(MASSACHUSETTS) Archive of Francis Amasa Walker papers

Sale 2223 - Lot 131

Price Realized: $ 1,800

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800

(MASSACHUSETTS.) Archive of Francis Amasa Walker papers. 76 letters received and 14 Civil War documents, sleeved in 3-ring binder; generally well-preserved, small mount remnants on verso of many items. Vp, 1861-96 and undated

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Francis Amasa Walker (1840-1897) was a Civil War general, Yale economist, superintendent of the 1880 census, and then president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was the son of Amasa Walker (lot 130). His correspondence encompasses academics, politicians, military leaders, and literary figures. Some of the many prominent correspondents included in this archive are Schuyler Colfax (two letters as Vice President), John Tyndall, Henry Fawcett, Henry Cabot Lodge, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, poet Thomas B. Aldrich (3 letters), Nelson Miles, John Hay, William Dean Howells, Harvard president Charles W. Eliot (twice), sculptor Daniel Chester French, and historian Francis Parkman.
Henry Adams sent two substantial letters, including a detailed 1878 commentary on the silver question. His brother Charles Francis Adams Jr. began his 1883 note "I am one of those fools who use yachts," and invited Walker along for a long cruise. Samuel Chapman Armstrong wrote in 1888 on his efforts to hire a carpentry instructor at his Hampton Institute to provide marketable skills to his students. British historian George O. Trevelyan, in response to one of Walker's Civil War histories, wrote "I never before appreciated the appalling dangers and efforts," adding that the battles "tell a story that stands alone and makes me really proud of what is, after all, my race." The collection also includes 14 documents from Walker's Civil War service as Adjutant General to Generals Couch and Hancock. with--part of the Walker family autograph collection: 30 items including clipped signatures of James A. Garfield and Booker T. Washington.