[TAYLOR, ZACHARY]. THORPE, Thomas Bangs. The Taylor Anecdote Book: Anecdotes and Letters of Zachary Taylor...With a Brief Life, by Tom Owen, the Bee-Hunter. Illustrated with Engravings. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 200 Broadway; Philadelphia: Geo. S. Appleton, 148 Chesnut Street, 1848. [3-6] 7-150, [10, ads] pp., numerous unattributed wood-engraved text illustrations. 8vo (23.5 x 15 cm), new quarter tan morocco over natural linen, spine with raised bands. Title page slightly darkened, with upper right blank corner and another small section supplied. Scattered light foxing throughout, but overall a very good copy of rare title. No copies at auction in over thirty years.

First edition. BAL 20307. Connor & Faulk 725. Garrett & Goodwin, p. 257. Haferkorn, p. 69. Sabin 58025. Tutorow 4056.

As the title promises, this book consists of dozens of vignettes, scenes, and incidents from the war, some serious and many humorous, served up in no particular order by this prolific writer on the war. The length varies from just a few lines to a page or more. There are numerous incidents and comments on Texas and the Texans.

One incident would seem to belie the often repeated notion that Scott’s military orders, etc., were printed on a portable army press. Thorpe relates in an incident entitled “Printers in the Ranks”: “General Scott wanted to have some general orders printed at a given time. He sent directions to the office of the Tampico Sentinel to have them done. He was told, that in consequence of the scarcity of hands the work could not be accomplished. He then, on morning parade, ordered all printers to step forward three paces from the ranks, when several hundred men, all printers, obeyed the order!” (p. 99). Obviously, according to this account, Scott had no portable army press.