Amidst the vast literature of the Civil War, one of the most
significant and enlightening documents remains largely unknown. A
day-by-day, uninterrupted, four-year chronicle by a mature, keenly
observant clerk in the War Department of the Confederacy, the
wartime diary of John Beauchamp Jones was first published in two
volumes of small type in 1866. Over the years, the diary was
republished three more times—but never with an index or an
editorial apparatus to guide a reader through the extraordinary
mass of information it contained. Published here with an
authoritative editorial framework, including an extensive
introduction and endnotes, this unique record of the Civil War
takes its rightful place as one of the best basic reference tools
in Civil War history, absolutely critical to study the Confederacy.
A Maryland journalist/novelist who went south at the outbreak of
the war, Jones took a job as a senior clerk in the Confederate War
Department, where he remained to the end, a constant observer of
men and events in Richmond, the heart of the Confederacy and the
principal target of Union military might. As a high-level clerk at
the center of military planning, Jones had an extraordinary
perspective on the Southern nation in action—and nothing escaped
his attention. Confidential files, commandlevel conversations,
official correspondence, revelations, rumors, statistics, weather
reports, and personal opinions: all manner of material, found
nowhere else in Civil War literature, made its meticulous way into
the diary. Jones quotes scores of dispatches and reports by both
military and civilian authorities, including letters from Robert E.
Lee never printed elsewhere, providing an invaluable record of
documents that would later find their way into print only in edited
form. His notes on such ephemera as weather and prices create a
backdrop for the military movements and political maneuverings he
describes, all with the judicious eye of a seasoned writer and
observer of southern life. James I. Robertson, Jr., provides
introductions to each volume, over 2,700 endnotes that identify,
clarify, and expand on Jones’s material, and a first ever index
which makes Jones’s unique insights and observations accessible
to interested readers, who will find in the pages of A Rebel War
Clerk’s Diary one of the most complete and richly textured
accounts of the Civil War ever to be composed at the very heart of
the Confederacy.
General
Imprint: |
University Press of Kansas
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Modern War Studies |
Release date: |
October 2015 |
Authors: |
J.B. Jones
|
Editors: |
J. R. Robertson
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 43mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards
|
Pages: |
608 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-7006-2124-8 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
0-7006-2124-5 |
Barcode: |
9780700621248 |
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