"A MILESTONE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE IN CONFEDERATE LITERATURE": SIGNED FIRST EDITION OF LONGSTREET'S FROM MANASSAS TO APPOMATTOX

LONGSTREET, James. From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1896. Thick octavo, publisher's half red morocco gilt rebacked with original spine laid down, red marbled paper boards and endpapers. $16,500.

Signed limited first "Autograph Edition" of Longstreet's important Civil War history, with frontispiece portrait, 16 maps, and 30 illustrations of battle sites and portraits, number 14 of 250 copies signed by the author on the limitation page, in handsome publisher's binding.

"Longstreet's tome is a milestone of great importance in Confederate literature. It tells the story of the war in the first person from one of the great generals of American history, allows him to make his case… Longstreet here provides ample documentation of his close relationships with Lee" (Eicher). Contrary to myth, Longstreet, not Stonewall Jackson, was Lee's intimate confidant, close friend, and principal military adviser (ANB). "Longstreet's reminiscences are basic to any study of the Army of Northern Virginia" (In Tall Cotton 114), and are "a necessary source for any study of Lee's army" (Nevins I:122). "Published in December 1895 (bearing the date 1896)" (Piston, Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, 154). Issued along with the first trade edition, no priority established. Dornbusch II:2977. Eicher 277. Wright 664. Howes L451.

Text and plates clean. Binding extremities with expert restoration. An uncommon, desirable signed copy.