How Grand a Flame: A Chronicle of a Plantation Family, 1813-1947 - Hardcover

Bresee, Clyde

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0945575556 ISBN 13: 9780945575559

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1992

Synopsis

"Wake me at four o'clock. We're going to see some action." When the guns opened on Fort Sumter across the harbor in April of 1861, two young men, one white and one black, were watching together from the cupola of the big house on the Lawton plantation, which stretched for a full mile along the Ashley River near Charleston, South Carolina. The white man, Wallace Lawton, would shortly be plunged into a protracted, increasingly desperate struggle to retain his inherited domain during war, devastation, and defeat, and to restore it to a semblance of its pre-war prosperity. The black man, Peter Brown, as slave and freedman, would continue a complex and sometimes stormy relationship with Wallace and with the land. How Grand A Flame s the story of three generations of a proud, strong-willed aristocratic family, from the early nineteenth century until the plantation passed from their hands in the 1940s. Winborn Lawton II consolidated the James Island lands during the time when cotton was king. His son Wallace took control just as war came. He moved his operations temporarily to land near the Savannah River, where he won the hand of sixteen-year-old cousin Cecilia Lawton. He brought her back to James Island, where they began the long struggle to restore the land to prosperity. Drawing upon vivid diaries kept by Cecilia Lawton, records and old documents, court-martial proceedings, and personal memories, author Clyde Bresee has traced the story of a southern family in a memorable historical epoch.

About this title

From the Author

Sel;ected Reviews of the above work
"This is a fascinating and unusual book, fully rounded, part memoir, part history."-- The Boston Globe

"Historians will enjoy "How Grand A Flame" as a rich addition to the annals of the period, while readers looking for a good story will appreciate Bresee's entertaining chronicle of life in the Old south." --Tampa Tribune Times

"Bresee helpfully relates individual experiences to events leading to the collapse of a system that transformed the existance of both masters and slaves.. the book makes a rich addition to the annals of the period." --Publishers Weekly

"This is an odd but interesting sort of history , rooted as it is in the different types of reminiscences of Bresee, his father, Peter and Cecilia. Indeed, these varying perspectives give the book a special realism and depth." --Chicago Tribune

"Clyde Bresee's narrative of one small part of an epic story is emotionally moving and poetically evocative of a tortured past."--Winston-Salem Journal

"This family chronicle is a germ worth spreading -- the kind of sequel to "Gone With The Wind" that should have been written."-- Wofford College Review

Edition details

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0945575556
• ISBN 13: 9780945575559
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1