Major General Nathanael Greene was an ardent admirer of George Washington and his most trusted military subordinate. These memoirs are in excellent condition and include 32 beautiful engravings. This is really a spectacular book.
My assumption is that it was re-bound. The gold-stamped red leather cover is very striking and the pages are in outstanding condition.
The folding facsimiles reproduce two letters dated in 1779: The first, a letter from Greene to John Jay regarding positive Congressional acknowledgement of Greene's activities as quartermaster general of the Continental Army, and the second, a letter from George Washington to Greene pleading for a penknife during Greene's stint in the same position.
The Appendix includes the text of Gen. Greene's letter to Congress resigning as quartermaster general, along with official reports of several battles which Greene commanded, and also the text of the apocryphal Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.
"This is the best contemporary biography of the great general" - Decker.
The inscription dated September 13, 1902 is from Thomas R. Proctor of Utica, NY. A park and high school in Utica are named after him.
He dedicated it to Col. Asa Bird Gardiner.
According to the entry for Gardiner in Wikipedia:
"Asa Bird Gardiner. (September 30, 1839[1] – May 24, 1919) was a controversial American soldier, attorney, and district attorney for New York County (a.k.a. the Borough of Manhattan) from 1898 to 1900.
"He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the American Civil War in 1872 but it was rescinded in 1917 when supporting documentation was not found. As a Judge Advocate in the United States Army, he prosecuted the case of Johnson Chesnut Whittaker, a black cadet at West Point.
"He was elected New York County District Attorney in 1897, but was put on trial for corruption, and despite acquittal, was removed from office by Theodore Roosevelt in 1900. He refused to prosecute the corrupt Tammany Hall bosses of New York City, proclaiming "The hell with reform!" (or "Reform be damned!")"
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