[Abner Doubleday][Nathaniel P. Banks] General Orders No. 135--Mustering Out Generals After the Civil War, August 24, 1865

Item Details

[Baseball][Abner Doubleday][Nathaniel P. Banks] General Orders No. 135--Mustering Out Generals After the Civil War, August 24, 1865

Disbound General Orders with binding and stab holes along left margin. 3pp. 7 x 4 3/4 inches. Very Good Condition.

Reconstruction era general orders listing General Officers of the U.S. Volunteers to be mustered out of service.  Most notable are Nathaniel P. Banks and Abner Doubleday.

Nathaniel Banks may be best remembered for his election as Speaker of the House of Representatives after a record 133 ballots taken over the course of two months, in 1855. Banks became an early political appointee by Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War. He was regularly criticized for the failures of his campaigns, notably in reconnaissance efforts and many under his command failed to respect his appointment because of his political connections.

Abner Doubleday, best known within the military for shooting the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter, the opening battle of the Civil War, and playing a pivotal role in the early fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Ask any "little leaguer" and they will tell you that Abner Doubleday 'invented' the great American past time, Baseball.

In 1907 the Mills Commission (chaired by Abraham G. Mills, the fourth president of the National Baseball League) was assigned to determine exactly who invented baseball stated "in the years to come, in the view of the hundreds of thousands of people who are devoted to baseball, and the millions who will be, Abner Doubleday's fame will rest evenly, if not quite as much, upon the fact that he was baseballs inventor ... as upon his brilliant and distinguished career as an officer in the Federal Army." That Doubleday "invented" baseball is wholly disputed today, yet the myth lives on. 

A fun piece of Americana.