Running the Blockade; or, U. S. Secret Service Adventures

Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1875. First edition. Hardcover. Very good overall. The fictional account of blockade runners and the secret service in the US Civil War by William Henry Thomes (1824 - 1895). Thomes is also known for 'The Goldhunters' Adventures; or, Life in Australia' based on his own experience as a gold prospector. Here, the author describes a night time fictional encounter with President Lincoln: "As I wandered along the avenue, I nearly stumbled over a tall, dark-complexioned man, whose clothes were none too neat, apparently made without regard to symmetry or shape, with many a wrinkle in the back of his coat, and pants that were baggy at the knees, a vest that was buttoned awry, the bottom turned up, as though in open remonstrance at being required to enclose the form of so uncouth a looking person as the one who stood before me." (p27). Inscription in contemporary hand, dated Dec 25, 1875, to Edward Courtland Gale, the nephew of the appropriately named Colonel Le Grand B. Cannon, a New Yorker who made a Cooper Union speech at the start of the war extolling the duty of patriotism. 8vo, frontispiece, 474pp, illustrations. Original green cloth, pictorially stamped in black and gilt, lettered in gilt. Wright American fiction; no. 2467. Spine ends a little rubbed, front inner hinge restored. OCLC: 6298281.