Customer Reviews

The Children of Pride: Selected letters of the family of the Rev. Dr. Charles Colcock Jones from the years 1860-1868; A New, Abridged Edition

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This book shows better than any other the disruptive effect of the Civil War on the lives of real Southern people. In 1,300 letters between many family members, this magnificant book chronicles the Jones family of Liberty County, Georgia from 1854 until the late 1860s. We see the family's lives from day to day as war clouds gather, the son becomes Mayor of Savannah, the army is raised, Sherman's army arrives and pillages the plantation every day for a month, the family becomes destitute refugees from the chaos of war, the slaves become free workers, etc. We see into the minds and hearts of this good family, experience their births and deaths, joys and sorrows and fears, at the time of the nation's greatest political crisis.

The following description of this book is from my Civil War in Georgia website. This book contains some 1200 letters of nearly 7000 extant, between the men and women of a large, well-educated family from Liberty County, Georgia. Although the correspondents are numerous, there are four principal writers. Charles Colcock Jones, Sr., a plantation owner, Presbyterian Minister, and promoter of the spiritual welfare of the slaves; Mrs. Charles Jones, Sr., wrote of everyday events on the plantation, attempts to hold the family together, intrusions by Union soldiers at the family plantation "Montevideo" during Sherman's march, and the eventual sale of the family home and her move to New Orleans; Charles Jr., a Harvard-educated lawyer, described family legal matters, including selling land and slaves, and his experiences in the defense of the Georgia coast and the siege of Charleston. He served with the Chatham Light Artillery Battery and as Colonel, Chief of Artillery, District of Georgia, Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; Surgeon Major Joseph served in the Confederate Medical Department and conducted research in Confederate prison camps. Among the letters of a sister, Mary Sharpe Jones Mallard, is a description of the siege of Atlanta and her escape to "Montevideo".

Book is composed of actual letters from family members in Georgia during the Prewar, during actual war and after the Civil War.
You get an actual account on how life was day to day, with very enjoyable and easy to read wording. Much more accruate history in this book, than is currently being taught in our schools.

Like being able to eavesdrop on history, the letters give a vivid account of life before, during and after the civil war. I became fascinated with this format and time period and have also read Mary Chestnutt, Sarah Morgan, and many others, but am now reading The Children Of Pride for the second time. Someone offered to buy my copy, but there is no way I'll ever part with it. It's worth every penny, and every minute spent finding the complete version!

I am half way through this 1400 page book and it is hard to put down. The UNABRIDGED edition is a must. It includes an INDEX in the back of Who's Who which lists biographies of the Free and the Slaves. These letters reveal the warm relationships between the whites & blacks in this family, the belief that the South was fighting the second American Revolution to preserve a nation under the Constitution and rule of law, the influence of the Scotch Presbyterian church in evangelizing the Negro population with the gospel, the honorable as well as influential position women held in the home as managers of the household, the difficulty of travel by railroad or horseback, what they ate, wore and how they conducted routine business. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to finishing it. I also recommend "Sarah Morgan's Diary" which is also a firsthand account written in Louisiana by a 19 year old girl. "Sarah Morgan" was much more readable than "Mary Chestnut's Diary" which is probably better known. Sarah Morgan was a gifted writer.

Today a friend asked me what had been the best Civil War book I had ever read - not a straight history book - and after the briefest thought I said "Children of Pride." I've spent many years thinking about the War, trying to understand the motivations of Americans at that time, and then how they survived such a horrendously wrenching time. "Children of Pride" does it better than anything I have ever read.
I think it is understood that primary sources are the best way to truly understand times as these; this book provides the thoughts of the entire family, all literate and well-spoken people, over the entire period from the 1850s, just living their ante-bellum experience, to the idea of the war on the horizon, entering into it and living it day by day. This is all seen through ordinary every-day experiences, family anecdotes, and discussions of what is occurring. I can't recommend it highly enough for a true understanding of Southern life and views through all these years and well into Reconstruction.
As readers said earlier, the abridged versions absolutely do not do any justice to what the book truly is. The whole work is the only way to experience "Children of Pride."
It has lived with me since I first read it in the 1970s; I would never let my copy out of my hands, and as said above today I realized it was the single best book about the Civil War that I have ever read.

After reading the un-abridged I found the ABRIDGED version a sham and a waste of good paper. Let get political correct and cut out the parts that show the cruilty of the Fedreal troops and just show The Mean Nasty Bad Southerns People supposely were. Cut out the the letters that showed the love and respect that was shown to the slaves and cut out the parts of the Northern Troops raiding and pillaging people homes or setting the houseing on fire with both whites and blacks in them just because the blacks did not want to leave there masters. Cut out the letters of Mother and Childrens crying because they have no food due to the Federal Troops taking it right off their tables or out of ther mouths. Cut out the letters showing druken Federal Troops raping and murdering Southern Women. NOW YOU HAVE THE ABRIDGED VERSION TO SHOW what just a few people want to be shown. Just leave the book a lone and let the letters tell the truith of what happen those terrible days during the war.

I read the ABRIDGED and wish I could get my money back!!!!

Winners of the wars get to write the history books...so you have to look a little further to get truer impressions. I use a lengthy excerpt from this book in advanced US History classes to give the kids a clue why the South was so bitter about Reconstruction. They come away very thoughtful. But the unabridged version is the only real deal.

A significant collection of the letters of an influential low country family, from before the Civil War and right after. These letters show the attitudes, morals, mindsets, goals, worries, and daily lives of their writers, and seem at once both modern and dated, universal and unique. What one reads here also shows how, arguably, the English language reached its height during this era. The beauty of the wording of so many of these letters, even short chatty ones from one family member to another, have much to teach us, and should dispel any residue of belief that those who lived in eras before our own were unlearned and intellectually inferior to us. It is particularly interesting to read along from the position of hindsight and see how men and women who lived through momentous times regarded them as they were about to happen, as they were happening, and in the days that came after the events. These letters are not only educational, they are also, as a bonus, very interesting.

The UNABRIDGED edition, like The Clamorous Malcontents, is an essential, unedited, source document that, along with Michel Thurmond's Freedom,An African-American History of Georgia, 1733-1865, provide a complete history of Georgia's early years; the Georgia behind Gone With the Wind. The Children of Pride is nothing more nor less than a massive collection of letters among members of the Jones family, plantation barons of the Old South. There are no footnotes, comments, or any other attempts to editorialize; the letters are allowed to speak for them selves. The first letters begin during the apogee of the plantation economy, continue through the civil war, and on into the reconstruction years, so we see, through the letters of eye witnesses, the rise, fall, and rebirth of the state of Georgia. This is a family that moved in a society where women bought $30,000.00 (in 19th century dollars!) wedding dresses, ALL of whose sons went to Ivy League schools (although not all graduated), whose negroes had neither title nor family names, and some of whom, ultimately, were reduced to hard scrabble farming for subsistance by the collapse of the South. The writers of these letters are wonderfully educated and refined, devout and intelligent, articulate and caring. These are people of real quality who owned and sold slaves. I recommend the unabridged edition, because it alone contains the wonder that is second only to the letters themselves, an index of all the people mentioned in the letters, complete with short bios. If you are from Georgia, your ancesters are mentioned there. The Children of Pride is a state treasure.