Description
First edition of The Seventieth Indiana Volunteer Infantry by Samuel Merrill.
Octavo, [6], 372pp. Blue cloth, title in gilt on spine, title with star on front cover. Light edge wear, occasional wear to boards, cleaned scuff mark on spine. Frontispiece portrait of President Benjamin Harrison with facsimile signature below. A nice copy of this scarce work on the Civil War. Previous ownership inscription in pencil on front free endpaper from Joseph A. Goddard (1840-1930), an Indiana businessman and historian.
Following the call by President Abraham Lincoln for new recruits for the Union Army, Colonel Benjamin Harrison got the approval of Indiana Governor Oliver Morton to raise a regiment. He recruited volunteers from northern Indiana to serve in the newly formed 70th Indiana. After Harrison’s service in the Civil War, he ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of Indiana in 1876 but later served as a Senator from Indiana from 1881-1887. In 1888, he was nominated by the Republican Party for president of the United States, taking office in 1889. He was defeated for a second term in 1892 by Grover Cleveland.
