Fine Books and Manuscripts

AN EXTENSIVE RUN OF THIS CHICAGO NEWSPAPER, INCLUDING CONTEMPORARY COVERAGE OF THE CIVIL WAR: A SCARCE PRE-FIRE PUBLICATION COMPRISING OVER 770 ISSUES, numbering: Vols. VII-VIII, 1861, 144 issues; Vols. VIII-IX, 1863, 247 issues; Vols. IX-X, 1864, 154 issues; and Vols. XII-XIII, 1866, 226 issues. (Some browning, spotting, or staining, some issues with contemporary signatures in margins, a few with tears and chipping with occasional losses, not a complete run, complete list of issues available on request.)The Chicago Times, founded in 1854 by James W. Sheahan with the backing of Stephen Douglas, was purchased by Democratic journalist Wilbur F. Storey in 1861. Under Storey's editorship, the newspaper upheld a Copperhead point of view, openly supporting Southern Democrats and opposing Abraham Lincoln. The issues here present a comprehensive contemporary viewpoint of the Civil War and the years immediately after. Notable coverage includes contemporary accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg as well as coverage of the Democratic National Convention, held in Chicago in 1864. The issues also include an intriguing contemporary account of the General Burnside's suppression of the Chicago Times, on 3 June 1863. The Times circulation had boomed among Democrats, and was the official mouthpiece of Chicago's Democratic mayor, Francis C. Sherman, but opinion was polarized: the paper was banned from the reading room at the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad refused to sell it. Burnside ordered that publication stop, after he determined that the paper was printing articles and opinions he thought to be disloyal to the government. Ultimately, Lincoln revoked the suspension.The issues also include local coverage from this time period, including ward maps of the city of Chicago, a map of the route of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and diagrams illustrating plans to build tunnels and water cribs to provide clean water to the city.