296 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



must personally examine, the securing of subscribers and the 

 financial condition of everything what wonder that he rapidly 

 aged, what wonder that the burden was overwhelming! After 

 my uncle's death matters became still more difficult to handle, 

 owing to the unsettled condition of the southern states where 

 most of the subscribers to Audubon's books resided, and when 

 the open rupture came between north and south, the condition 

 of affairs can hardly be imagined, except by those who lived 

 through similar bitter and painful experiences. 



In 1858 or 1859 John W. Audubon entered upon 

 an ambitious project^ which the outbreak of the Civil 

 War, aided, it is believed, by the unscrupulous dealings 

 of business partners, rendered disastrous. In associa- 

 tion with Messrs. Roe Lockwood, & Son, New York, 

 and the lithographers, Messrs. J. Bien & Company, 

 Number 180 Broadway, with whom considerable money 

 had been invested, a second and American edition of his 

 father's great folio on The Birds of America was at- 

 tempted. An atlas of 106 double elephant plates, re- 

 produced in colors on stone with slight but numerous 

 changes from the original copper plates, was completed 

 as Volume I in I860; 7 the war, which broke immedi- 

 ately afterwards, completely ruined the enterprise, so 

 that but few copies of the work were dispersed and an 

 immense stock of plates was rendered useless ; the burden 

 of debt was undoubtedly increased by the issue of seven 

 octavo volumes of text. 8 



Many years later, hundreds of persons who knew of 

 Audubon's work only through its great reputation, and 



7 For fuller details, see Bibliography, No. 9, and for Prospectus of this 

 work, Appendix III, No. 3. 



8 For conflicting accounts of this text, see Bibliography, No. 10, and 

 for a definitive statement, Appendix III, No. 3. Miss Maria R. Audubon 

 has told me that during the War, the Bien firm issued a patriotic poster, 

 showing an eagle, taken from one of her grandfather's original drawings, 

 and the American flag; it was thought that a large number of copies were 

 sold. 



