of a Brigadier General whose first name was Robert and whose last name is the source of a some increasingly heated debate here in the office, though there is no ambiguity about the recipient.

Joseph Story Pitman (1819-1883) was from Rhode Island and had raised a company of volunteers for the Mexican War, becoming a Captain of Infantry Feb. 16, 1847, was appointed to the 9th US Infantry April 9, and then promoted to Major of the 14th US infantry September 8. He was honorably discharged July 21, 1848. He was a lawyer by profession, but kept his connections with the Rhode Island Militia, writing as a Brigadier General of the Rhode Island Militia to Winfield Scott before the war broke out that he was one of a commission appointed by the Governor to ascertain the cost of raising 1,400 militia for “service in the field” and asking for advice. The letter is dated January 7, 1860, which is probably a slip of the pen for 1861, noting the service would be, “I suppose at Washington in case of apprehended difficulty there,” and that Rhode Island “wishes to do her part in maintaining the Union.”

Pitman’s Civil War service officially dates to his enrollment in the 1st R.I. Detached Militia in the volunteer forces on April 17, 1861, mustering in as Lt. Colonel with a commission dating May 2. Pitman was sent home on detached duty in June 1861, missing Bull Run and honorably mustered out on August 2, at the end of the regiment’s term of service in the volunteers, though we presume he remained in the militia service of the state. We note the printing date in the manual is 1862, but those dates are often advanced a year by the printers to cover themselves.

This is a very nice copy of a key Civil War manual with an interesting inscription.  [sr][ph:L]

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