Inspired by Veterans Day, Military History served
as the topic for the November 2018 meeting.
The theme produced an array of books ranging from biographies of
significant figures in different wars to books and Bibles carried by soldiers
in battle. Booklets and pamphlets ranged
from a military-issued handbook for US forces in Vietnam to propaganda
literature intended to bolster support the war effort during WWII. The theme even inspired a copy of the 1636 Book
of Common Prayer that helped fuel the English/Scottish Civil War. A selection of the books presented are
offered in a chronological order of the wars they represent.
British Civil Wars (Wars of the Three Kingdoms)
 |
| Scottish Prayer Book |
Scottish
Prayer Book. The Booke of Common Prayer.
Edinburgh: Printed by Robert Young, 1637. Bound with The Psalmes of King David: Translated by King James. London: Printed by Thomas Harper, 1636. In 1637, King Charles the First and William
Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, imposed an Anglican Book of Common Prayer on
the Church of Scotland, which strongly opposed the use of a prescribed liturgy.
They requested William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling, to compose a new
paraphrase of the Psalms to supplement the work, which they ascribed to King
James himself in the hope that since the former king had served as the King of
Scotland before unifying Scotland and England, it would make the whole effort
more acceptable. The day the Prayer Book was used in Edinburgh a riot ensued,
when the Bishop had to be escorted under guard from the cathedral. Its
imposition became one of the final straws which led to the English/Scottish
Civil War, the execution of King Charles, and the establishment of the
Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. This is the first printing of the Scottish
Prayer Book, bound with the Psalms attributed to King James.
 |
| Lord Fairfax’s Paraphrase of the Psalms |
Fairfax,
Thomas. "The Psalms of King David
Paraphrased into Verse Which May Be Sung According to the Tunes Used in
Churches, by the Right Honorable Thomas, Lord Fairfax, 1669." Manuscript.
Held in private collection, Atlanta.
Thomas, Lord Fairfax, served as Commander-in-Chief of the British
Military under King Charles the First, and it was he who argued before
Parliament that the King should not be put to death. When Oliver Cromwell established
the Commonwealth, Lord Fairfax was named Commander-in-Chief of the Commonwealth
Military. After a disagreement with Cromwell regarding an aggressive move on a
Scottish village, Lord Fairfax resigned his post and retired to his family’s
country estate, where he devoted much of his time to composing a new paraphrase
of the Psalms and other poetry. His rough draft is housed in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford University. In 1669, he wrote out by hand what he thought were
his best versions as a gift to his family, and he died two years later. His
poetry has never been published. This is his manuscript left with the family.
Since he wrote only on one side of each page, a relative after his death copied
all of his other poetry on the reverse side. The book was purchased from a shop
in Manchester, England, which specialized in military memorabilia.
 |
| Lord Fairfax's Psalm 23 and Psalm 103 |
American Revolution
 |
| The History of the American Revolution |
Ramsay, David. The History of the American Revolution: In Two Volumes. Philadelphia: Aitken & Son, 1789. This copy has both volumes bound together in contemporary leather with a more recent re-backed spine and the original title label laid down. The 1789 first edition of his book is now quite rare. Ramsay's account was one of the first and most accomplished histories to appear in the aftermath of that event. David Ramsay (1749–1815) was an American physician, public official, and historian who participated in many of the events during the Revolution. He wrote with firsthand knowledge and access to many of the participants and documents having been a member of the South Carolina legislature, a delegate to the Continental Congress, and a member of the South Carolina militia as a field surgeon.
 |
| Title pages and Preface to Ramsay's The History of the American Revolution |
American Civil War
 |
| Confederate New Testament |
Authorized
Version (King James Version). New Testament. Augusta, GA: Confederate States Bible Society,
1862. The First Confederate Printing
of the New Testament. At the beginning of the Civil War, most of the American
editions of the Bible were published by the American Bible Society in New York.
As the war progressed, the Northern forces did not want to sell copies to the
Southern states, and the Southern states did not want to make purchases from
the North. They began to buy copies of the Bible imported from England, but
these were too expensive for many of the ordinary people to afford. The
Confederate States Bible Society, based in Augusta, Georgia, issued a New
Testament under their name in 1862, which was printed by private printers in
Atlanta. This is the first printing by the Confederate States Bible Society, in
the original paper boards so it could easily be carried by soldiers in battle.
 |
| Stonewall Jackson: A Military Biography |
Cooke, John
Esten. Stonewall Jackson: A Military History. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1866. Illustrated with maps and frontispiece. 470
pages. Original brown pebbled
cloth. During the Civil War, Cooke
served as a staff officer for Major Gen. J.E.B. Stuart in the Confederate
States Army cavalry and later served under Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton. His biography of Jackson is divided into
three parts: Part I – Childhood to the Battle of Manassas; Part II – The Campaign
of the Valley; Part III – From Port Republic to Chancellorsville.
 |
| Annual Report of the Adjutant-General of the State of New York For the Year of 1895 |
State of
New York. Annual Report of the Adjutant-General of the State of New York For the
Year of 1895: Registers of the First and Second Veteran Cavalry, First and
Second Mounted Rifles, in the War of the Rebellion. New York: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co.,
1896. Volume II, a supplement to the
1895 full annual report of the military department of the state, by E. A.
McAlpin, Adjutant-General. 1,059 pages. This volume lists the names, ages, dates of
enlistments, ranks and home states of Union soldiers from these four army
regiments, and includes the "mustering out" (discharge from service)
or deaths of soldiers. The title refers
to the Civil War as "the War of Rebellion," which is consistent with
official war records at the time. During
and immediately after the war, U.S. officials, Union states, southern
Unionists, and pro-Union writers often referred to Confederates as
"rebels," and the earliest histories published in northern U.S.
states commonly refer to the American Civil War as "the Great Rebellion"
or "the War of the Rebellion."
The official war records of the United States refer to this war as
"the War of the Rebellion."
 |
| Sample roster from the Annual Report |
World War Two
 |
| Paris or The Future of War |
Hart, B. H.
Liddell. Paris or The Future of War.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1925. First edition. Hart, a British soldier in WWI and a military
historian and theorist, articulates that the "indirect approach" to
warfare is more effective than direct combat; he argues, for example, that air power
and strategic bombings are faster and more efficient than ground battles, which
he describes as prolonged bloodbaths.
His exemplar of the indirect approach is Paris, featured in the title;
Paris does not refer to the capital of France but to the Trojan prince in
Homer's Iliad who slays Achilles by
shooting him with an arrow, attacking his weakness rather than his strength. This book
helped the Germans devise their blitzkrieg
military strategy that was so successful in the first part of WWII.
 |
| The Man Who Never Was and Operation Mincemeat |
Montagu,
Ewen. The Man Who Never Was.
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1954.
First edition.
Macintyre,
Ben. Operation
Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an
Allied Victory. New York: Harmony
Books, 2010. First edition.
The Man Who Never Was and Operation
Mincemeat both tell the story of a British deception operation during
WWII to disguise the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, by disguising a corpse
(a homeless man who died from eating rat poison) as a Royal Marine captain and
planting falsified intelligence information on the body about a planned Allied
invasion of Greece and Sardinia. The
rouse proved successful when the body was discovered and the documents were
shared with German military intelligence, who sent reinforcements to the wrong
locations. Sicily was liberated quicker
than expected and with fewer casualties than predicted. The Man
Who Never Was tells the story of Operation Mincemeat from the perspective
of one of the participants, while Operation
Mincemeat is more of a historical narrative using new material, previously
unreleased by MI5 and Naval Intelligence, to tell the same story, but at a
remove of almost 70 years.
 |
| When Books Went to War and two Armed Services Editions books |
Manning,
Molly Guptill. When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. Advancing the concept that books are weapons
in the war on ideas, Manning documents the roles books played in the lives of
US soldiers during WWII. The book traces
this history of the Victory Book Campaign (VBC), the formation of the Council
on Books in Wartime, and the production and distribution of the Armed Services
Editions (ASEs) and how they not only provided respite and entertainment for
the soldiers but also helped combat the Nazi ideology that embraced censorship
and the banning and burning of books.
Examples of the Armed Services Editions books
included Graham Greene's The Ministry of Fear (Series #A-22),
one of the first 30 ASEs issued in September 1943 in the larger size intended
for soldiers' cargo pants pockets, and The Confidential Agent (Series #873),
issued in October 1945 in the smaller size intended for carry in shirt pockets.
 |
| They Burned the Books and I, James Blunt |
Benét,
Stephen Vincent. They Burned the Books. New
York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1942.
A radio play first broadcast on May 11, 1942, supported by the Council
on Books in Wartime and the Writers War Board, the play commemorated the May
10, 1933, book burning in a public square in Berlin, Germany, by rallying
Americans to support the war effort lest Germany win the war and impose similar
censorship on the world. Benet's
characters in the play are authors, both living and dead, whose works have been
banned by the Nazis. The popularity of
the production compelled the Writers War Board to publish the play quickly and
disseminate it to libraries across the country.
Unbound copies were printed for use by nonprofit organizations
supporting the war effort. The unbound
copy shown was distributed by one such organization, Citizens for Victory.
Morton, H.
V. I,
James Blunt. London: Methuen, 1942. A future history (alternative history) short
story set two years in the future, a post-war period in which Germany has won
the war. It depicts life in
Nazi-occupied Great Britain and shows a world of martial law, paranoia, and
revenge against those who resist the "complete Germanization" of the
country. The story takes the form of a
diary kept by James Blunt, an English tradesman, who writes of fearing for his
safety. Morton was one of several
popular British authors commissioned by the UK's Ministry of Information to
write stories to help reinvigorate British citizens' support of the war.
Vietnam War
 |
| Handbook for U. S. Forces in Vietnam |
United
States Department of Defense. Handbook for US Forces in Vietnam. Washington DC: Armed Forces Information and
Education, 1966. June 10, 1966,
edition; forward by General W. C. Westmoreland.
Official Department of Defense publication for use by personnel in the
military services. The handbook offers
"basic techniques and procedures" for combatting "regular and
guerilla forces" in South Vietnam.
The pocket-size handbook was given to all combat personnel. It provided information and drawings of
guerilla tactics used by the enemy, including pits, traps, and underground
sniper holes. The handbooks often
contained photographs of models of enemy aircraft for identification
purposes. The handbook was intended to
keep soldiers alert and up-to-date in order to "increase the effectiveness
of our forces and preclude a repetition of past mistakes."
 |
| Forward and sample pages from Handbook for U. S. Forces in Vietnam |
