Identified Soldier’s Manual – STEPHENS’ BROAD & SMALL SWORD EXERCISE – 1843

A NEW SYSTEM OF BROAD AND SMALL SWORD EXERCISE, COMPRISING THE BROAD SWORD EXERCISE FOR CAVALRY AND THE SMALL SWORD CUT AND THRUST PRACTICE FOR INFANTRY.  TO WHICH ARE ADDED, INSTRUCTION IN HORSEMANSHIP. ILLUSTRATED BY FORTY-FIVE HANDSOME AND EFFECTIVE ENGRAVINGS. PREPARED AND ARRANGED BY THOMAS STEPHENS, PROFESSOR OF BROAD AND SMALL SWORD EXERCISE…PHILA. 1843.  Hard cover, 119 pages.  The count of 45 engravings is misleading, as if one counts pages the number is 10 less, rather counting individual plates (although matched opposite others, gives the correct count.  The manual has been collated and nothing missing.

Identified by name plate on inner cover paper to “WM. H. MILLER.” There are a few men by this name, but this one served in the cavalry. Sergeant William H. Miller, served in Co. A, 20th Pennsylvania Cavalry. In 1860, he was a shoemaker presumably living in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and stood 5′ 7″ tall with light hair and brown eyes.

A Civil War veteran, he enlisted in Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, June 19, 1863, and mustered into federal service at Harrisburg June 23 as a private with Co. D, 20th Pennsylvania Cavalry (181st Pa), a hundred days regiment. On December 31, 1863, at Harrisburg, he re-enlisted and mustered there January 4 as quartermaster sergeant of the three-year organization of Co. A, 20th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and honorably discharged with his company June 28, 1865. (CivilWarData).

Some wear to cloth cover overall most of which is on the edges, book is tight.  A nice scarce copy, nearly all reprints available only on line.