REQUIEM FOR LOST CITY (Civil War Georgia)

Mercer University Press, 1999. Hardcover. Very Good/very good. "The fall and destruction of this Confederate city placed Atlanta in the legendary realm of Atlantis, Troy, Athens, and Moscow. 'Requiem for a Lost City' shows us the reality of Civil War Atlanta from the eve of secession to the memorials for the fallen, through the memories of a participant. Sallie Clayton would have been the same age as the fictional Scarlett O'Hara during the Civil War. Sallie Clayton's memoirs, however, are not a work of fiction, but bittersweet reminiscences of growing up in a doomed city in the midst of losing a war. Althoough her memoirs provide invaluable detail on Civil War Atlanta, they also tell of her personal experiences on a plantation in Montgomery, Alabama, and in postwar Augusta and Athens. Sallie Clayton belonged to one of Georgia's wealthiest and most prominent families. Her memoirs are colored by the losses suffered by her family. Robert Davis's introduction to this work illustrates the background of the Claytons, Sallie's writings, and Civil War Atlanta, providing a balanced account of life at 'the crossroads of the Confederacy.' The introduction also provides a corrective to the popular, 'Gone With the Wind' view of Civil War Atlanta." (from the front & back inside flaps of the dust jacket). Jacket has a tiny closed tear and a small slight wrinkle near the top of the spine. Previous owner name on front fly leaf. Book spine ends are a little bumped.