Mar 15, 2012 - Sale 2273

Sale 2273 - Lot 360

Price Realized: $ 1,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
A SCARCE SATIRICAL MILITARY POEM, WRITTEN IN THE FIELD (WEST.) Ye Yellowstone Expedition. Letterpress broadside, 11 1/2 x 7 inches, with title in manuscript twice in upper margin; moderate wear along folds, faint mount remnants in left margin. Camp on the Little Missouri, DT, 21 September 1872
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Additional Details

Colonel David Sloane Stanley of the 22nd United States Infantry led an Second Yellowstone Expedition from July to October 1872. They explored the region between Fort Rice in North Dakota and the mouth of the Powder River in southeastern Montana. Two encounters with hostile Lakota Sioux marked the trip; they were led by Chief Gall, later of Little Big Horn fame.
This broadside is a quite caustic satire on the expedition, referring to the commanding officer as "Stanley the Bold" with more than a little sarcasm. Numerous other officers and staff are named. A typical verse reads: "His staff seemed on purpose selected / From those lacking judgment or sense / Poor Wright's a mere spectacled cypher / Whilst Ketchum's a booby intense." An officer named Wallen boasted of his military record, "but when the Indians went for our pickets / he went for the opposite flank." Widespread illness in camp seems to be one of the author's primary concerns: "Take one drink of that Cottonwood water / And forget all your Indian fears / For what signifies some little danger / To a man with the diarrears?" The final verse is more sober: "The pleasure of Indian campaigning / May go down very well with marines / But veterans tried in the furnace / Know only too well what it means."
According to Yale University, which owns the only other known copy, this work was "probably written by a young junior officer and published on an army field press, and reflects the difficult assignment and the tension that existed in the field."