[Smith, W.W.]:

$12,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

SKETCH OF THE SEMINOLE WAR, AND SKETCHES DURING A CAMPAIGN. By a Lieutenant of the Left Wing. One of the rarest personal narratives of the second Seminole War of 1835-36. The volume was absent from the Streeter collection, which contained some of the rarest Seminole War material. It is also lacking from several otherwise exhaustive collections of southern military history.The author was an officer in the South Carolina volunteer regiment commanded by Col. A.H. Brisbane. James Servies, in the new edition of his Bibliography of West Florida, identifies the author as W.W. Smith on the basis of a NILES WEEKLY REGISTER article about the book. Smith gives a general history of the beginning of the war, then proceeds to a narrative of his experience with the South Carolina volunteers between the formation of the regiment in January 1836 and the termination of their service at St. Augustine in May. He gives a lively firsthand account of the campaign and his part in it, with interesting observations on the land, natural history, and Indians, as well as military details. He also provides a "Vocabulary of the Seminole language."

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