Description
COLONEL DODGE DOING AN UPDATED VERSION OF HIS FAMOUS BOOK ON THE PLAINS INDIANS & MENTIONS A CONVERSATION WITH GENERAL SHERMAN REGARDING THE RECIPIENTS BOOK ON CHANCELLORSVILLE
Richard Irving Dodge (1827-95) Handwritten Letter Signed, "Richard I. Dodge", 3-pgs., 5 x 8, on "Headquarters Army of the United States, Washington, D.C." letterhead, June 14, 1881, by the colonel who had a long and successful career in the U.S. Army serving many years in the Western Plains, and participating in a number of the conflicts with the indigenous Indians. He was also the author of several acclaimed books on American Indians, including one mentioned in this letter written to Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Ayrault Dodge (1842 – 1909) an American officer and military historian. He fought as a Union officer in the American Civil War; as a writer, he was devoted to both the Civil War and the great generals of ancient and European history. His works on the Civil War include The Campaign of Chancellorsville (1881) and Bird's Eye View of the Civil War (1883). In part: "...Many thanks for your book on Chancellorsville...at present I am in the throes of composition. I am getting out a book on Indians. An 'enlarged & improved' work on the general plan of the sketches of Indians in my plains book...I showed your work to Genl Sherman, who appeared greatly interested with it...As soon as I can find ...to read your book with the care it deserves, I will write again...." In fine condition, with mounting remnants on the blank last page with minor show through.
During the time of this letter Richard I. Dodge published "Our Wild Indians: Thirty Three Years Experience Among the Red Men of The Great West", an acclaimed primary source about U.S. Army operations of the time; and his, "The Plains of North America and Their Inhabitants". Later, four of his journals were published, including "The Black Hills Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge", which recorded a five-month, 1875 scientific expedition, of geologist Walter P. Jenney, that Col. Dodge escorted into the Black Hills of the Dakotas to determine the truth of rumors of gold started by General George Armstrong Custer the previous summer. Dodge was Aide-De-Camp to General William Tecumseh Sherman from 1881–1882. In the second publishing of his memoirs General Sherman wrote, "...Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Irving Dodge...an officer who had performed cheerfully and well a full measure of frontier service, was a capital sportsman, and of a perfect war record
$495 #11634
