Series 44. US Navy: Officers' autograph letters signed (undated [before 1910])

The series consists of a one-volume hand-written index of all the autograph letters signed (ALS) owned by John Sanford Barnes (see Series 3), with details about many of them and his additional annotations in red. Some of the letters are included in his extra-illustrated edition of James Fenimore Cooper's "History of the Navy of the United States" (see Series 11), some in the Miscellaneous Manuscripts of the Naval History Society Collection (see Series 52), and others in various extra-illustrated volumes from the Naval History Society's library now cataloged in the XN classification at New-York Historical Society.

An undated note in Barnes' hand on the inside cover reads: "The numbers to this record refer to the files in Wooden case. More marked B are bound in Naval History, or in many extra-illustrated books. Many of the last named are not recorded and the "List" is imperfect. The ALS of officers of the Civil War are mainly to be found in the bound volume containing their own account of their services furnished Hamersly for his list of officers - [see Series 25] which I have not had time to detach and file. The list is very incomplete and the quotations from the letters are random paragraphs. It has been my purpose to make a better list, more systematically arranged with more frequent and fuller quotations - but I have had to abandon the project." Barnes's unfulfilled objective appears to have been a complete and annotated catalog of the letters.

Related Material at the New-York Historical Society

Barnes detailed his collecting interests and activities in a lecture he delivered at the Naval War College in 1902, which was published as "Naval Literature" by Captain John S. Barnes in Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, volume XXIX, no. 2, whole no. 106, p. 32 (XN E182 .B26).