Four Years in Rebel Capitals

Early in 1861 De Leon left Washington on a crowded southbound train and followed the new Confederate government to Montgomery, then on to Richmond, where he stayed through the fires of the last night and the Federal occupation that followed. He built the book from notes made while the war was running, and he says plainly that it aims neither at the height of history nor the depths of political analysis. What he offers instead is the inner life of the seceded states: the provisional congress and cabinet, Jefferson Davis at close range, drawing rooms and hospital wards in Richmond filling after Williamsburg and the Seven Days, the blockade, conscription, currency going to pieces, and the wit that survived it all. He catches manners, gossip and morale where the official record goes quiet.