Autographs U.S. Officers Prisoners of War. Libby Prison. Gen. Louis Palma di Cesnola. Autograph book. Richmond, Virginia, [1863-1864]. 8vo. With hand-drawn title page by Robert Fisher, including an American eagle, Libby Prison, the book’s title and who it is presented to (Mary D. Cesnola). Original red cloth with gold gilt to recto. Contains over 200 signatures. 

WITH Dr. Luigi Roversi. Luigi Palma di Cesnola: A Rivarolo Canavese e a Cesnola. New York: n.p., 1901. 4to. Frontispiece of Gen. Louis Palma di Cesnola. Original green cloth with gold gilt. 

A remarkable autograph book compiled by General Louis Palma di Cesnola of the 4th New York Cavalry while a prisoner of war at Libby Prison. Captured at the Battle of Aldie on 17 June 1863, Cesnola remained confined in Richmond, where he assembled the present collection of signatures from fellow Union officers held alongside him. The volume preserves more than 200 autographs, a unique register of the men who endured one of the Confederacy’s most notorious prisons. Among them are the signatures of Captains Henry W. Sawyer and John M. Flint, who were condemned to death in retaliation for the execution of Confederate spies. Their sentences, later commuted after President Abraham Lincoln’s intervention, lend extraordinary poignancy to their inclusion here.

Louis Palma di Cesnola (1832–1904) was born in Piedmont, Italy, and fought in both the Wars for Italian Independence and the Crimean War before emigrating to the United States in 1860. In America he became colonel of the 4th New York Cavalry, and at Aldie earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his gallantry, the very action that led to his capture. Following the war he was appointed U.S. consul to Larnaca, Cyprus, where he conducted extensive excavations and amassed a collection of antiquities that later formed a cornerstone of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Cesnola became the Museum’s first director in 1879, a position he held until his death.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [Prisoner of War, POW, Andersonville, Libby Prison] 

Spine separated and page gatherings loose. While falling apart, the album’s pages themselves are in good condition. This would be a valuable asset for any collection.