The Last Cruise - [Wreck of the U.S.S. "Tacoma" INSCRIBED Copy]

Boston, Massachusetts: The Stratford Company, Publishers, 1926. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. 8vo. Pp. [x], 142, [2]. Frontis. photo portrait of Captain Sparrow. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white photography. Top edge gilt. Bound in dark blue cloth with a grain-texture, gilt lettering stamped on the front board, along with a paper label that appears as though fashioned from the subject's bookplate; gilt lettering on spine. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper and signed by her ("Louise / Washington DC 1926"). In addition, she added a manuscript note to a photo caption, noting her husband was honored at a USNA class reunion a year before his death. An account of the loss of the U.S.S. Tacoma off the east coast of Mexico. Rebels under Adolfo de la Huerta involved in political upheaval in Mexico had removed the fixtures from a lighthouse; lacking that guidance, the Tacoma ran upon shoals, and was then beset by a storm in which Captain Herbert George Sparrow and crew members drowned. This account by Sparrow's widow is mostly epistolary, but includes official USN and personal accounts of the wreck. Curiously, for several days la Huerta's revolutionaries stood a 24-hour honor guard at Sparrows bier. A handsome copy.