Requiem for a lost city
Subtitle: a memoir of Civil War Atlanta and the Old South
By: Sarah 'Sallie' Conley Clayton ; edited by Robert Scott Davis, Jr.
Contributors: Davis, Robert Scott, 1954-
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Macon, Ga
Language: eng
Number of pages: 213
Subjects: Clayton, Sarah Conley, 1845-1922 -- Diaries.; Women -- Georgia -- Atlanta -- Diaries.; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives, Confederate.; Georgia -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives.; Atlanta (Ga.) -- Biography.; Atlanta (Ga.) -- History -- 19th century.; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Social aspects.
Genres: Diaries.; Personal narratives, Confederate.; Personal narratives.; Biography.; Social aspects.
Description: Requiem for a Lost City shows us the reality of Civil War Atlanta from the eve of secession to the memorials for the fallen, through the memories of a participant. Sallie Clayton would have been the same age as the fictional Scarlett O'Hara during the Civil War. Sallie Clayton's memoirs, however, are not a work of fiction but bittersweet reminiscences of growing up in a doomed city in the midst of losing a war.

Although her memoirs provide invaluable detail on Civil War Atlanta, they also tell of her personal experiences on a plantation in Montgomery, Alabama, and in postwar Augusta and Athens.

Sallie Clayton belonged to one of Georgia's wealthiest and most prominent families. Her memoirs are colored by the losses suffered by her family. Robert Davis's introduction to this work illustrates the background of the Claytons, Sallie's writings, and Civil War Atlanta, providing a balanced account of life at "the crossroads of the Confederacy." The introduction also provides a corrective to the popular, Gone With the Wind view of Civil War Atlanta.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [185]-201) and index.