A Rebel War Clerk's Diary: Volume 2: At the Confederate States Capital (Modern War Studies) - Hardcover

Jones, J. B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0700621245 ISBN 13: 9780700621248

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 2015

Synopsis

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

About this title

Review:

“Jones remains one of the cornerstone works on the war. This edition is superb.” William C. Davis, author of Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour

“I think Jones’s diary is a very important firsthand account about the Confederacy. There is nothing else quite like it, in fact. Robertson’s long-needed edition will be a long-term seller, as the much-preferred edition of a major Civil War classic.” Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War.

About the Author:

James I. Robertson, Jr., is Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus in History at Virginia Tech and author of Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0700621245
• ISBN 13: 9780700621248
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 608
• Editor: Robertson Jr.