[AUTOGRAPH] 3p. ALS to Gen. U. S. GRANT by Senator SUMNER, bound in Word Shadows of the Great The Lure of Autograph Collecting

MADIGAN, Thomas F.    Word Shadows of the Great The Lure of Autograph Collecting. Published by Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1930. Illustrated;  300 pages, 8vo, tan colored boards and vellum spine. Limited Collectors' edition, copy No. 82 of 300.  Book is in VG condition, spine darkened,  few scuff marks; contents about fine.

This copy has an original handwritten letter bound-in from Charles SUMNER to Lt. General GRANT, Jan.16, 1864, headed "Senate Chamber;"  a bifolium with writing on three sides which begins: "I hope that I do not take too great a liberty in presenting to you Monsieur Auguste LANGEL, a most intelligent friend of our country & of the national cause."  The meeting between Laugel and Grant is recorded on page 488 of  The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: November 16, 1864-February 20, 1865. (John Y. Simon, ed.,  Southern Illinois University Press, 1985).

A significant association as SUMNER and Laugel began a close friendship while both were in Paris in the 1857, and the Senator seems to have eagerly arranged for the young writer to meet a Who's Who of American society during his visit. 

 Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, p. 265., relates how the senator introduced the younger author to Lincoln. 

Auguste Laugel, between whom and Sumner relations of confidence had subsisted since their meeting in Paris in 1857, visited the United States in 1864 -1865.  Their familiar intercourse was renewed at that time both in Boston and Washington, Sumner introduced M. Laugel and Madame Laugel, an American lady, at the White House a few days before the great tragedy.

Antoine-Auguste Laugel (20 January 1830 – 1914) a French historian, activist, and accomplished engineer, was the author of numerous historical and philosophical works. It's been reported that Laugel referred to Sumner as a close friend, crediting him with the “emancipation and the Union.”  A prolific author, Laugel wrote a travelogue about his visit, The United States During the Civil War of 1861-1865. (New York: Baillière Bros, 1866.)