1888 In & Out of Rebel Prisons Alonzo Cooper 12th Cavalry Civil War 1st Edition

  

In and Out of Rebel Prisons, By Lieut. Oliphant, Job Printer, Bookbinder and Stationer, 1888, First Edition.

335 p, original decorated brown cloth binding measures 9 x 6, 8vo. Boards normally scuffed at edges and worn/bumped at corners. Head and tail of spine collapsed with frayed cloth. Hinges rubbed with creasing; gilt lettering dulled, but legible. Water or tea dampness staining found on both top and bottom edges of text-block.

Front end-page detached & chipped around edges. Front and rear gutters split with exposed binding mesh. Ownership inscriptions on front fly-leaf & frontispiece (recto). Toning in margins; sporadic finger-soiling on fore-ages.

Scattered dampness staining at top and bottom edges. Alonzo Cooper (1830 - 1919) was one of thousands who enlisted rather than face conscription at the start of the Civil War. 17, 1862, he enlisted in the 12th New York Cavalry as a private, ultimately attaining the rank of first lieutenant. The 12th Cavalry saw extensive action in North Carolina.

From April 17-20, 1864, the Confederates besieged the Union forces headquartered in Plymouth, employing naval, artillery, and infantry contingents to force their surrender. Among the soldiers captured on April 20th was Lieutenant Alonzo Cooper. It has been reported erroneously that he was sent to Andersonville. He spent one day there before being delivered to a camp reserved for officers in Macon, Georgia. He later was confined in Savannah, Charleston, and Columbia, South Carolina, from which he escaped on Oct.

Cooper would later detail in his book, In and Out of Rebel Prisons, the suffering he endured while eluding Confederate pursuers.