Abert, James A.; Galvin, John [editor]. Through the Country of The Comanche Indians in the fall of the year 1845. The Journal of a U. S. Army Expedition led by Lieutenant James W. Abert of the Topographical Engineers. Artist extraordinary whose paintings of Indians and Their Wild West illustrate this book. (San Francisco): John Howell - Books, 1970. [12305]
Cream cloth with bright gilt titles, binding fine, in a fine dust jacket. 14 x 10 1/4 inches, xi, 77 clean pp. With two large folding maps and twenty-six full page color plates. Designed and printed by Lawton and Alfred Kennedy. Fine in fine dust-jacket. Hardcover.
Abert led a detachment south and eastward along the Canadian River to the confluence with the Arkansas. Abert's diary gives a thrilling first-hand account of Indians met along the way - Cheyennes and Delawares, Comanches, Kiowa and Crows; the natural scenery of the Timpa Valley, Raton Fork, the Grand Canyon of the Canadian, the Washita River, etc, all punctuated with delightful accounts of prairie dogs, rattlesnakes, mustangs, wolves, plains strewn with agates, wild turkey dinners and so forth.
A valuable document of early Western travel.
The original edition of 1846 is Howes A10.
James James Abert (1788-1863), b. Shepherdstown, Virginia; d. Washington, DC. Abert graduated at West Point (1811), served in the War of 1812, was brevetted Major for gallantry at the Battle of Bladensburg (1814), and was appointed Chief of the Topographic Bureau in 1829. He led the Corps of Topographical Engineers for 32 years, overseeing the exploration and mapping of the American West. He held the rank of Colonel at his retirement. Colonel Abert was a member of many national and international geographical and scientific societies.
Abert's paintings from life, reproduced herein, are remarkable. He was sometime instructor of art at West Point (see Wagner-Camp 143), and his paintings portray life in the West now gone forever.
"The Army and the country will not need to be reminded of the vast interest and value attached to the operations of this Corps since its organization. The geographical and other information concerning this continent which its officers have collected and published has challenged the admiration of the scientific world, while the practical benefit of their labors has been felt in nearly every State and every Territory; the whole forming a proud monument to him who was its founder. As a citizen and a man, Colonel Abert was remarkable for the steadfastness of his friendships, for his candor and unostentatious hospitality. Equally unostentatious, but no less sincere, was the simple piety which supported his declining years, and left behind an example which the proudest soldier would not be ashamed to follow." - U. S. War Department Obituary Notice, January 27, 1863.
