The Hammonds of Redcliffe (review)

BOOK REVIEWS273 Two minor weaknesses are the printing errors (at least six, some of them glaring) and the unfortunately brief index of less than four pages for such a diverse discussion of speakers, issues, strategies, and ideas. Overall, the editor accomplishes quite well what he set out to do— provide an analysis of how the South, following the Civil War, attempted to speak to itself, not the North, in an effort to regain its selfconfidence , its pride, and its feeling of integrity. D. Ray Heisey Kent State University The Hammonds of Redcliffe. Edited by Carol Bleser. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Pp. xxii, 421. $19.95.) As readers of this journal are aware, no story in America's history has been so often told, or has so well stood the re-telling, as the Old South and its demise. A major part of Carol Bleser's Hammonds relates the Civil War era as it has seldom been told before, through the eyes of a prominent South Carolina family, its dreams and worries, its successes and failures. Using the voluminous correspondence of the Hammond family of South Carolina, Carol Bleser has skillfully reconstructed the social milieu of elite southern family life from theantebellum period well into the twentieth century. Bleser did exhaustive research, finding letters from different archives that fit together to create a pleasing and powerful narrative of a southern family over four generations. She liberally sprinkled footnotes providing background on historical figures, both obscure and famous, and clarifying confusing and unclear references. The able selection of letters, the footnotes, and introductory sections enhance the volume and make Hammonds distinctly Bleser's. The first quarter of the book, which focuses on the family patriarch, James Henry Hammond (died 1864), is particularly fascinating. It provides a valuable perspective on the political and military events of the Civil War era, and it establishes in dramatic fashion the characters of Hammond, his sons, Harry, Spann, and Paul, and Harry's fiancée (and later wife), Emily. James Henry's success as farmer and statesman, his charm, and his ability to convey ideas clearly are all readily apparent. However, so are his incessant and almost pathetic carpings about his sons' alleged failures. Counterposed against the father's impressions of his sons are a couple of simple and straightforward letters from Spann, and a much larger number of often touching, often self-effacing letters from Harry. Harry was destined to shoulder the almost impossible burden of carrying on his father's agricultural successes and the Hammond tradition. Harry reveals the immense pressures of being James Henry's son in a letter to his fatherin October 1858. Declaring that he has 274CIVIL WAR HISTORY failed in everything, he goes on to say: "I was the living, walking realization of utter complacency, patent to every age. It is fearful for a man to know and feel this, and he can't do so long and remain in his right mind. There is no help for it, but to blow your brains out—or forget it." Not long after writing this letter, Harry was appointed professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Georgia, much to the surprise and chagrin of his father. He might have done very well there if not for the intervention of the Civil War and the responsibilities of managing the plantation after his father's death. He thus undertook a job for which he was ill suited, and for the rest of his life fought against depressed cotton prices, bad weather, and the omnipresent ghost of his father. In the second section of the correspondence, which Bleserlabels "The Preserver," Harry Hammond becomes the focus. This section depicts the decline of the family's fortunes and Harry's increasing dissatisfaction with work that goes unrewarded and achievements that go unrecognized . But in both the first and second sections of the correspondence, the loving and sensitive side of Harry Hammond's character is also displayed . His letters to Emily, before and after their marriage, exude his intense and sincere love for her. The sentiment portrayed in the letters suggest that their relationship gave him new life: "I have been a stone, a block, and...