Civil War Newspaper Scrapbook

Item Details

n/a, n/a, c.1862, Sewn

n/a, Fair/Good

13” x 8 ½” hand-sewn repurposed accounts book consisting of newspaper clippings pasted over handwritten pages and both inside covers; heavy paper cover. Most dates are not included and there are no names from the newspapers, but judging from the content come from one or more Northern newspapers.

It opens on Thursday, November 14, 1861 with a map of the Battlefield of Bull Run and closes with an April 9, 1862 piece on “The Great Battle at Pittsburg”. The clipped articles are almost entirely from 1861 and 1862 but do not proceed chronologically, suggesting that the author of this unique item created it in one or two sessions. One of the clippings is a list of regiments in the Northeast, suggesting the author’s home. We can also surmise that they had a sense of humor – many of the clippings are jokes, humorous anecdotes, illustrations with funny captions, or longer-form comedic and dramatic stories. These are interspersed with poetry and news of the war. 

This unique item generates lots of interesting questions, but regardless of the unknowable answers, it is a vivid and engaging relic of a specific time and place in the nation’s history. 

48pp. Wear and tear to edges of cover which is nearly separated from the text block. Some darkening and adhesive staining of the pages. 

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