Richardson, Albert D. The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape. Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1865. First Edition. [12056]
Purple publisher's cloth faded to brown, boards decorated in blind, gilt spine titles now quite faint, a little worn at the spine ends, joints fine and tight, 9 x 6 1/4 inches. Former owner's pencil signature and date July 12th, '65 on the ffep. Steel-engraved portrait of the author after a photography by Brady, engraved by George E. Perine of New York. The engraving and tissue guard are foxed. 10 additional engravings, 501 pages, complete. Infrequent foxing in the text, moreso on the engravings. Good. Hardcover.
The final three pages consist of "A Song for the 'Nameless Heroine' who aided the Escaping Prisoners". Words and Music composed by B. R. Hanby, three stanzas and chorus, with music in round notes.
A vivid account of Richardson, who was sent by the New York Tribune to New Orleans as a secret correspondent to report on the conditions of the South just before the outbreak of the American Civil War. His book on the war is a well-written account of eye-witness events, with sections such as Abolitionists Mobbed and Hanged, Brutalities of Slavery, How the Secessionists carried the day, Braxton Bragg, The Rebels Anxious for War, Hatred of New England, Vice-President Hamlin a Mulatto, A System of Cipher, Report of a Slave Auction, Sale of a White Woman, etc, etc. His battle accounts include Campaigning in the Kanawha Valley, Battle of Wilson Creek, the Bohemian Brigade, Fremont's Army, Freaks of the Kansas Brigade, Expedition to Fort Henry, Bombardment of Island Number Ten, Daily Life on a Gunboat, the Battle of Shiloh, Grant and Sherman in Battle, Advance upon Corinth, Bloodthirstiness of Rebel Women, Battle of Memphis, Curtis's March through Arkansa, the Siege of Cincinnati, Shameful Surrender of Harper's Ferry, General Hooker at Antietam, Battle of Fredericksburg, Rosecrans in a Great Battle. The final section of the book detail his experiences as a captive and his escape.
Albert Deane Richardson (1833-1869), b. Franklin, Massachusetts; d. New York City. A journalist and spy, Richardson was a correspondent at various times for newspapers in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Golden City, Colorado. During the American Civil War he was a war correspondent with the New York Daily Tribune, owned by Horace Greeley. He and his co-worker, Junius Henri Browne, were captured by the Confederates and were imprisoned for 20 months in seven different prisons, finally escaping together in December of 1864. They traveled more than 400 miles through Confederate territory before reaching the Union lines.
Richardson was a celebrated journalist, "one of the best known reporters of his age," and wrote a popular account of the West (Beyond the Mississippi, 1867) as well as of his adventures and misadventures during the war (The Secret Service....&c., 1865). He also wrote a biography of General Grant; a posthumous collection his writings was issued by his wife in 1871, Garnered Sheaves.
Richardson fell in love with the married Abby Sage McFarland, a victim of domestic violence, the two living together for some time in New York City. He was shot by her husband twice (March, 1867 & November, 1869), the second time fatally, although he lingered for about a week. Daniel McFarland was acquitted of the murder on the grounds of insanity, and later drank himself to death. Richardson lived or a week after the shooting, and he and Abby Sage McFarland (who was then divorced) were married by the famous Rev. Henry Ward Beecher just a few days before his death.
"Abby Sage had been a school teacher in Manchester, N. H, and a writer of children's books. She had also been an actress and a writer of plays, and in 1889 wrote the stage version of Mark Twain's 'The Prince and the Pauper,' which was produced by Daniel Frohman." - note at Northern Illinois University Libraries online.
