Confederate Citadel: Richmond and Its People at War

by Mary A. DeCredico

Overview

Richmond, Virginia: pride of the founding fathers, doomed capital of the Confederate States of America. Unlike other Southern cities, Richmond boasted a vibrant, urban industrial complex capable of producing crucial ammunition and military supplies. Despite its northern position, Richmond became the Confederacy's beating heart—its capital, second-largest city, and impenetrable citadel. As long as the city endured, the Confederacy remained a well-supplied and formidable force. But when Ulysses S. Grant broke its defenses in 1865, the Confederates fled, burned Richmond to the ground, and surrendered within the week.

Confederate Citadel: Richmond and Its People at War offers a detailed portrait of life's daily hardships in the rebel capital during the Civil War. Here, barricaded against a siege, staunch Unionists became a dangerous fifth column, refugees flooded the streets, and women organized a bread riot in the city. Drawing on personal correspondence, private diaries, and newspapers, author Mary A. DeCredico spotlights the human elements of Richmond's economic rise and fall, uncovering its significance as the South's industrial powerhouse throughout the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813179254
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	05/19/2020
Series:	New Directions in Southern History
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	973,395
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mary A. DeCredico is professor of history at the United States Naval Academy and is author of numerous publications, including Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Confederate Woman's Life and Patriotism for Profit: Georgia's Urban Entrepreneurs and the Confederate War Effort.

Table of Contents

From the City on the James to Confederate Capital
The Campaigns of 1862: "On to Richmond"
Hardship and Despair, 1863: "A General Gloom Prevails"
The Overcrowded and Hungry City, 1864: "We are in a Sad and Anxious State Here Now"
The Fall of Richmond, 1865: "We Slept as It Were over the Heaving Crater of a Volcano"
The Smoking Ruins

What People are Saying About This

James I. Robertson Jr.

"DeCredico has crafted a fresh and—more important—highly personal view of the city that was literally the heart of the Southern Confederacy. Here is a good example of humanizing history."

Catherine A. Jones

"Confederate Citadel provides a vivid portrait of the day-to-day experience of the Civil War within the capital of the Confederacy.  The brisk narrative showcases the voices of many Richmonders—from Confederate authorities devising policy, to starving women demanding action in the streets.  The book effectively traces the tensions between Confederate national ambitions and the capital's local needs over the course of the conflict."

Brent Tarter

"Confederate Citadel is rich with the words of Richmond's occupants, including residents and wartime visitors. DeCredico evokes the hopes and fears of both Confederate and loyal Richmonders, as well as their privations and occasional indulgences, even as booming battlefield cannon sometimes rattled the windows of their houses and government offices."

From the Publisher

"DeCredico has crafted a fresh and — more important — highly personal view of the city that was literally the heart of the Southern Confederacy. Here is a good example of humanizing history." — James I. Robertson Jr., author of Robert E. Lee: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works

Editorial Reviews

DeCredico presents a compact, readable, and well-researched synthesis of Richmond's Civil War years.... For the reader seeking a concise history that sets Richmond's people in the context of the wider Confederate war effort, DeCredico's book is a suitable place to begin.

Virginia Magazine of History & Biography

Confederate Citadel: Richmond and Its People at War is a masterpiece of meticulous and deftly presented scholarship.... Especially and unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library American Civil War collections.

Midwest Book Review

Confederate Citadel is rich with the words of Richmond's occupants, including residents and wartime visitors. DeCredico evokes the hopes and fears of both Confederate and loyal Richmonders, as well as their privations and occasional indulgences, even as booming battlefield cannon sometimes rattled the windows of their houses and government offices.

Brent Tarter

Confederate Citadel offers a thoroughly researched and well-written account of Richmond's painful years as a wartime capital. Civil War buffs will definitely want to add this book to their military libraries.

The Journal of America's Military Past

In Confederate Citadel: Richmond and Its People at War, Mary A. DeCredico makes an important contribution to the underexplored topic of Confederate urban history.... A welcome addition to Civil War historiography that will appeal to broad audiences.

Journal of Southern History

[This book] helps the reader understand the complexities of daily life and how these affected morale as the city came find itself on the front lines by mid-1864.

Strategy Page

DeCredico has crafted a fresh and—more important—highly personal view of the city that was literally the heart of the Southern Confederacy. Here is a good example of humanizing history.

James I. Robertson Jr.

Confederate Citadel provides a vivid portrait of the day-to-day experience of the Civil War within the capital of the Confederacy.  The brisk narrative showcases the voices of many Richmonders—from Confederate authorities devising policy, to starving women demanding action in the streets.  The book effectively traces the tensions between Confederate national ambitions and the capital's local needs over the course of the conflict.

Catherine A. Jones

" Confederate Citadel: Richmond and Its People at War is a masterpiece of meticulous and deftly presented scholarship.... [E]specially and unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library American Civil War collections." — Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher