(NAVY) William H Hivling Diary of a Naval Academy midshipman

Sale 2580 - Lot 180

Price Realized: $ 1,040

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

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

"EVERYBODY TALKING ABOUT OLD JOHN BROWN AND DISUNION." (NAVY.) William H. Hivling. Diary of a Naval Academy midshipman on the eve of war, including a training voyage to Europe. 138 manuscript diary pages (pages 21 to 160 with pages 141-2 omitted in pagination) plus manuscript title page and other memoranda. 4to, 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 inches, original 1/2 calf over marbled boards, boards detached, disbound; lacking at least two preliminary leaves, minor wear, generally clean and legible. With a later 3-page typed guide to some of Hivling's classmates and instructors who appear in the diary. Various places, 16 September 1858 to 3 March 1860

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

William Hibben Hivling (1842-1862) began this diary upon leaving home from Xenia, OH to attend the Naval Academy. He changed trains at Harpers Ferry ("one of the most romantic looking places I ever was in") just a year before John Brown's raid, and arrived at the academy to be admitted as an Acting Midshipman on 20 September. On 27 December he and 40 of his classmates went to Washington and dropped in on the Secretary of the Navy and President Buchanan. A horrific incident occurred on 4 April 1859: "On account of one of the fellows telling tales on his classmates, in the evening a lot of them (nobody knows who they were) got a hold of him and tarred and feathered him, and then made him resign." He notes "playing ball" on 16 April 1859.

On 23 June 1859, he shipped out on the USS Plymouth, which had previously served in Perry's "Black Fleet" in Japan, but was now serving as a training vessel. Hivling left off his diary, and kept a proper log of the voyage, resuming the diary upon their arrival in Cadiz, Spain on 8 August (interspersed with short accounts of shore leave in Plymouth and Brest). On 19 August he gives a good description of a visit to Funchal in the Madeira Islands, and sampled porpoise meat on 22 August ("it went elegant, it tasted like beef-stake, if I could get such meat to eat I would never grumble at ship's fare"). The ship arrived back at Annapolis on 27 September, in time to write: "considerable excitement was raised hear on account of the Harpers Ferry Riot" (18 October) and commemorate "the memoriable day on which Old John Brown is to be hung" (2 December). Six days after the hanging, "everybody talking about Old John Brown and disunion."

Pinned to the flyleaf is a page of instructions to Hivling, urging him to keep a journal and advising to start on page 21 so he can add in his earlier life later on. 5 of Hivling's classmates have inscribed another worn preliminary leaf.

Hivling later died at sea during the Civil War, but he outlived the USS Plymouth--it was scuttled at the outset of the war to avoid falling into rebel hands.