Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 245

Price Realized: $ 2,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Report of the Committee of Merchants for the Relief of Colored People, Suffering from the Late Riots in the City of New York. 48 pages. 8vo, disbound, original printed front wrapper, lacking rear wrapper; vertical fold, minor wear; inscribed on wrapper by original owner. New York, 1863
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Additional Details

First edition of one of the best contemporary sources on New York's horrifying Draft Riots of July 1863, in which about a hundred Black New Yorkers were killed and about two thousand injured, with enormous destruction of property. The secretary's report by Vincent Colyer, pages 7-29, includes dozens of case histories and eyewitnesses. Page 30 describes a visit to the Weeksville neighborhood of Brooklyn, where many refugees had fled. The report concludes with lists of donors of cash and clothing to aid the victims. Afro-Americana 7082; Nevins, Civil War, page I:212; Sabin 54633; Work, page 561.

Provenance: the original owner J.C. Julius Langbein (1845-1910) of Manhattan signed the cover in July 1863, shortly after the report was published. Langbein was only 17 years old at the time, but already distinguished: he had been the drummer boy of the 9th New York Regiment, and saved the life of a Union officer under heavy fire, for which he later won the Medal of Honor. His sister Caroline, a New York teacher, was listed at this 102 St. Mark's Place address in 1864.