Description
First edition of Sketch of Edward Coles, Second Governor of Illinois by Elihu B. Washburne, inscribed to Colonel William Lamb, Confederate Army officer and Mayor of Norfolk, Virginia.
Octavo, 253pp, [2pp ads]. Publisher’s original brown cloth, border stamped in blind on covers, title stamped in gilt on spine. Brown endpapers. Solid text block, faint discoloration to covers, light wear to gilt, spine ends and corners bumped. With engraved frontispiece portrait and tissue guard and 6 folded facsimile letters, light offsetting to text. (Graff 4552) Signed “William Lamb / from the author July ’82” on the front free endpaper.
Elihu B. Washburne (1816-1887) was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for the state of Illinois, serving from 1853-1869. An ardent abolitionist, Washburne was a leader among the Radical Republicans in Congress. During the Civil War, he was a strong supporter of President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant. When Grant was elected president in 1868, Washburne briefly served as Secretary of State, then was appointed Minister to France. In retirement, Washburne wrote a memoir of his time spent in France, titled Recollections of a Minister to France, 1869-1877. The work was published shortly before his death in 1887.
