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19th-century woman's scrapbook, with Civil War-era map, fetches $4,400 at auction
By Clint Schemmer
Virginian's volume sold at NYC auction
Henrietta Magruder Turner's commonplace book was sold at auction Tuesday for $4,400 to a bookseller in upstate New York.
Kevin F. Kelly of New Paltz, N.Y., was the high bidder for Lot 170 of Swann Auction Galleries' Americana sale, said Rick Stattler, the firm's expert on such manuscripts and printed materials.
Turner, a niece of Confederate Gen. John Bankhead Magruder, compiled the leather-bound book of favorite poetry, family lore and newspaper clippings from 1852 to 1875.
It includes a hand-drawn map of December 1862's Battle of Fredericksburg, apparently by a Confederate well acquainted with troop movements and local landmarks.
Gen. Magruder, known as "Prince John," outfoxed Union Gen. George B. McClellan during his Peninsula Campaign in the spring of 1862, prompting McClellan to lay siege to Yorktown and slow his army's advance toward Richmond, the Confederate capital. Magruder was a native of Port Royal in Caroline County.
--Clint Schemmer