A Rebel War Clerk's Diary-Vol I

by J.B. Jones

Book Overview

A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital is a fascinating account of experiences in the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809442124
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Time-Life, 1982.
• Length: 2 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An engrossing eyewitness account of the Civil War...

John B. Jones (1810-1866) was a proslavery Northerner who moved South when the Civil War began. A native of Baltimore, he spent most of his youth and young adulthood on the frontier in Kentucky and Missouri. He eventually made his way back to Baltimore and began a career as a newspaper editor. In the 1850's he lived in New Jersey, where he published and edited the "Southern Monitor", a proslavery newspaper which examined the growing crisis between the North and South from a "Southern Viewpoint". When Abraham Lincoln (whom Jones detested) was elected President in 1860 and several Southern states seceded soon thereafter, Jones decided to move South and give whatever support he could to the new Confederate government. He took his wife and children with him, and he soon found a job as a high-level clerk in the Confederate War Department in Richmond, Virginia, the Confederacy's capital. In essence, Jones became a top assistant to the Confederate Secretary of War, which put him in an excellent position to view the conflict from both the "High Command" perspective and the view of an ordinary government worker and city dweller. In April 1861 Jones decided to start a daily diary describing the historic events taking place around him. He faithfully kept the diary until April 1865, when Richmond fell to Northern troops and the Confederacy was destroyed. Jones died from a sudden illness in February 1866, but his diary survived and has become a classic of its kind. It is often used as a "primary source" document by Civil War historians who want a first-hand, eyewitness account of what it was like to live and work in the Confederacy's capital city during the war. Jones is a good writer, and his diary includes almost every aspect of life in Richmond during the war, from the grand to the mundane. Great battles (and the rumors that often accompany them) are mentioned, the elation of early Southern victories to the despair of knowing that "the cause" was lost by the spring of 1865, the petty infighting and personal jealousies that tore the Confederate government apart - all of these are described in detail by Jones. He offers insightful accounts of Confederate President Jefferson Davis; the hated General Winder, who ineptly handled military rule in Richmond for most of the war; the long-winded and ineffective Confederate Congress; Stonewall Jackson's dramatic funeral in May 1863; and the flight of the Confederate government from Richmond and the burning and looting of the city before Northern troops could arrive and restore order. But Jones also includes "smaller" and more personal details about the growing struggle to simply survive in Richmond as the North's naval blockade cut off necessary supplies of food, medicine, clothing, etc. Rampant inflation, food rationing, overcrowding, starving mobs of women marching through the city demanding food, and a thriving black market are all described by Jones (often in biting and sarcastic detail). To be sure, some things