Description
The first edition of Boy Soldiers of the Confederacy, inscribed by the author, Susan R. Hull.
Octavo, 256pp. Publisher’s gray cloth, title stamped in gilt on spine and front panel. Light soiling to cloth, internally clean, solid text block. Both hinges crudely reinforced with tape. Dampstain to rear cover, no impact to text block. This work is complete with a frontispiece portrait and 21 photographic plates.
Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: “His Honor ___ Mahone / with compliments of / Susan R. Hull / Balt. Maryland / Feb. 12 1907.” Additional note from the author on [p. 10].
(Dornbusch III, 447) (Nevins I, p. 108)
Susan R. Hull published Boy Soldiers of the Confederacy in 1905, the first known collection devoted to biographical accounts of Confederate boys in the war. Her interest in the subject began in 1863, when Major General John Ellis Wool, then commanding at Baltimore, spoke with her about revoking an order to draft boys aged sixteen and older. After that, Hull began saving newspaper clippings and collecting stories of soldiers aged eighteen and under, intending to preserve their experiences as she encountered them. In the years after the war, she expanded the project through correspondence and other first-hand accounts. Hull also noted that a similar volume on Union boys had reportedly been published earlier, though that work has not been located.
