[CIVIL WAR]. A pair of memorial books for fallen officers, Adjutant Frazer Augustus Stearns and Adjutant William Kirkland Bacon, authored by their fathers. 1862-[1865].

STEARNS, William Augustus. Adjutant Stearns. Boston: Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, 1862. 8vo. Green cloth with gilt title to spine (some wear to extremities; pages with scattered spotting, tissue and frontispiece with heavy spotting, last page with some holes to upper edge). Engraved frontispiece. Inscribed on front free endpaper "A Present to Henry Blackmer From Aunt Caroline."

Frazar Augustus Stearns (1840-1862) was a student at Amherst College when he enlisted as a first lieutenant on 19 August 1861. He was commissioned into Company I of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry that day. He was killed on 14 March 1862 at the Battle of New Berne, NC.

Stearns enlisted at the urging of a chemistry professor at Amherst, William Smith Clark, who became an officer in the 21st Massachusetts. Stearns served as his adjutant. On 9 March 1862, Frazer wrote to his mother that at any moment she could hear of his killing or wounding, writing that these were "horrible times," but that he had hope. Five days later, as Clark would describe: "First Lieutenant F. A. Stearns, of Company I, fell mortally wounded...As he was cheering on the men to charge upon the enemy across the railroad, he was struck by a ball from an English rifle...He lived about two hours and a half, though nearly unconscious from the loss of blood, and died without a struggle a little before noon."

Frazar Stearns was also a close friend of the brother of poet Emily Dickinson, who wrote of Stearns' death in a letter to Samuel Bowles in 1862. One of her poems, "After great pain, a formal feeling comes," could have been inspired by Stearns' death.

(See William Sweet's "A Cannon for the Confederacy: The Legacy of Frazar Stearns." Amherst Collegge. 15 March 2012.)

BACON, William Johnson. Memorial of William Kirkland Bacon, Late Adjutant of the Twenty-Sixth Regiment of New-York State Volunteers. Boston: The American Tract Society, [1865]. 8vo. Blue cloth with gilt title to spine (soiling and wear to covers and spine, loss to gilt title, interior spine splitting; spotting to pages). Engraved frontispiece. Inscribed on front free endpaper "To Mrs. Danl. Crawse[?] with kind regards of The Author / May 1865."

William Kirkland Bacon (1842-1862) enlisted as a first lieutenant on 1 May 1861, and was commissioned into the 26th New York Infantry later that month. He was wounded first on 31 August 1862 at Second Bull Runn, and again on 13 December at Fredericksburg. He would succumb to his wounds two days later.

Together, 2 memorial books authored by the fathers of fallen officers.

This lot is located in Cincinnati.