American Historical Ephemera & Photography

For Four Years, One Month, and One Day, or Camp Life; Day-by-Day, of the W. P. Lane Rangers.  From April 19th, 1861, to May 20th, 1865. [Marshall, Texas: Printed by the author, 1876].

8vo. 61 albumen-print photographs of Confederate officers and soldiers, cut round or octagonally and mounted to sheets with printed captions for 60 of the 61 portraits. (Three leaves provided in printed facsimile, several leaves repaired or remargined, tears occasionally crossing letters, some spotting.) Original black cloth (lacking spine panel, soiled, worn); half morocco folding case). Provenance: Early (contemporary?) manuscript note on the photo of S. J. Burton indicating he "died a natural death"; Lamon Jefferson Keener (signature, Kilgone Texas, Gregg County). 

FIRST EDITION, "ONE OF THE RAREST JOURNALS BY A CONFEDERATE COMBATANT" (Howes)

Heartsill printed his exceedingly rare work page-by-page on a hand press in an edition of only 100 copies, of which "merely a handful have survived.... The journal itself is historically important.... This four-year record is one of the most vivid and intimate accounts of Civil War battle-life that has survived" (Basic Texas Books 89).  "This book would be of considerable interest because of the homespun way in which it was produced, even if it were devoid of any other virtues. It is, however, a good narrative in its own right-of the early days of the war in Texas, of operations in Arkansas and Louisiana, of Heartsill's capture and imprisonment in the North, of his travels through the north to City Point, Virginia, for exchange. After some time in Richmond he was attached to Bragg's army in time to participate in the Battle of Chickamauga. Then slowly back to Texas through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. For a while he guarded Federal prisoners in Camp Ford at Tyler, Texas. He and his comrades in the W. P. Lane Rangers were finally disbanded near Navasota May 10, 1865" (Harwell, In Tall Cotton, 86). Howes H-380.