A very interesting little item from the opening days of the Civil War. A pocket-sized wallet style New Testament presented to George R. Bell on the day he enlisted in the Union Army. He received the Bible on April 22, 1861, just 10 days after the commencement of hostilities.
On the final two leaves, he scrawls a note indicating that if he should be found "ded," the present should be sent back to his family in New Jersey, etc., On the ffep is an inscription from another G. R. Bell, in a decidedly different hand, having received the Bible as a memento in 1869. We suspect this would be a son of the original who was given the Bible in remembrance of his father by the recipient family friend mentioned in the "deth" inscription in the Bible.
Further anchoring the Bible in the earliest days of the War is a rare little lithographed small broadside or handbill of Mary D. James' Civil War poem, "Olden Guards," written in Trenton on April 22, 1861. Perhaps specially printed and laid into each of the Bibles gifted to the Trenton lads on their way out to join the War. Its date matches that of the handwritten not of receipt from Bell.
The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Translated out of the Original Greek; and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised. New York. American Bible Society. 1860. 479pp.
A good + copy, bound in leather, generally solid, with generally bright pages and light foxing.
