1861 Hardees - Memphis

[Clsinclair]

I just found a site that sells rare books and they have an 1861 revised Hardees that has both volumns into one book just like the NC Hardees did. The site is at http://www.manhattanrarebooks-americana.com/hardee's_tactics.htm. The site states that the drill manual was ID'ed to a Confederate soldier. My question, was the Memphis publication of Hardees the Southern version or the Northern version? I am aware that the Southern version was printed in Mobile, AL and NC and that a Northern version printed in Philadelphia and NY. So where does the Memphis Hardees fit in?

Claude Sinclair

[Dignann]

Claude,

The Memphis imprint appears to be a copy of the prewar US edition. It is not a copy of his revised tactics, as is the case with the Raleigh and Mobile imprints. Its complete bibliographic info is:

Hardee, William J. Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics; for the Exercise and Manoeuvers of Troops When Acting as Light Infantry or Riflemen, by Brevet Lieut. Col. W.J. Hardee, Late of U.S. Army, Now in C.S. Army. Two Volumes in One. (Memphis, Tenn.: Southern Publishing House of Hutton and Feligh , 1861) 202 pp.

There are also wartime editions of Hardee that were printed in Jackson, Miss.; Richmond, Va.; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans, La.; and Houston, Tex. None of these appear to be the revised editions, either.

The Memphis edition was reprinted in 1970 by Benchmark Publishing Corporation of Glendale, N.Y. You can sometimes find these on the used book market.

Eric

[Tom Ezell]

The text of the original 1855 Hardee's was never copyrighted, so there were a lot of wildcat copies made up in different cities, as Eric noted.

One small trick that I've found is that the 1855 versions tend to be titled "Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics," where the 1862 Mobile edition was titled simply "Rifle and Infantry Tactics." Not proven in the same manner as a mathematical law yet, but it's simply an observation that has helped me to sort the apples from the oranges.