Rare CONFEDERATE POETRY Book, with BOOKPLATE of CONFEDERATE VET IN FRONT! Beechenbrook: A Rhyme of the War. Preston, Margaret Junkin. Kelly & Piet, Baltimore, MD, 1867. 2nd Edition. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. 94 pp. Author was sister-in-law of Stonewall Jackson, and was through to have had deep feelings for him. She was known as the 'Poet Lauriate of the South.'"From the Dedication Page: to every Southern woman who has been widowed by the war, I dedicate this thyme published during the progress of the struggle, and now re-produced as a faint memorial of sufferings of which there can be no forgetfulness."Original green cloth covers, in great shape with only minimal wear. Hinges intact. Very light wear throughout. Sticker remnant on rear cover, some inside rear cover, front has bookplate, first fly has Confederate poetical newsclipping and inscribed dedication from "Maggie" and her fiance Henry V L Bird to her Aunt. Pvt. Henry V L Bird was a veteran of the 12th VA Infantry, and has an first hand account of the Civil War writtenm below. His bookplate,. a simple Confederate flag and a nameplate H V L BIRD are in the front of the book. A neat piece of Confederate history!
Henry Bird, a twenty-one-year-old store clerk, enlisted in the Petersburg Grays (Company C, 12th Virginia Infantry) two days after Virginia's secession. In July 1862 he caught a mild strain of typhoid fever that kept him out of the war for seventeen months. Returning to his unit in 1864, he fought alongside them through the Overland Campaign and into the trenches at Petersburg. At the October 1864 battle of Burgess' Mill, Bird became a prisoner-of-war and was confined at Point Lookout, Maryland. Following Appomattox, while he waited to be released, Bird received a letter from his father:
"The state is quieting down and people are going to work, and the war will soon be a thing of the past. I [have] been to see Genl Lee and he told me that all the soldiers who desired to return to their native places . . . should take the oath of allegiance to the U. States and become god citizens."
Bird returned to Petersburg in June 1865. Apologizing to his fiancée, Margaret Randolph, he took the oath of allegiance—the prerequisite to receiving a marriage license. Facing an uncertain future, Bird penned a note to Margaret, "My darling, we are all strangers in the land now…" Bird lived in Petersburg until his death in 1903.
(Pictured left: Henry V. L. Bird, Virginia Historical Society, Accession no. 1994.108.6; Pictured right: Margaret Randolph Bird, Virginia Historical Society, 1994.108.8)
Regiment Name 12 Virginia Infantry
