Lot 79: Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary and Civil War Gen. Daniel E. Sickles 1912 Brooklyn Sunday School Union menu signed

PEARY, ROBERT E. (1856-1920). American admiral and explorer; widely recognized as the first person to reach the North Pole. Menu Signed. (“R.E. Peary”). 1p. 8vo. Brooklyn, June 6, 1912. Additionally signed by controversial politician and Civil War Union general DANIEL E. SICKLES. (1819-1914). (“D.E. Sickles”). A menu for “The Eighty Third Anniversary Parade of the Brooklyn Sunday School Union.” ********** In 1861, the Brooklyn Sunday School Union organized the first parade to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of its founding. The annual event was later recognized by proclamations in both city and state legislatures and has been celebrated variously as “Anniversary Day” and “Brooklyn Day.” The event, now called “Brooklyn-Queens Day,” still takes place during the first weekend in June. ********** In 1891, Peary, accompanied by his wife and his team, set off for Greenland to prove by inland exploration that the icy wilderness was in fact an island. Two years later, he sailed on another expedition in an attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole. Despite several setbacks, Peary remained undeterred: “In the years up to 1900 Peary made several unsuccessful attempts on the Pole, during one of which the temperature fell to –50o Celsius (–58o Fahrenheit) and eight of his toes had to be amputated because of severe frostbite. With each attempt he became more determined, enlisting the aid of the Peary Arctic Society [and] of congressmen,” (Great Explorers, Owen). In 1903, he was elected president of the American Geographical Society and that autumn he garnered the unexpected support of both the secretary of the navy and President Theodore Roosevelt. After a failed attempt in 1905, “the next three years were spent in preparation for a final try,” (ibid.). Finally after traveling hundreds of miles across ice in conditions more extreme than any previously encountered, Peary and his team reached the Pole on April 6, 1909. Yet his claim was challenged by Dr. Frederick Cook who maintained that he had reached the Pole exactly one year earlier. “In October 1909 a committee of experts appointed by the National Geographic Society examined his records and reported that they were unanimously of the opinion that [Peary] had reached the North Pole… His friends also worked actively to induce Congress to give adequate recognition to his achievements… In March 1911…a bill was passed tendering him the thanks of Congress and placing him on the retired list,” (DAB). Peary’s ties to Brooklyn include his employment at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a civil engineer prior to his career as an explorer, and he was an honorary member of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. ********** Although he did not have a military background, Sickles, a New York congressman, became a prominent officer during the Civil War. He recruited many New York regiments including the Army of the Potomac’s Excelsior Brigade, but his insubordination at the Battle of Gettysburg and the loss of his leg ended his military career. In the subsequent Congressional hearings on the battle he defended his actions while disparaging those of Major General George G. Meade. ********** Prior to his checkered military career, Sickles’ personal life had been rife with scandal. In 1852, against the objections of both their families, he married the teenage Teresa Bagioli of Brooklyn (granddaughter of Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist), who was half his age. While she was pregnant, he openly consorted with a well-known New York prostitute named Fanny White, presented her to Queen Victoria while he impersonated a political rival and brought her into the New York State Assembly chambers, for which he was censured. In 1859, in the park across from the White House, he murdered the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and son of Francis Scott Key, Philip Barton Key II, a flirtatious widower who Sickles discovered was having an affair with his wife. Sickles’ attorney, future Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, successfully employed a defense of “temporary insanity,” the first time such a strategy had been used. ********** After the war, Sickles oversaw aspects of Reconstruction and resumed his Congressional career during which he helped preserve the battlefield at Gettysburg. He was a noted bibliophile and, despite the scandals associated with his name, Sickles served as minister to Spain from 1869-1874. ********** Both men have signed diagonally in dark ink across the front of the menu. Sickles has added the date and place. An unidentified hand has printed “Robert E. Peary / Arctic Explorer” in the lower right corner. Some uneven age toning with a barely visible vertical crease in the top margin. In very fine condition. Uncommon.