A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary at the Confederate States Capital.

JONES, John Beauchamp.

Item Number: 121647

Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1866.

First edition of “the most consulted journal for wartime Richmond and the Confederate government ” (Nevins). Octavo, two volumes, bound in full cloth with gilt titles to the spine. In near fine condition. Period inscription from the Paradise Soldier’s O. School Library.

American novelist and diarist John Beauchamp Jones was a well-connected literary editor and political journalist in the two decades leading up to the American Civil War and, during the war, served in the Confederate War Department , the tenure during which he published this, his best-known work. One of the best sources of everyday life in Richmond during the war, the diary also details the inner workings of the War Department. "The most consulted journal for wartime Richmond and the Confederate government; Jones, who reworked the diary shortly after the war, had and exaggerated opinion of his military judgments... An interesting commentary on life and people in the Confederacy, but marred by the author's strong prejudices and his editing of the narrative after the events described" (Nevins).