Laws of the United States in Relation to the Naval Establishment, and Marine Corps. Washington, D.C.: Davis & Force, 1826. 8vo. Contemporary one quarter calf over marbled boards.

Contemporary ink inscription over original pencil to front free endpaper: "Edward Lloyd Winder / Midshipman U S Navy / May 11th 1836". Pencil inscription to title page: "Midm. Ed. Lloyd Winder / U.S. Navy / 1836. / May 11th". With bookplate to interior front board: "Library of Frank D. Andrews" featuring the locations of his stations including Southington, Connecticut; New Britain, CT; Hartford, CT; and Vineland, New Jersey. With inventory number 2029.

Edward Lloyd Winder (1821-1885) of Talbot County, Maryland was a graduate of the Naval Academy and was a lieutenant in the United States Navy. At the outbreak of the Civil War, however, he enlisted with the Confederate Navy as a lieutenant, seeing promotion to lieutenant colonel by the war's end. Winder was from a very prominent eastern Maryland family. Notably, Frederick Douglass was enslaved on the family plantation, Wye House, for two years of Winder's childhood.

The patriarch of the family was Edward Winder's grandfather, Edward Lloyd V (1779-1834), who served as governor of Maryland (1809-1811) and enslaved hundreds of individuals at Wye House. Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot County and was enslaved by Aaron Anthony, who resided on Wye Plantation from August 1824 until 1826, leading the young Douglass to actually believe his master was Lloyd for a time. Douglass recalled in his 1845 autobiography, "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” his time on Wye Plantation and his impressions of Edward Lloyd and his family: "My master was Colonel Lloyd's clerk and superintendent. He was what might be called the overseer of the overseers. I spent two years of my childhood on this plantation in my old master's family...Colonel Lloyd kept from three to four hundred slaves on his home plantation, and owned a large number more on the neighboring farms belong to him." He provides a detailed description of the plantation, including the extensive gardens and Lloyd's attention to his horses, and continues with Lloyd's treatment of his slaves: "Colonel Lloyd could not brook any contradiction from a slave. When he spoke, a slave must stand, listen, and tremble; and such was literally the case..." He also notes that the sons, and sons-in-laws, including Edward Winder's father Edward Stoughton Winder: "Colonel Lloyd had three sons - Edward, Murray, and Daniel, - and three sons-in-law, Mr. Winder, Mr. Nicholson, and Mr. Lowndes. All of these lived at the Great House Farm, and enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when they pleased, from old Barney down to William Wilkes, the coach-driver. I have seen Winder make one of the house-servants stand off from him a suitable distance to be touched with the end of his whip and at every stroke raise great ridges upon his back." (Douglass, Narrative, 1968. Pp. 27-35). The young Edward Winder and Frederick Douglass were close in age and likely knew one another.

During the War, several family members became Confederate officers in addition to Lloyd. Of particular note, his uncle Admiral Franklin Buchanan (1800-1874) became the only full admiral in the Confederate Navy, commanding the CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack) during the Battle of Hampton Roads. Importantly, Edward's brother was Charles Sidney Winder (1829-1862) a general in the Confederate army, killed in action at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Culpeper County, Virginia.

Frederick Douglass visited Wye House in the summer of 1881, with the Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware, 17 June 1881) reporting: "Mr. Douglass was shown by Mr. Howard Lloyd, the great-grandson of his old master, every familiar spot he inquired for...he was taken into the family graveyard adjoining the mansion, where, reverently taking off his hat, he passed from tomb to tomb, reading all the inscriptions on the tablets, from that over where the first Edmund Lloyd was buried, over 200 years ago, down to the last stone."

An interesting book from a prominent Maryland family intertwined with the Confederacy and the life of Frederick Douglass.

Condition: scuffing, hinges cracked.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Abolition, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Reconstruction, Books, Militaria, Signatures, Ephemera, Navy, Naval History]