\ '^ -ir^ The Book of the First American Chess Congress, NEW YORK, 1857. BittlAA- Cailet«v»i, i:i( The Book of the First | / American Chess Congress : CONTAINING THE PROCEEDINGS OF THAT CELEBRATED ASSEMBLAGE, HELD IN NEW YORK, IN THE YEAR I 857, WITH THE PAPERS READ IN ITS SESSIONS, THE GAMES PLAYED IN THE GRAND TOXiRNAMENT, AND THE STRATAGEMS ENTERED IN THE PROBLEM TOUR- NAY ; TOGETHER WITH SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY OF CHESS IN THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. BY DANIEL WILLARD FISKE, M.A. New York: RuDD & Carleton, 130 Grand Street, (brooks BUILDING, COR. OF BROADWAY.) MDCCCLIX. ,P5 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1859, by RUDD & CARLETON, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. R. CRAIGHEAD, Stereoiyper and Electrotyper, daxton ISuiltiintj, 81, 83, aiid 85 Centre Street. To Paul Morphy, THE HERO OF THAT AMERICAN TOURNAMENT WHOSE STORY IS HERE TOLD, AND THE CONQUEROR UPON THE TRADITIONARY BATTLE FIELDS OF EUROPE, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP. Preface . The long delay which has occurred in the publication of this volume arises from two causes : — In the first place, graver avocations permitted me to devote but a small portion of my leisure to its compilation ; in the second place, the work has gradually grown upon my hands until its size, as origi- nally contemplated, has been more than doubled. This latter fact has, as I am aware, led to a somewhat unmethodical arrangement of the material ; but as the increase in bulk is mainly owing to the length of the chapter on American Chess history, I could not find it in my heart to omit any incident, however trifling, which might throw a ray of light upon that hitherto obscure subject. And yet this part of my task is far from being thoroughly performed. Persevering efibrts, which I had no time to make, might have considerably enlarged the chapter ; and I hope that the labors of those who may be selected to compile the reports of future Congresses will finish the work which I have only been able to commence. viii Preface. To Mr. Geokge Allen, Greek Professor in the University of Pennsylvania, I am indebted not only for the pleasant nar- rative of the Automaton Chess-player's American career and for the account of Chess in Philadelphia— which cover, in fact, the most original and interesting pages of the book — but for much useful counsel and assistance during the pro- gress of the work. To the obliging researches of Mr. Wil- liam H. Kent, of Boston, I owe the Life of Benjamin Lynde Oliver, and the very full sketch of Chess in the capital of New England. Mr. Eugene B. Cook, of Hoboken, has, at my request, selected and arranged the problems composing the eighth chapter, with a skill and care which he alone pos- sesses, and has contributed the beautiful and elaborate posi- tion which forms the frontispiece. To my kind and distin- guished friend, Mr. Paul Morphy, the reader is under obliga- tions for comments to several of the games in the Grand Tournament. Mr. J. Lowenthal, of London, with his cus- tomary courtesy, contributed the narrative of his sojourn in this country. In writing the diary of proceedings in the third chapter, I found myself greatly aided by the daily reports in the New York journals, and chiefly by those from the pen of Mr. Frederick M. Edge, who performed the duties of an assistant Secretary to the Congress with zeal and assi- duity. Mr. H. R. Agnel, Professor of French and Spanish in the United States Military Academy at West Point, Mr. Charles A. Maurian of New Orleans, and many other corre- spondents have given me information more or less important in reference to the Chess events of the past. And in the first Preface. ix chapter I have drawn largely from the published writings of Dr. Duncan Forbes, of King's College, London, one of the first orientalists and most ardent Chess enthusiasts of the age. A few articles in the book were written by me for the Chess Monthly^ in which periodical they have previously appeared. D. W. F. Nbw Tork, Augmt, 1869. Table of Contents. PAGE Preface V CHAPTER I. Introductory Sketch of the History of Chess 13 CHAPTER 11. Causes which led to the holding of an American Congress — Preliminary Proceedings 49 CHAPTER III. The Period of the Congress 66 CHAPTER IV. The Dinner of the Congress 96 CHAPTER Y. Reports and Communications Ill Keport of the Committee on the Chess Code Ill Report of the Committee on a National Association 123 Communication from Mr. J. Lowenthal 125 Comunication on the Subject of a Mechanical Chess Recorder 135 New Systems of Chess Notation 137 xii Contents. PAGK CHAPTER VI. Games in the Grand Tournament 14t CHAPTER YII. Chess without the Chessboard 261 CHAPTER yilL The Problem Tournay 2tl CHAPTER IX. Incidents in the History of American Chess 330 I. The Chess Life of Benjamin Franklin 331 II. Lewis Ron 840 III. Aaron Burr and Chess 846 IV. Chess in Philadelphia 348 V. Chess in Boston 866 VI. Benjamin Lynde Olirer 885 VII. Lowenthal's Visit to America 889 VIIL Chess in New York 896 IX. Chess in New Orleans 415 X. The History of the Automaton Chess-player in America 420 XI. American Chess Bibliography 485 XIL Paul Morphy 503 XIII. Miscellanea and Addenda 532 CHAPTER X. List of Subscribers — Accounts — Solutions — Indexes 536 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF CHESS. Chess, the most venerable for its antiquity, the most esteemed for its intellectual character, and the most universal in its extent of all those pastimes in which men of every age have been accustomed to seek rest from the fatigue of physical labor or the weariness of mental toil, arose in India at a very early period in the history of the world. It is distinguished from all other sports no less by its greater age than by its superior excellence ; for, although an amusement, it is separated from the most abstruse of sciences only by a faint line of de- marcation. The singular fascination which it has ever exer- cised over its votaries is a curious phenomenon in the history of mind. Men differing in character and disposition, in tastes and pursuits, in rank and religion, in climate and race, have been charmed by the study of its delightful arcana. The peasants of Persia and Iceland, the warriors of the East and the West, the scholars of Asia and Europe, the priests of the Moslem faith, and the ministers of a purer belief, the monarchs of enlightened nations and the rulers of Pagan lands, have all found entertainment in its study and pleasure in its practice. Kings, in imminent danger of losing their heads and their thrones, have clung to their game of chess undismayed by the threatened loss of honor and of life. Statesmen, at a time when their brains were busy with projects destined to result in the overthrow of kingdoms or the emancipation of nations, 14 Sketch of the History of Chess. have found leisure to engage in chess. Generals, on the eve of important and decisive battles, as if in mockery of real and sanguinary warfare, have thrown their whole souls into a bloodless contest on the checkered field. Sages have sanctioned its use as a recreation. Learned men have devoted the earnest efibrts of acute minds to the elucidation of its theory, to the elaboration of its history, and to the enlargement of its litera- ture. The graces of poetry and the charms of eloquence have been thrown around it. Orators in their speeches, poets in their songs, dramatists in their plays, annalists in their histories, and even divines in their sermons, have not hesitated to use expressions couched in its technical language and to employ metaphors drawn from the movements of its mimic soldiery. As in the multiplicity of its combinations it sets at defiance all the discovered laws of the science of numbers, so in its adaptability to minds of unlike formation it seems to repudiate all the theories ot mental philosophy. ^^ For eminent skill in the game is neither limited to any particular class of individuals nor dependent upon any peculiar intellectual qualities. Its pursuit is not confined to highly cultivated minds. Eulers and Rousseaus have striven in vain to become practitioners of the first class, while Grecos and Mourets have risen to the highest rank. Almost every profession has furnished its quota of names illustrious in chess. Damiano was an apothecary, Lopez was a priest, Salvio was a lawyer, Philidor was a musician, Cunning- ham was a diplomatist, Stamma was a linguist, Atwood was a mathematician, Deschapelles was a soldier, Popert was a mer- chant. Tyros scarcely conversant with the moves appear to find in it ail enjoyment no less keen and exciting than those great players who are familiar with all the mysteries of open games and of close games, of gambits and of counter-gambits, of openings on the king's side and of openings on the queen's side. In truth, however we look at it, at its nature, or at its history, Ave shall find anomalies that surprise and marvels that confound us. I propose to give a brief sketch of the rise and progress of this most singular emanation of the human mind — • Sketch of the History of Chess. 15 this most remarkable conception of human genius. Trifling as is the place usually assigned to it in the economy of the world, it is, nevertheless, a theme bountiful of incident and prolific of interest. In the little space at my command it would be impossible to narrate its story in detail or to relate a tithe of those poetical fables, those noteworthy legends, those diverting anecdotes, wliich cluster as things of memorable beauty about its fifty centuries of existence. All that I can hope to do will be to present the reader with a sort of skeleton chronicle, whose dry bones he must clothe with the flesh and blood of his own imagination, and animate with the breath of his own fancy. The date to which I have referred the origin of chess will probably astonish those persons who have only regarded it as the amusement of idle hours, and have never troubled them- selves to peruse those able essays in which the best of antiqua- ries and investigators have dissipated the cloudy obscurity that once enshrouded this subject. Those who do not know the inherent life which it possesses will wonder at its long and enduring career. They will be startled to learn that chess was played before Columbus discovered America, before Charlemagne revived the Western Empire, before Romulus founded Rome, before Achilles went up to the siege of Troy, and that it is still played as widely and as zealously as ever, now that those events have been for ages a part of history. It will be diflicult for them to comprehend how, amid the WTCck of nations, the destruction of races, the revolutions of time, and the lapse of centuries, this mere game has survived, when so many things of far greater importance have either passed away from the memories of men, or still exist only in the dusty pages of the chroniclers. It owes, of course, much of its tenacity of existence to the amazing inexhaustibility of its nature. Some chess writers have loved to dwell upon the unending fertility of its powers of combination. They have calculated by arithmetical rules the myriads of positions of wliich the pieces and pawns are susceptible. They have told i6 Sketch of the History of Chess. us tliat a lifetime of many ages would hardly suffice even to count them. We know, too, that while the composers of the Orient and the Occident have displayed during long centu- ries an admirable subtlety and ingenuity in the fabrication of problems, yet the chess stratagems of the last quarter of a century have never been excelled in intricacy and beauty. We have witnessed, in our day, contests brilliant with skilful manoeuvres unknown to the sagacious and dexterous chess artists of the eighteenth century. Within the last thirty years we have seen the invention of an opening as correct in theory and as elegant in practice as any upon the board, and of which our fathers were utterly ignorant. The world is not likely to tire of an amusement which never repeats itself, of a game which presents to-day features as novel and charms as fresh as those with which it delighted, in the morning of history, the dwellers on the banks of the Ganges and the Indus. Sir William Jones has given it as his opinion that the beau- tiful simplicity and extreme perfection of the game, prove it to have been the invention of a single mind. Later writers have rejected this hypothesis. In sooth, it seems incredible that any one man, by his own unaided brain, should have produced in its present symmetrical completeness, a thing at once so complex in detail, yet so simple as a whole. Who could estimate the mental strength of such a being ? Would he not be a commander greater than Caesar, who first calcu- lated the exact evolutions, the marches and counter-marches, the fierce attacks and cunning defences of the chess-men? Would he not be a philosopher greater than Bacon, who con- structed a theoretical art which should approach so near the domains of science, and yet not overlie the boundaries? Would he not be an artist greater than Phidias, who should design representative images which should last through all changes while the world stood ? Would he not be a bene- fixctor greater than Howard, who should devise an amusement that should refresh the faculties while it still kept them in Sketch of the History of Chess. 17 action, and upon which the spirit of gambling would never dare to seize ? It seems to me that no such being has ever existed. It seems to me that chess grew, as music grew, as poetry grew. I believe that it sprang from rude beginnings, and gradually threw off one imperfection after another, or added one beauty after another, until it ripened into the old chaturanga, which is essentially our modern game. Those noble rivers which bear the fruits of a thousand fields and the wealth of a hundred cities upon their waters, take their rise from numberless insignificant sources among the untrodden mountain tracts. A multitude of rough but instructive attempts preceded the successful establishment of the art of printing. The experiments of Franklin, of QErsted, and of Gauss, were the seeds which finally germinated, grew up, and blossomed, in the mind of Morse, into the electric telegraph. Countless fables, offsprings of the ardent imagination of Asia, or the sterner fancy of Europe, and many of them as beauti- ful as they are untrue, are extant, which pretend to explain the origin of chess. Some of the old chroniclers, who loved to invent history, tell us that the game was the product of the fertile brain of an Indian sage, named Sissa or Sassa, and connect therewith the famous story of the grains of corn which increased through the whole sixty-four squares in geometrical ratio. True history informs us that this Sissa was merely a player of more than ordinary skill. Other writers ascribe the invention of the game to two brothers, Lydus and Tyrhene, who, starving in a desert, discovered this excellent means of appeasing the pangs of hunger. Others again support the claims of an imaginary Greek philosopher, styled Xerxes, whose object was to convince a despot that the interests of the monarch were inseparably connected with those of his people. In fact a vast deal of erudition and an immense amount of imagination have been expended on this matter. Palamedes and Zenobia, the Chinese, Egyptians, Persians, Arabians, Welsh, Irish, Jews, Scythians, and Arau- canians, have all had their zealous and credulous advocates. i8 Sketch of the History of Chess. The sober truth is, that a game, possessing all the essential features of chess, was in common use in Southern Asia some three thousand years before the commencement of our era, and that the oldest authentic books of India speak of it as a pastime which amused soldiers during a siege, and delighted princes and generals in their hours of recreation. Beyond this we know nothing. The names of its inventors, the pre- cise time and exact locality of its first appearance, are pro- bably problems which no study of the past, however acute and diligent, will ever be able to solve. The first great period in the history of chess stretches from the supposed time of its origin down to about the sixth cen- tury of our era, comprising a space of between three and four thousand years. It may be called the age of the chaturanga, i Do Da- Do Do i ?