(CIVIL WAR--NEW JERSEY.) James Hoyt. Diary of United States Christian Commission pastor, mobbed by drunken racist Union soldiers. 18 printed pages, 87 manuscript diary pages, and 7 additional pages of manuscript memoranda. 12mo, original gilt calf, tastefully rebacked and recornered; flyleaf restored, short tear to final leaf, otherwise minimal wear to contents; signed on front flyleaf. With a complete typed transcript and index.Various places, 25 May to 11 June 1865The Rev. James Hoyt (1817-1866) was a graduate of Harvard who settled in Orange, NJ as a Presbyterian pastor in 1856. He joined the Christian Commission after the end of fighting, but had several unusual adventures. He arrived to his posting with XIV Corps in Washington on 25 May 1865, and five days later found himself ministering to hospitalized soldiers, "one with a paralyzed condition of the lower limbs, one negro soldier with a pain in the head, as from neuralgy." Hoyt was an avid genealogist and had determined that General Sherman's mother was a Hoyt. He made two efforts to meet Sherman (see 31 May) to invite him to the next family reunion, but in vain. He did come away with a detailed description off Sherman's headquarters camp (page 17). On 31 May, he visited the Mary Surratt house where the Booth conspirators had met, and describes it in careful architectural detail; he later visited the courtroom for the trial of the conspirators on 10 June, getting a glimpse of Mrs. Surratt. His 1 June sermon in memory of Lincoln is summarized, and on 2 June he witnesses a "sham battle" in which an entire 31st and 82nd Ohio regiments fired all of their guns while their officers were out of camp, sparking sympathetic volleys from other regiments across the division. He recounts tales of a band of a thousand prostitutes which had followed the Army from Nashville, and had been shipped back by train after they had "bred the most horrible & destructive disease." A corps review led by General George Thomas is described at length on 4 June, as is his distribution of the famous temperance tract "The Black Valley Railroad" to a crowd of eager sinners at a grog shop on 6 June. Perhaps most noteworthy are his moving accounts of the religious meetings he led among the soldiers after one soldier offered his testimony, "he wept, and all the sympathizing assembly of veterans, hard worn & sunburnt, but not callous of feeling, melted in tears" (1 June). On a much less uplifting note, Rev. Hoyt's entry from the evening of 6 June is headed "Threatened by a Soldier Mob." A crowd of drunken soldiers from the 75th Indiana stormed the Commission's supply tent, upset that two Black soldiers had been given shirts, while one of their compatriots had been turned down: "They claimed that the money paid by their friends & others to the C.C. was meant for the soldiers (i.e. the white) & not for the niggers." The ministers stood firm with the help of some sober soldiers nearby, and the mob walked off muttering. The next day the "ringleader of the rowdies" returned to again request a shirt, and on 8 June they were menaced by a group from Company J of the 17th Ohio with the exact same complaint. When denied, the leader struck at the tents with a club, yelling "Then let's down with the d___d thing" and lifted his club to strike Rev. Hoyt; they later threw one of his fellow ministers to the ground and tore his coat. In the rear of the volume are 2 pages of notes on specific soldiers who were ministered to (name, regiment, next of kin, and personal notes); 2 pages of inscriptions by his fellow chaplains; and 3 pages of notes on the history and organization of Sherman's army. Provenance: found by the consignor's grandmother in an old house in Albany, NY circa the 1940s, and given to the consignor circa 1980.