A YEAR IN THE SOUTH: Four Lives in 1865

Drawing on a rich array of primary and secondary sources—particularly the diaries and memoirs of four Southerners who lived through the final year of the Civil War—Ash, associate professor history at the University of Tennessee, has drawn a vivid picture of everyday people scrambling to survive with Darwinian tenacity as their world collapses around them. Through his intelligent choice of diverse subjects—an upper-class Confederate widow reduced to drudgery and a diet of beans and scraps; an enterprising slave who tucks away a nest egg and learns to read while still in bondage; a young farmer whose discovery of faith and love renews his enthusiasm for life; and a 31-year-old preacher from a prosperous slave-owning family, who survives the dissolution of the institution that had sustained their prosperity—Ash tells a tale that reads like a novel, while illuminating important historical themes: the impact of the war on women and slaves, the powerful influence of evangelical Christianity, and, most important, the nuanced political, social and cultural landscape of a tottering Confederacy that was anything but monolithic or harmonious. This book—an original blending of social, military and local history, crafted by an author with a muscular style, a keen eye for memorable details and the good sense to avoid scholarly jargon and weighty theory—is refreshingly difficult to pigeonhole and will be of interest to both Civil War buffs looking for something new, and to those who simply like a good yarn well told. Illus. (N0v.)