[SUMMARY OF THE COURSE OF PERMANENT FORTIFICATION AND OF THE ATTACK AND DEFENCE OF PERMANENT WORKS, FOR THE USE OF THE CADETS OF THE U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY].

[Mahan, Dennis Hart]:

Published by [West Point: U.S. Military Academy Press, 1850].

About this Item

The first edition of this scarce and greatly impactful military manual from West Point's lithographic press, with the ownership inscription and notes of Robert Johnston, a future Confederate colonel and member of the first class to use this textbook. West Point's lithographic press was one of, if not the earliest in America to print books entirely by lithography, in this case textbooks for their students, beginning in the 1830s. The faculty at West Point were following the example of Britain's Royal School of Military Engineering and, more explicitly, of the French artillery academy at Metz, each of which produced fully lithographed manuals of their own in the 1820s. Captain Dennis Hart Mahan, first in the West Point class of 1824 and author of the present textbook, became a mathematics and engineering instructor immediately after his graduation, and received specialized training during an extended visit to the great military academies of Europe. At Metz, Mahan saw firsthand the value and utility of the Academy's considerable output of illustrated training manuals and textbooks. He returned to West Point and introduced the same practice, hiring a European lithographer to work on the school's internal press to produce textbooks for the use of students and staff. Published in 1850 (though likely printed in late 1849), this is the earliest edition of Mahan's textbook on building, defending, and attacking military fortifications. It would become the standard authority on the subject for the next several decades. The text contains mathematical formulas and diagrams for calculating how best to build a fortification or wall, definitions of the various types and parts of a fortification, and the uses and employment of additional "defensive arrangements" including natural features, explosive mines, moats and ditches, scarp and counterscarp galleries, and more. Written shortly following the Mexican-American War (and derived in part from his Complete Treatise on Field Fortifications which was a key manual in that conflict), the impact of the present text on the conduct of the Civil War cannot be overstated. Of the West Point class of 1850, for example, thirty-seven of forty-four officers served in the war (and three of the remaining seven died before it began). Multiple new editions were printed in the 1850s, and it was seen as important enough that four editions were printed in the Confederacy in 1862 and 1863, two by Evans and Cogswell in Charleston and two more by West and Johnston in Richmond. One of the Confederate soldiers to make use of Mahan's text was the original owner of this copy, Robert Johnston, who has inscribed it on the front free endpaper and made occasional notes throughout. Johnston (not to be confused with Robert Daniel Johnston, another Confederate officer) was a Virginia native who, after graduating from West Point in 1850, served on the frontier with the 1st Dragoons throughout the 1850s. He resigned from his post in April of 1861 to return home and join the Confederate army as a colonel in the 3rd Virginia cavalry. Johnston also writes on the endpaper that he was the first occupant of the "No. 64 New Barracks, Occupied with Armistead L. Long 2nd Lt. D Comp'y." Long joined the Confederate army in 1861, where he rose to the rank of Brigadier General and was Robert E. Lee's Chief of Staff at the time of his surrender at Appomattox. It is odd that Johnston's copy of the text retains the original endpapers but not the titlepage it seems possible, considering some of his notes date to early January of the year when this book was published, that the first class received early copies and that the titlepage and index were added later when the book was ready for broader circulation. A Confederate colonel's copy of the scarce first edition of an enduring and influential military manual, printed on West Point's famous lithographic press. Contemporary three-quarter calf and marbled boards, spine gilt. Leather rubbed, light.

Seller Inventory # 62848

Bibliographic Details

• Title: [SUMMARY OF THE COURSE OF PERMANENT FORTIFICATION AND OF THE ATTACK AND DEFENCE OF PERMANENT WORKS, FOR THE USE OF THE CADETS OF THE U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY].
• Publisher: [West Point: U.S. Military Academy Press, 1850].