John Newman Edwards  (1839-1889) -- Shelby and His Men, or, The War in the West.

First edition of this major Confederate account written by Shelby's brigade commander, reprinted 30 years later (1897, the year of Shelby's death).  Edwards participated in every one of Shelby's famous campaigns.  He accompanied Shelby to Mexico after the fall of the Confederacy.

9 x 6".      Portrait frontispiece and folding map.      551 pages.     Howes, E-54.

Joseph O. Shelby (1830-1897) was born in Kentucky, later moved to Missouri in the days of "Bleeding Kansas," and eventually formed the "Iron Brigade" of Missouri volunteers which performed the longest cavalry raid up to that time in history, covering 1500 miles between September 22 and November 3, 1863.  Shelby's men were known as "the undefeated" due to his refusal to surrender when the Confederacy collapsed in 1865, but rather choosing to ride to Mexico with his one thousand surviving troops and offering their services to the Emperor Maximilian who was unfortunately shortly thereafter murdered by the Mexicans.  Shelby returned to Missouri, where he took up farming, and was appointed U. S. Marshall for the Western District of Missouri in 1893.  He was one of the witnesses at the trial of Frank James.  Union General Alfred Pleasanton remarked that, under other conditions, Shelby would have been one of the best cavalry generals in the world.  This near-contemporary personal account has much on activities in Missouri and other regions of the Trans-Mississippi War Department, General Sterling Price, ambushes, battles, etc.  The 1969 movie, "The Undefeated," starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson, is based on his career.

Original black cloth, gilt lettering on spine dulled, spine ends and corners rubbed, binding o/w clean, brown endpapers, 4 x 2" waterstain on frontispiece and opening leaves (present about 2/3 of the way through but quickly decreasing to about 1.5 x 1"), text o/w clean and crisp, a good sound copy.

Miami Printing and Publishing Company, Cincinnati, 1867.

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