Benjamin Wingate (14 results)

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Cover shows light shelf wear. Pages are clean and intact.

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Trade Paperback, 94 pages with b&w illustrations; Very Good; clean and square.

Soft cover. Condition: As New. 1st Edition. 94 Pages, Text Clean, Book Tight, Limited Edition of 1500 Printed this is Numbered 45 in the Bancroft Series of Keepsake, Condition of Book As New, UNREAD.

Pictorial Wrappers. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. The book is in very good condition. .Cover shows almost no wear.This book contains selection of letters that provides us with a marvelous and rare insight into radically different life experiences of a father and a family separated by the Gold Rush Limited printing. ; Series of Keepsakes Issued by the Friends of the Bancroft Library for its Members; Vol. 45; 95 pages .…

Paperback. Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. Text is clean. Cover shows almost no wear. Limited printing. ; Series of Keepsakes Issued by the Friends of the Bancroft Library for its Members; Vol. 45; 95 pages.

Condition: New.

Condition: New. In English.

Soft cover. First edition. Illustrated. Important reference work. Very scarce in this condition. Fine copy. 95 pps.

Trade Paperback. Condition: Good +. Number 45 in the series of Keepsakes issued by the Friends of the Bancroft Library for its members. 95 pp, b/w plates. Ivory wraps a little dusty, light edgewear. Creased/bumped top corner. Interior unmarked, spine straight and uncreased.

Soft cover. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. Original wrappers. 48 pp. Authors names and a number in pencil on front cover, chip at lower right of front cover not affecting text, one tiny hole in front cover, all pages present and still stitched together, errata slip in blank area of rear contents page, Good. The intial volley in a debate about trade during the War of 1812.…

A substantial letter by Benjamin Wingate, Mexican-American War veteran and future namesake of Fort Wingate, New Mexico, written during his frontier service at Fort Gibson in the Cherokee Nation. Responding to news that the execution of a man named Clark had been delayed, Wingate launches into a lengthy and forceful rejection of capital punishment: "You speak of Clark's execution in your letter, that it did not take place at the appointed time, but to express an opinion on the subject I hope that it never did take place; do not understand me to say that I want him to go unpunished. I should be very sorry to hear that there has been a man hanged in old Scott. I know but little of the circumstances concerning the case, but if indeed he be guilty of murder, he should be punished, and that punishment should be such as to not take his life, as there is doubtless many other ways of inflicting punishment besides taking life [.] I hold the opinion to be a sound one that man should not take the life of his fellow man except in self defense and then not if it could be avoided. I look upon the law of punishing capital offences as being barbarous and savage in the extreme. It is a subject that the attention of the law making or legislating power should be called to act on." Living amid the Indigenous nations of Indian Territory, Wingate makes a comparison with the customs around him: "The present law is more barbarous if possible than the laws and customs of the Indians in this part of the country. If a rich Indian kills a poor Indian he can make atonement for the crime by paying a certain sum of money, but if one Indian kills another Indian and is not able to pay for him, they kill him in return." Fort Gibson, established within Cherokee country, was one of the principal U.S. military posts in Indian Territory, and Wingate's comments come from a young Army officer living within that environment. The comparison is striking precisely because he uses what he understands as Native retaliatory justice as the measure by which to criticize American law. The letter then turns to family gossip and politics. Wingate jokes that the election of Zachary Taylor meant "that the Whigs are as badly whipped as they was when they elected J. Tyler," anticipating that Taylor would "doubtless have to take a trip up salt river, if he is not burnt in effigy by the Whigs before that time." More appealing personally was the news then pouring out of California. In January 1849, with the Gold Rush only beginning to transform American migration westward, Wingate was already considering abandoning the Army: "I have been thinking very strong for some time of resigning and going to California but I am not off yet, nor I don't know that I will get off soon if at all. But whether I should or should not go, it is certainly a very great opening for a young man to make a fortune in a short time if there is any confidence to be placed in reports." He remained instead in military service. Wingate had fought in Mexico at Cerro Gordo and subsequently served on the frontier in Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and New Mexico. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Valverde during the Civil War; Fort Wingate, established in New Mexico later in 1862, was named in his honor. The Filson Historical Society preserves correspondence of Wingate and the allied Hardy family, including Arba L. Hardy, the recipient here.[1] An appealing early Wingate letter, combining an extended argument against capital punishment with observations from Indian Territory and the immediate lure of California at the opening of the Gold Rush. [1] "Wingate, Hiram (1778-1875) Papers, 1833-1914," Filson Historical Society, Mss. A W769. . Light toning and edge wear, otherwise very good. Autograph letter signed ?Benj. Wingate,? three pages, with integral address leaf to Arba L. Hardy, Lexington, Scott County, Indiana, bearing manuscript ?Fort Gibson C.N.? postmark, dated January 8, and manuscript ?Paid 10.? 7 ¾ x 10 inches.…

Condition: New. Print on Demand.

Condition: New. Print on Demand.

Condition: New. PRINT ON DEMAND.