Comparing 1840, 1842 and 1857 versions

More experimenting with Juxta Commons:  check out the opening paragraphs for three versions of Scenes and Adventures in the Army.  The series that furnished the start of Scenes and Adventures was originally titled "Notes and Reminiscences of An Officer of the Army." 

Army and Navy Chronicle
June 18, 1840

profusion of compound words built on "self"

Walter E. Bezanson finely describes how important are terms of self and "the profusion of compound words built on 'self'" in Melville's Clarel:

If abdication from family, community, country, and creed has set most of the pilgrims loose from the institutions which ordinarily give men definable social roles, what is left?  Personality, character, self, soul—these suggest the remnant.  The preferred term of the poem is “self,” and the profusion of compound words built on “self” defines one of the energy centers of the poem.  At odds with the societies to which they belonged, they have variously mutinied or been shipwrecked.  We have here an assortment of Western men, cast away, as it were, on the Palestinian beach, jointly engaged in the struggle for moral and psychic survival.

(Intro to Hendricks House Clarel; and
Historical and Critical Note, Northwestern-Newberry Clarel, 579)

A footnote gives 21 examples in Clarel including self-love, self-consumings and self-exiled.

Well!  In Scenes and Adventures in the Army, especially Part II with the dialogues from "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" between the narrator and his Imaginary Friend, we find the same thing Bezanson observed in Clarel.  Here we have Western men before they washed up in Palestine: still as yet on the prairie of the American West, traveling and conversing as ever about literature and philosophy, art, astronomy and religion.

Alongside Bezanson's 21 in Clarel, I give you 15 from Scenes and Adventures in the Army including "self consuming" and two instances of "self-exiled":

Completely isolated, and beyond support, or even communication — self-dependent in any emergency that might arise, and in the midst of many thousands of Indians, whose concentration our long stay seemed to invite, the utmost vigilance was maintained.  (Scenes and Adventures, p56)

Fashion decides that modesty is not wanting in this self-praise;  (Scenes and Adventures p76)

Self-love dries up the sources of sympathy (Scenes and Adventures, 193-4)

these border inhabitants — self-willed and presumptuous, because ignorant. (Scenes and Adventures, p42)

a class of self-exiled wanderers and hunters, whose restless or savage natures, lead them to sever every tie of kindred and country (Scenes and Adventures, 134)

 the abusive, yet vigorous, the self-important Globe, (September 1851)

Capitalists great enough to be self-insured, must be "pound foolish," in appearance to you small-fry operators. (December 1851)

— Thy monologue I endured, whilst it touched of earth; but when self-forgetting, thou transformedst thy true friend to a spirit minister of hardly dubious sex, — who methinks, would wander here, from no comfortable abode of earth or sky —  [from Scenes Beyond the Western Border, December 1851 installment] 

....leading and protecting those pioneers and missionaries of civilization, the Oregon emigrants; the rude founders of a State. Self-exiled and led by a human instinct....      (April 1852); "self-exiled" etc. added in revision of Oregon, Ho!

And Cortez, like Columbus, was self-made ; (May 1852)

how magnanimous is their patience, their self-denial and devotion!  (June 1852)

 their men are idle, and have more use for mirrors in self-adornment: (July 1852)

— A false and self-consuming fire! that sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men...[Scenes and Adventures, p 333. Ooh, look how the term "self-consuming" results from revision of the original dialogue as it appeared in the July 1852 Southern Literary Messenger:  "I. F. Ay!  it is a fire that consumes; and sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men..."]

the noblest oak, which trails its tender foliage high over the many self-dependent neighbors, (August 1852)

the boasted easy self-possession of civilized refinement,  (May 1853)

heaven born

Another of Gansevoort Melville's distinctive terms shows up in one of the early sketches by "Borderer" for the St Louis Beacon. I still need to find and transcribe the original newspaper version. Text below is from the "Rocky Mountain Tale" of Sha-wa-Now as revised and reprinted in the Military and Naval Magazine (September 1835):

The sun in mid-heaven is but a tame spectacle; his effect, though dazzling, is simple; there he is something, alike beyond our ken and thoughts, merely useful. But when he approaches, as if it were, our earth in setting,—is surrounded by the horizon's mist,—it is then that he is the glorious father of a thousand beauties; a hemisphere blushes red as roses; a mountain structure of calm and motionless clouds seems a palace of fancy adorned with every heaven-born hue.

Why is the name of the Philanthropist Howard associated with such heaven born remembrances.  (Gansevoort Revises Augusta)

Distinctive I say because "heaven born" is Gansevoort's idea for replacing Augusta's word "sublime":

Why is the name of the Philanthropist Howard associated with such sublime remembrances.

UPDATE! Text of Sha-wa-now from the St Louis Beacon is now transcribed and available at Dragooned.

Gansevoort Melville's language in Mah-za-pa-mee

2nd Update:
In 1831 Gansevoort took first prize in his class at the Albany Academy for his essay on the French Revolution. He excelled also in Roman Antiquities, Ancient History, and English.  Five years earlier, Gansevoort won first prize at the New York High School where he recited Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris" for an encore. That 1826 school competition is where Gansevoort served as prompter for a performance by some bigger kids of a scene from The Lady of the Lake.

Update:  Another of Gansevoort's preferred words that shows up in Mah-za-pa mee is "disaster" in the sense of defeat in battle.  Revising sister Augusta's school essay on human achievements, Gansevoort replaced Augusta's "defeat" with the word "disaster."  From a friendly squaw, Mah-za-pa mee hears "first news of the "disaster," meaning a Punca victory over Pawnee raiders.

The story, then, may interest those, who, studying man in all climes and situations, may learn from it, that upon him the slightest causes produce the greatest effects, and the same, alike in the forest and his state of greatest improvement; that red or white, wild or tame, alike fallible, he plunges into war from inadequate motives.
(Mah-za-pa-mee uncut)

He has been rewarded by the approval of the great and good of every clime, and is now enjoying in another world relaxation from the toils of this. (Gansevoort Revises Augusta)

The idea and words "of every clime" are Gansevoort's, not those of his sister Augusta who originally wrote:

he saved many a person from crime & misery who have & will bless the name of Howard. Does not every heart warm towards this man so surely formed in the likeness of his maker?

The phrase "in all climes" remains in the 1835 version, although changes there show careful revision, with "situations" for example changed to "circumstances" and "state of greatest improvement" condensed to "city":

The story, then, may interest those who, studying man in all climes and circumstances, may learn from it, that alike in forest or city, slight causes produce upon him great effects; that wild or tame, he plunges into extremes from no adequate motives.

But the 1842 magazine version and 1857 book version both drop much of the original introduction, including "in all climes."  Now the tale is ascribed to a fellow soldier named "D." whom the 1842 magazine version (but not the 1857 book) described as being "of the matter-of-fact order."

Shared at Juxta Commons, Revising Scenes Beyond the Western Border

A portion of the December 1851 installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" was extensively revised for the 1857 book, Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

To view the texts side by side and see the changes, go to Revising Scenes Beyond the Western Border at Juxta Commons.

people anew, restore

Then, how easy for the mind to restore the scene so lately passed, though gone forever; and though dwelling upon the unhappy fate of the fallen race, to people it anew with those bold hunters of the plains. Amid the traces of reality—the bleached bones around me—my mind was filled with images of the Indian and his occupation: war and the chase. A short thirty years ago, and from this spot, thousands of buffalo might have been seen, and the wild red man rejoicing in the pursuit, the slaughter and the feast. The uncontrolled, the untrammelled, the Free—free and happy, as God created them ere they were robbed, enslaved, poisoned, withered by the pestilence. Alas! for the gift of civilization. The "long knife" came and brought with him the "fire water," and the small-pox, and completed his work with paper treaties—construed and explained under the gentle auspices of the sword.

Leaves from My Notebook, No. 2 by "Z," Army and Navy Chronicle (February 27, 1840); and Scenes and Adventures in the Army, Southern Literary Messenger (Sept 1842); and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857)

Sunday March 1st 1857.  To Monte Cavallo — colossal equestrian group, found in Baths, basin also, obelisk—most imposing group of antiques in Rome.  People those Caracalla baths anew with these colossal figures— Gigantic Rome. 

 "Colisseum. great green hollow — restore it repeople it with all statues in Vatican.  Dying and Fighting Gladiators." (Melville's Journals)

Likely Sources for Part 1 of Scenes and Adventures in the Army held by the library of the Albany Young Men's Association

As listed in the 1837 Catalogue of Books in the Library of the Albany Young Men's Association:

1427 American State Papers, 8 vols.
1266 Buchanan's Sketches of Indians, 2 vols.
1112 British Poets, 12 vols.
1390 British Poets, 11 vols.
1001 CYCLOPAEDIA, Rees' 47 vols.
1584 Dragoon Campaigns
1002 ENCYCLOPAEDIA, Brewster's
115 Flint's Geography
1456 Hall's Travels in America
1152 Indian Wars [possibly Flint's Indian Wars of the West]
IRVING'S WORKS, 12 vols.
130 Sketch Book, 2 vols.
145 Long's Expedition, 2 vols.
1408 Military and Naval Magazine, 3 vols.
1141 Pike's Expedition
1394 Pike's Expedition
1448 Prairie, 2 vols.
1424 Robertson's America, 2 vols.
1559 Subaltern in America
1572 Subaltern's Furlough, 2 vols.
1307 Westward Ho! 2 vols. [James Kirke Paulding]
1389 Young Duke, 2 vols. [Benjamin Disraeli]

"Notes and Reminiscences of an Officer of the Army" by "F. R. D." (for First Regiment Dragoons, and supplanting "Leaves From My Notebook" by "Z.") appeared in the Army and Navy Chronicle, beginning in the June 18, 1840 issue, with most (not all!) of the material later published in 1842-3 as "Scenes and Adventures in the Army, Sketches of Indians, and Life Beyond the Border" in the Southern Literary Messenger.

American State Papers is a major source for this early material which I must investigate further.  Likewise the Military and Naval Magazine. In 1833 the Albany Argus touted "Indian Campaign of 1832," Henry Smith's article on the Black Hawk War.  Smith's article is an important source for the account of the Black Hawk War in Part I of Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

But wait a dang minute.  Can Disraeli's Young Duke really be a source for Scenes and Adventures in the Army?  Uh yeah:

But who shall do justice to the venison, roasted in bits on a stick with alternate pieces of salt pork? First, the pleasing toil of the hunt, and the triumph of success; then the labor-inspired appetite, after the long fast which excitement forgot; then the lively fire at night under majestic forest trees; and oh, climax, the pieces of venison, bitten with nature's weapons—not profaned with cold dull knife—and reeking hot, from the wooden spit! "Oh! let me die eating ortolans to the sound of soft music." Bah!

See, the line about ortolans was originally in the 1840 narrative of Notes and Reminiscences. But the quote from Disraeli's Young Duke was dropped in the June 1842 Scenes and Adventures, then added back for the 1857 book version (page 33).

Ortolan: The forbidden fruit

Oh I almost forgot:  Herman Melville joined the Albany Young Men's Association at the end of January 1835

"and for two years he enjoyed the use of its reading room and library of a thousand volumes." [Merton M. Sealts, Jr., Melville's Reading: A Supplementary List; and
Pursing Melville, page 39]

Herman's older brother Gansevoort Melville "was already flourishing as a member" of the Albany Young Men's Association, as Hershel Parker observes in Herman Melville: The Making of the Poet.