Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)
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Reid’s Tramp by John C Reid (First Edition, 1858)

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The rarest book in the American Southwest, John C Reid’s “Reid’s Tramp”, 1858, First Edition.

Published in Selma, AL with only a few copies surviving the Civil War when Selma was burnt to the ground. This was the rarest and most highly prized book in Joseph Munk’s Arizona collection.

“TRAMPING THROUGH ARIZONA AND POINTS WEST

It may take you back to your school days if we remind you that in 1854 the United States acquired from Mexico a tract of land known as the Gadsden Purchase, in what is now southern New Mexico and Arizona below the Gila. This was in the decade of "manifest destiny," of transcontinental railroads, of the filibusters, and the race between free and slave factions for the acquisition of new territory. The opening of the tract of more than 45,000 square miles, named for our minister to Mexico, gave new impetus to western emigration. Many of the emigrants were from the deep south, and one such was John C. Reid of Marion, Alabama.

At half past seven on a beautiful September day in 1857, Reid and his companions left Marion with the themselves bound for the Gadsden Purchase. They called themselves the Mesilla Valley Company, drew up a body of rules, and elected Reid their leader. They went down the Alabama River to Mobile, by sea to Galveston, and thence overland through various parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In February they reached the military outpost of Tucson. Las Calabassas, where the year before they joined the Sonora filibustering expedition of Henry A. Crabb. Fortunately for Reid—and, one may add, for the history of Western Americana—the boys of the Mesilla Valley Company were not with the expedition when it was massacred. Reid and his companions did, however, cross the border and fight Mexicans and Indians. In April Reid went to California, visited San Diego and San Francisco, and returned to Alabama by way of Panama.

Back home in Marion, Reid wrote a highly interesting and detailed narrative of his overland adventures. It is full of the local color of Galveston, San Antonio, El Paso, Tucson, forts Clarke, Lancaster, Davis, and Bliss, and many other border posts and settlements. It describes routes, prices, and customs, including a chapter on "El Paso Now and To Be." He speaks of Fannin's fight and of other then recent historical events, the scenes of which he visited. Parts of his narrative are direct from his diary.

Priced $250 in 1941 ($5,348 in 2024).”

Ex-Birmingham Southern Library, former copy of Confederate Soldier, Francis Marion Jackson