Customer Reviews

Rose Cottage Chronicles: Civil War Letters of the Bryant-Stephens Families of North Florida

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Based on over 1000 letters still surviving from over 135 years ago. What we are given is a window through which we can look at life as it was for a young married couple almost 140 years ago. We share their joy and delight at their marriage; we rejoice at the birth of their first child. We share their pain and longing as the war separates them. We feel the terror and the horror of a young woman as the Yankees approach her home. We share her anguish as she learns of the death of her beloved husband. Seldom have I read a book that transported me so completely to another time and place as Rose Cottage Chronicles did- one feels like you are there peering over their shoulders as they struggle to survive the hardships caused by the Civil War. For its painstaking attention to detail,its historical accuracy, and its readability, this book is a TREASURE!! Anyone with an interest in the Civil War or what daily life was like back then would enjoy reading Rose Cottage Chronicles.

Very good book about life in Florida during the War Between the States. Not the stuff of generals or other "important people", these are the chronicles of normal people during that period and gives an excellent insight into what life was really like in rural north Florida during the war. It is refreshing to see this aspect of the war published and it is invaluable to the serious student of the war who wishes to explore the conflict on the frontiers, far from the more researched and reported theaters closer to Washington and Richmond. By reading the letters of the participants and their families, you are almost transformed and taken back to live among them. An excellent book.

The Civil War wasn't about chubby re-enactors, it wasn't about abuse of slaves, and to the vast majority, it wasn't about economics. It was about ordinary people rising to fight for principles in which they strongly beieved: independence on one hand, and preservation on the Union on the other.

This book takes the reader to the time and place of their sacrifice, not through the imagination of a fiction writer, but through the perceptions of the folks who were there.

An excellent read.