Surviving the Confederacy: Rebellion, Ruin, and Recovery--Roger and Sara Pryor during the Civil War.

By John C. Waugh. (New York, San Diego, and London: Harcourt, c. 2002. Pp. [xii], 447. $28.00, ISBN 0-15-100389-0.)

This dramatic account of Sara and Roger Pryor's marriage helps to explain why there are so few Civil War novels. Fact simply outstrips fiction, especially when historians turn to the letters, diaries, and memoirs that provide such rich descriptions of life before, during, and after the war. John C. Waugh has mined those sources well and admits in his acknowledgments that if he were to meet Sara Pryor--who "wrote so enchantingly and so thoroughly about her life with Roger"--he "would give her a huge hug" (p. 343).

Roger Pryor's life was extraordinary by any standards, not the least because the renowned duelist lived to be ninety years old. A Virginia "fire-eater," lawyer, newspaper editor (a profession that spawned duels), diplomat, and congressman before the war, he participated in the negotiations at Fort Sumter but declined to fire the first shot since Virginia had not yet seceded. When it did, Pryor rushed to take on a command and was soon a brigadier general. A political general and a martinet unpopular with his troops, he was soon consigned to oblivion, whereupon he tendered his resignation and reenlisted as a private. He rendered valuable service as a scout to Robert E. Lee and others until captured by Union forces and sent to Fort Lafayette in New York. Not for the first time in his life, he narrowly escaped death, a fate Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had in mind for him. But Pryor still had admirers in the North who interceded with the president. Lincoln had heard of the southerner's kindness to Union prisoners in Virginia and issued an order for his release. At war's end Pryor took his family to New York City to start life anew. With time, his legal skills, brilliant mind, charm, and resolve to accept the South's defeat brought him success--ultimately as a member of New York's supreme court--and friendship with the most prominent figures of the day.

But Roger Pryor does not outshine Sara, who was also an exceptional person. Even before her marriage, the Saturday Evening Post had accepted for publication a romantic tale she had written (and would later deride). After the war she enjoyed considerable literary success with two memoirs, a history of Jamestown, and a number of journal articles. It was she who whispered to President Buchanan at a wedding reception the news that South Carolina had seceded. With the coming of war she determined to follow her husband wherever his military assignments might take him. Sara won the hearts of countless soldiers, from privates to generals, for her selfless concern for their welfare, despite the enormous privations she and her children were enduring. That same concern for suffering marked her later life, when she formed societies to provide relief for victims of such tragedies as the 1900 hurricane in Galveston, Texas. She was the mother of seven children, lived to her eighty-second year, and when she and her husband observed their sixtieth wedding anniversary, a thousand guests, including some of the most eminent people of the time, celebrated the occasion with them.

As his annotations and extensive bibliography show, Waugh has explored a wealth of primary and secondary sources and used them to great effect. He tells a splendid story, often tragic but sometimes amusing. For such a serious moment in our history the events at Fort Sumter are a comedy of errors, with Louis T. Wigfall as court jester. Waugh's account is superb. There are many more such vignettes and colorful personalities, which enliven what could be a very dispiriting narrative. The Pryors exhibited enormous resilience, suffered deeply, and survived. Unfortunately, their eldest child, a brilliant and most promising young man, did not; he apparently committed suicide in 1871, and one wonders what wartime shadows may have induced his action.

Waugh has provided yet another solid contribution (his fifth) to any Civil War library--a history that historians and the general reading public alike will appreciate.

MARY SEATON DIX 

The Papers of Jefferson Davis