A DIARY FROM DIXIE

Edited by Ben Ames Williams, who drew much of his background for House Divided from it, this journal of the Civil War Years in the South by a most capable note-taker has had much that was expurgated in the 1904 edition replaced so it is almost half again as long. Here are spur of the minute remarks, observations, rumors; here is a picture of what Southern society was like during the war years, how the civilians, men and women acted, what the shifts of feeling and opinion were, lively profiles of the military as well as plantation owners, slaves, beaux and belles, wounded and dying soldiers, conqueror and conquered. It is abundant reporting from a desperately concerned observer, whose personal life is also a part of the story. A rewarding background book because of its intimate portrayal of a period, place and people, a natural for those to whom diarists' revelations are fascinating, for the history-minded market.