A Christian's Guide to Heaven…For Catholics carried by Louis Victor Baughman (1845-1906) of the 1st Maryland Cavalry (Confederate) during the Civil War. Baughman was taken as a prisoner-of-war in 1864 and confined at Camp Chase in Ohio for seven months before being released. Baughman reportedly ran away from school at 15 or 16 to enlist in the Confederate Army. After the war, he became a prominent politician and businessman, gaining the nickname "little Napoleon of Maryland."

This book is somewhat unusual in that there are a series of period inscriptions that document its use throughout Baughman's service. The first, located on the book's flyleaf, reads "L. Victor Baughman, April 17th 1861, Feast of…" suggesting that the Bible was given to Baughman on that date. Underneath this inscription Baughman wrote "direct to Mrs. JW Baughman" and her address. The inside cover of the Bible is similarly inscribed but with the headline "NOTICE, if found wounded or dead please direct to…" Underneath this Baughman has written his full name and regiment "Louis Victor Baughman, Co. D, 1st Maryland Cavalry." At the lower lefthand corner there is a little note, in the same hand, that reads "Camp Chase, Prisoner 7 months." Baughman likely included this so that there would be no mistake as to who he was, and where he was, if the book was found. Baughman clearly valued this book highly, and wanted to make sure it was sent back to his family should something happen to him.

On the reverse of the flyleaf, probably upon his release from prison, Baughman wrote "Camp Chase…was a prisoner at Camp Chase, Ohio nearly seven months, captured at Morefield, VA on the 7th, August 1864…"

Superbly documented book carried by a Confederate cavalryman during the war. 

L. Victor "Vic" Baughman was a farmer and a horseman who practiced law for a time with former governor Enoch Louis Lowe.  During the Civil War he served in Company D, First Regiment of Maryland Confederate Cavalry, attaining the rank of general.  From 1857 to 1861 he was an appraiser of the port of Baltimore.  After 1872 he was managing editor along with his two brothers of the Frederick Citizen, a democratic paper founded by his father.  In 1886 he was nominated for a seat in the U.S. Congress in the Sixth Congressional District but was defeated by incumbent Louis E. McComas.  He served two terms as comptroller of the treasury, from 1888 to 1892.  A political ally of Senator Arthur Pue Gorman and personal friend of Judge James McSherry, Baughman was a leading figure in the Democratic party in Frederick County and in Maryland, as illustrated by his nickname, "little Napoleon of Western Maryland."  He served two terms as president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and was president of the Frederick, Northern & Gettysburg Electric Railway Company after 1898.  With Gorman he co-directed the Washington branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad after 1901.  He served on the staff of Governor John Walter Smith from 1900 to 1904.  He was chairman of the Maryland Commission to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis as well as chairman of the Frederick County Democratic Committee.  He was a member of the Maryland State Democratic Committee and succeeded Gorman as Democratic National Committeeman.  He was also a delegate to numerous Democratic national conventions.  He was a member of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, the Maryland Club, the Merchants Club of Baltimore, and the Elk Ridge Fox Hunting Club.  After Gorman's death in June of 1906, it was said that Baughman would be among the few Democratic party leaders in the state who would then dictate party policy.  He declared his intentions to stand for the governorship in the fall 1907 elections, but ill health prevented him from entering the race.  Although business and politics often took him away from Frederick, Baughman was said to have been the happiest at home on the large and productive farm called "Poplar Terrace."  At his farm, Baughman entertained such notables as James Cardinal Gibbons, archibishop of Baltimore, and national politician William Jennings Bryan who passed through Maryland on his first presidential campaign tour.

As comptroller of the treasury in 1890, Baughman was made aware that a "misappropriation of the State securities" had been made by his colleague, state treasurer Stevenson Archer.  Baughman was compelled to report that information to Governor Elihu E. Jackson and the House of Delegates which he submitted on March 26, 1890, fulfilling the original charge made by the authors of Maryland's 1851 constitution for the comptroller to serve as a check on the treasurer.  The investigating committee was not fully satisfied with Baughman's performance, however, and condemned him for "failing to investigate the treasurer's conduct in selling West Virginia Central bonds without consultation with the Governor or comptroller.  'It would seem,' [said] the committee, 'to fall within the range of his (the comptroller's) duties to make diligent inquiry into all such transactions, especially in view of the fact that they cannot be consummated without his warrant.'" ("Report of the Archer Committee."  The Baltimore Sun, 13 June 1890.)  Baughman and several comptrollers before him had failed to witness the treasurer cancel the state bonds and securities bought for the sinking fund as the law required.  Although Baughman had not been in office at the time of Archer's first act of misappropriation of state funds and the crime of embezzlement was clearly committed by Archer alone, the investigative committee placed a share of the responsibility on the comptroller and governor, whose "neglect of official duty" had "made further misappropriatons possible."  ("Report of the Archer Committee." and "Ex-Treasurer Archer:  Report of the Joint Legislative Committee of Investigation."  The Baltimore Sun, 13 June 1890.)

In 1891, during Baughman's second term as comptroller, the state of Maryland was reimbursed for the money it had paid to the U.S. treasury as its share of the direct tax that had been levied on the states by the federal government to pay for expenses associated with fighting the Civil War.  In his Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Treasury Department for the Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1891 to the General Assembly of Maryland dated January 5, 1892, Baughman reported that Maryland had paid its quota of  $371,299.83 and that after that amount was returned to the state treasury, it should be credited to the Defence Redemption Loan Sinking Fund, a fund created to pay off Civil War loans the state had taken out from state banks.  Although he looked forward to the day when state taxes could be reduced, he disagreed with Governor Jackson that they should be done so immediately. -Maryland Archives

[Civil War, Union, Confederate]