YAZOO; OR, ON THE PICKET LINE OF FREEDOM IN THE SOUTH. A PERSONAL NARRATIVE, BY A. T. MORGAN, LATE SHERIFF AND TAX-COLLECTOR, YAZOO COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI.

First edition (not stated). [1-6], [errata slip], 9-14, 17-512 pages. Hardcover: H 22cm x L 15cm. Original green cloth rubbed; front board's gilt stamping remains bright; board corners worn; cloth loss at frayed spine ends affecting gilt decoration at head and heel but spine's other gilt stamping remain bright. Brown endpapers; past owner's modern slender name/address label affixed at front pastedown's top left; older black ink name stamp on front free endpaper, front flyleaf, and again at top of Preface page. Binding cracked between dedication leaf verso (page 6) and page 9 of Table of Contents; rear hinge cracked; early and rear leaves pulled with pages 495-498 detached and laid-in; a few other scattered leaves and a few quires pulled as well; occasional edge-wear at page margins. Pagination jumps between 6-9 (i.e. no pages 7-8) and 14-17 (i.e. no pages 15-16) apparently as issued for both skips match that of a digitized copy held by the University of Virginia. Sold as is and should be rebound. An uncommon book by Civil War Union Army officer and abolitionist Wisconsin carpetbagger Albert T. Morgan (1842-1922), who, in 1865, leased a cotton plantation in Yazoo County, Mississippi and, during his decade of state residence, was elected as a state constitutional delegate, Republican state senator in the Mississippi legislature, and Yazoo County sheriff. Married to a biracial school teacher and sympathetic to African American freedmen's struggle for equality, Morgan was immensely unpopular and fled the state in 1875 under a death threat. Morgan published YAZOO in 1884 documenting his personal tribulations as well as the manipulations by former the landowning elite impeding all efforts for political and societal post-war reform. University of South Carolina Press issued a reprint of Morgan's book in 2000 celebrating it as a "grassroots history unmatched in Reconstruction literature." Bibliographical reference: Wright Howes U.S. IANA M-795 (also noting the pagination skip of 7-8 but not 15-16). {MS-Shelf#1}.…