Partly printed document completed in manuscript, 1p, 7 1/2 x 5 in. "A.G. Doty," Lieutenant and Enrolling Officer of Noxubee County, Mississippi, certifies that he has impressed and received from enslaver Joseph May the thirty-nine-year-old Black slave named "Tom," and that the $4,000 value herein stated is correct. The receipt indicates that slaves were impressed "under the act of Congress of the Confederate States, entitled 'An act to increase the efficiency of the army by the employment of free negroes and slaves in certain capacities,' approved February 17, 1864."

The 1860 U.S. Federal Census Slave schedule identifies Joseph May of Noxubee County as enslaving more than 100 men, women, and children, likely including "Tom." Between the Covers Rare Books, Catalog 244: African-Americana, cited a related document, a "Certificate of Medical Examination of Slaves" completed on the same day as the Impressment Receipt: "The document certifies that the slave Tom, aged 39, owned by the estate of Joseph May in Noxubee County, was capable of performing field work and was 'sound in mind and body except a bad set of teeth.'”

[With:] FUZZLEBUG, Fritz (pseudonym of John J. Dunkle). Prison Life During the Rebellion. Being a Brief Narrative of the Miseries and Sufferings of Six Hundred Confederate Prisoners Sent from Fort Delaware to Morris' Island to be Punished. Singer's Glen, Virginia: J. Funk's Sons, Printers, 1869. 48pp. Bound in marbled boards and tan cloth.