[4th Alabama Cavalry] WITH SABRE AND SCALPEL: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SOLDIER AND SURGEON by Wyeth, John Allan - 1914

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1914. Hard Cover. Near Fine binding. Octavo. xx, 535, [1] pp., frontis, plates, map. First edition, first printing. As issued, in publisher's red cloth with title and saber and sheild vignette on the spine. All plates are present as called for. An exceptionally bright copy of a book rarely seen thus. The spine gilt is just a bit dulled, but the stamped silver shield on the spine, so often rubbed, is very bright; contents are clean and sharp but for one leaf with small loss to the bottom corner of the margin--possibly a paper flaw; nowhere near the text.

Nevins call this "[a]n exceptionally interesting and reliable memoir by a surgeon who served in the cavalry of Bedford Forrest" CWB I, 183. Wyeth authored a notable biography of Forrest first appearing in 1899. Eicher notes that it "contains much of importance and a great deal of minutiae, and might be considered as useful for its details of medical history as for its anecdotes of Civil War history. Slightly more than one-quarter of the text treats the war years, so readers find a great store of data on the author's early life in Alabama, his interest in medicine and surgery, recollections of antebellum conditions in the Deep South, and a lengthy narrative on Wyeth's postwar career as a doctor" Eicher 322.