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Wednesday, August 12, 2020

BATTLE-PIECES in Major Farnsworth's St Louis Dispatch

The battle of Gettysburg, Pa. July 3d. 1863. Lithograph by Currier & Ives via Library of Congress
Transcribed below, this early notice of Herman Melville's Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War appeared in the St. Louis, MO Dispatch on August 30, 1866.

Saint Louis Dispatch - August 30, 1866

NEW BOOKS

RECEIVED AT O'FALLON POLYTECHNIC
INSTITUTE.
BATTLE-PIECES AND ASPECTS OF THE WAR. By HERMAN MELVILLE. New York: Harper & Bros.
This is an exceedingly interesting grouping in rhyme of the scenes of the war, memorial and descriptive. Some of the pieces are very interesting; and in years to come will be perused as historic of war scenes. It is a neat, attractive volume, from which some choice literary flowers may be culled. 
The St. Louis Dispatch was then managed by Major Ezra Scollay Farnsworth (1830-1886), a wounded veteran of Gettysburg from Newton, Massachusetts.

Boston Herald - April 3, 1886
via GenealogyBank
 From the obituary of Maj. E. S. Farnsworth in the Boston Herald on April 3, 1886:
"... He was twice wounded. At the battle of Gettysburg he received a bad wound in the side, from which it was feared he never would recover. He managed to pull through, however, and returned to the field before he was fully recovered, and there is no doubt that this wound hastened his death. While in the army he had the reputation of being a cool and plucky soldier.... 
Deceased was always a stanch Democrat, and has been identified with the Democratic party for a long time.... After the close of the war, Maj. Farnsworth went to St. Louis, where he remained for about two years as business manager of the St. Louis Dispatch."

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