Oct 02, 2012 - Sale 2287

Sale 2287 - Lot 170

Price Realized: $ 5,280
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
(CIVIL WAR--CONFEDERATE.) Turner, Henrietta Magruder. Commonplace book including a Confederate map of the Battle of Fredericksburg. [88] manuscript and scrapbook pages. 4to, original calf pictorial gilt, worn; several pages loose, others excised. Charlottesville, VA, and elsewhere, 1852-75
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Additional Details

The folding map of Fredericksburg shows the key movements of this major Confederate victory from the Confederate perspective. Longstreet's, Jackson's, Stuart's, Pickett's, and Hood's units to the west of the city are each named and located, while Burnside's army in the upper right is identified only as "Yankee skirmishers" and "Yankee infantry." The Richmond Road along the river is captioned "Deep ditch & hedge, filled with Yankee infantry." Some topographical features are shown, as well as individual buildings. The map is 7 x 13 1/2 inches, pasted into the volume along its left half, with a closed separation along one fold. The author of the map seems to have been present at the battle, but none of Henrietta's close relatives (her husband, brother, or uncle) were.
The compiler of this volume, Henrietta Magruder Turner (1845-1895), was the niece of Confederate General John Bankhead Magruder. After the war she married James Thornton Lanham. Many items in the volume are written by her, or addressed to her by friends and family members. Pasted in near the rear of the volume is a Letter Signed by Confederate Secretary of War James Alexander Seddon dated Richmond, 16 September 1864. Writing to Turner, he informs her of her appointment to a clerkship in the office of the Adjutant General, and adds that "If you will call at my office on your arrival in the city, I will introduce you to those with whom you will be associated."
Also of interest are a family register of the Magruder family showing ancestral births and deaths back to her great-grandfather in 1733; several clippings relating to her famous uncle General Magruder; four pieces of Confederate currency; and several pieces of martial poetry recorded in the 1860s. Bits of what appear to be a post-war European travel diary fill several blank spaces in the volume. Even beyond the striking Fredericksburg map, this is an absorbing artifact of the Confederacy.