THE YOUNG QUARTERMASTER : The Life and Death of Lieut. L.M. Bingham, of the First South Carolina Volunteers

Memento Of The First Black Regiment To See Combat

THE YOUNG QUARTERMASTER : The Life and Death of Lieut. L.M. Bingham, of the First South Carolina Volunteers

[By Luther Goodyear Bingham]

(1863)

First edition of this eulogy for a white officer who served in the first officially authorized Black Union regiment, declaring slavery as the chief reason for the Confederacy's secession and the purpose of Bingham's service "that men might have freedom to be free."

Very good.

Price: $400.00

THE YOUNG QUARTERMASTER : The Life and Death of Lieut. L.M. Bingham, of the First South Carolina Volunteers

The First South Carolina Volunteers were formed in August 1862 by Brigadier General Rufus Saxon, drawing Black recruits mainly from Union-occupied areas in the South around the same time that Lincoln was drafting the Emancipation Proclamation. Its members were largely Gullah Geechee, as well as formerly enslaved men who escaped bondage during the upheavals of the war; one of its commanders was Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, best known today as the friend (and posthumous editor) of Emily Dickinson.

Bingham was first Quartermaster's Sergeant, then Lieutenant of the regiment. He died likely from heat stroke ("sun-struck") during a diversion, at the age of 26. His two closest friends in the regiment, March and London, appear in the father's narrative. For Black soldiers, the "issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined," both legally and philosophically, yet they "faced greater peril than white troops when captured by the Confederate Army" (National Archives). The First South Carolina was the first Black regiment to fight in the war, in November 1862. A paternal document recording one of the many sacrifices made in pursuit of emancipation.

Read more: "Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War," National Archives at archives.org.

The Object

New York: Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, (1863). 5.75'' x 3.75''. Original brown blind-stamped cloth, spine stamped in gilt. Illustrated with frontispiece portrait of Lieut. Bingham and one other full-page plate. 216 pages. Ink gift inscription from a reverend, dated 1866 to first blank, also noting the bookseller ("Wm. Saunders"). Some spotting to boards. Small loss to front free endpaper. A couple minor stains to first few leaves, with light foxing.

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