Wakefield's History Of The Black Hawk War. A Reprint Of The First Edition By John A. Wakefield, Esquire, From The Press Of Calvin Goudy, Jacksonville, Illinois, 1834 ; With Thirteen Photogravure Illustrations, And Preface And Notes

FRANK EVERETT STEVENS

Publication: The Caxton Club, 1908, Chicago

First edition thus. An edition of 200 copies printed on American hand-made paper for members of The Caxton Club. The true first edition was published in 1834. 8vo. Two-tone cloth and paper over boards, 224 pp., top edge trimmed, page edges untrimmed, frontis. [colored portrait of Black Hawk], illustrated, plates, portraits, preface, appendix, index. Wakefield's first edition published in 1834 is a rare book and was published originally by Calvin Goudy at Jacksonville, Illinois. It is a valuable account of the Black Hawk War fought in Northwestern Illinois and Southwestern Wisconsin [then part of Michigan Territory] in the years of 1831 and 1832. This second edition has become very scarce and has much more information on the participants than the original edition of 1834. Many of the men who participated in this short, three month war later went on to become famous in the military or political fields. Abraham Lincoln, later the 16th President; Jefferson Davis, later President of the Confederacy; Zachary Taylor, the 12th President; Joseph Duncan, the 6th Governor of Illinois; John Wood, the 12th Governor of Illinois; Gurdon S. Hubbard, one of the first fur trappers of the Illinois and Michigan Territories, and James Clyman, frontiersman and mountainman, who was a mess mate to Lincoln, and who rode with Jedediah Smith when they crossed the South Pass to California in 1824. By historians this was not considered a war, but by participants and for those that lived with their families when the Indians burned their homes and scalped and mutilated their loved ones, and carried into captivity their daughters, it was a war of terrible consequences. Fine, unread, bright, tight copy.