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

by John C. Waugh

A portrait of newspaper editor and secessionist leader Roger Pryor and his wife, Sara, considers their presence at crucial moments before and during the Civil War and their roles as examples of Southern pride and privation victims. 20,000 first printing.

Genres: Civil War, History, Biography

464 pages, Hardcover

First published September 9, 2002

About the author

A Brief Self-Serving Bio

I'm a journalist turned historical reporter:

1956–1973, staff correspondent and bureau chief on The Christian Science Monitor. Honors included the American Bar Association’s 1972 Silver Gavel Award for the best national reporting, for a series on American prisons.
1973–1976, media specialist on the staff of Republican Vice President Nelson Rockefeller of New York.
1983–1988, press secretary to Democratic U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.
Since 1989, writing about history full-time — books on the Civil War era.
Covering the past is not unlike covering the present, except all my sources are dead (I prefer it that way). It also means I can return to my favorite century, the 19th, on a daily basis.

Between stints in the newspaper and political worlds, and since, I've contributed to periodicals, including Civil War History, American Heritage, Civil War Times Illustrated, Columbiad, The Washington Post Book World, The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald American, and Country Magazine.

Over the years I've also been a consultant to various organizations — National Archives and Records Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlantic Richfield Company, President’s Council on Environmental Quality, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and West Virginia Public Radio.

My first book, The Class of 1846, published in 1994, won the New York Civil War Round Table’s Fletcher Pratt Literary Award for the best non-fiction book of that year.

I have now written 11 books since flunking retirement in 1989. Number 12 will be out in October 2014. I have discovered over the years that if you put one word after another long enough, they add up.

I was born in California, reared in Arizona, and now live in North Texas. I'm a product of the Tucson public schools and the University of Arizona (1951, journalism major, history minor) plus graduate work in history and political science at UCLA and St. Johns College. I'm married to Kathleen Dianne Lively, a social work administrator and a Texan. We have two grown children, Daniel, a lawyer in Providence, Rhode Island, and Eliza, a teacher in Austin, Texas, and four grandchildren.

Reviews

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. Why did I put this down for so long? I don't know. But it wound up taking me about 9 years (again) to read this. Nine years ago I read about a third of it. I read the last 2/3 in the last two weeks.

Obviously I probably don't remember the first part of the book that well but he was one of the rabble rousers who pushed the Civil War into motion. Came close to firing the first shot at Ft. Sumter (lucky he didn't - the Union probably would have carried through on their threat to hang him). He is credited with saying "I was born a Presbyterian and a Democrat."

He became somewhat disenchanted when he was ordered from the field of battle as a general. He resigned his commission and re-joined the military as a private. Of course, he was always called general, even if he was a private, and his friends in the military used him as a scout because he was so well acquainted with the Petersburg area, having grown up there.

What I found so fascinating about this book was the look at the "home front" during the waning period of the war. Sara Pryor is virtually sitting, with her younger children, at the front. General Lee is camping practically in the yard. And Waugh covers the hardships faced by the women left at home, which could suddenly become a battlefield. And they would have to move houses. Sara had a brother-in-law who had several houses - she moved at varying times, into at least two of them.

Also during this period Roger is captured and taken to a prison in New York so Sara is coping all on her own. When the Union takes Petersburg General Sheridan seizes her house for his adjutant. Somehow she manages to plead her case time and again, first with Sheridan and then with other generals later, escorted by her two boys.

After the war, these Southerners move to New York where Roger goes back to writing and the practice of the law.

I thoroughly enjoyed the last two-thirds of this book. Very informative.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, eyewitness account of the Civil War in Northern Virginia by Sara Pryor, and also from other women's journals and letters. Amazing and hard to put down. It felt like I was right there with her. So far, one of the best Civil War books I've read, perhaps a close second to my other favorite: "Grant" by Ron Chernow.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on the memoirs of Sara Pryor, who was the wife of a Southern fire-eater and Confederate general, Waugh presents vividly written picture of life in Virginia during the Civil War. Although he supplements Sara Pryor's memoirs with descriptions of the fighting and descriptions from the diaries of other southern women, the focus on the lives of Sara and Roger Pryor, at times, gives this book the feel of a novel, Why the Pryors, who did not own slaves, were so passionate in the defense of the Confederacy, and how they were able to flourish in New York City after the ware are two of the conundrums raised by this excellent book.

[Daniel Burnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting perspective of the Civil War. There was a little more focus on battles and movements than I was hoping for (which you can get anywhere). But it had enough color about domestic life during the war, which is what drew me to this one.

[Josefina Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and it engaging. I felt like an eyewitness.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

No doubt people have to react to the circumstances in which they find themselves. The life story of Roger and Sara Pryor is not necessarily unique but is comes close to being so. The author must be credited for finding this couple and fleshing them out from letters, notes, journals newspaper articles and official records. The story takes a personal view of the U.S. Civil War beginning well before Fort Sumter to sometime after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. The Pryors begin as a striving young couple living in Petersburg, Virginia but go through many changes over their years. It is a great story. Before the end you begin to wonder why you never heard of these people before. I recommend this book to Civil War buffs and to anyone looking for a good story.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. A true history of a family and their struggles, triumphs and lives during and after the Civil war. Enjoyed it because I d never heard of these folks before. Lots of details for both civilian and military buffs alike.

[Martha]

This book was great. It is the story of a man and his wife and family during the Civil War.