Gentlemen Merchants: A Charleston Family’s Odyssey, 1828-1870
Edited by Philip N. Racine
(November 2008 Civil War News)

Illustrated, maps, genealogical charts, notes, bibliography, index, 890 pp. 2008. The University of Tennessee Press, 110 Conference Center, 600 Henley St., Knoxville, TN 37996-4108, $38.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Blake A. Magner
Blake A. Magner is the Book Review Editor of Civil War News. He makes his liv­ing as an editor, writer, car­tographer and photographer of Civil War history. He is author of At Peace With Honor: The Civil War Burials of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Review:
Gentlemen Merchants contains 48 years of correspondence between members of two wealthy Charleston, S.C., families, the Youngs and the Gourdins, and with other Southern notables as well.

The majority of the letters seem to be between the Rev. Thomas John Young and his wife Anna Rebecca Gourdin, especially in the beginning of the volume when the minister spends much of his time away from home preaching and serving as a member of various religious commissions. His life is cut short by disease in 1852.

The Civil War years are dominated by letters between Anna Rebecca and her sons who have gone off to serve the Confederacy. They hold such positions as aide to Gen. Robert E. Lee and part of the staff of Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew. They serve throughout the war and suffer the occasional wound as well as the hardship of daily life.

Religion is a major feature of the correspondence, as the families were quite religious, leaving themselves in the hands of the Provider. A major subject is also disease, with Yellow Fever wreaking havoc in Charleston and other Southern locales. Throughout much of the book the correspondents, close family members or friends are plagued by some sort of bodily affliction.

 As the families are plantation owners and shipping merchants, the letters include some brief discussions of business through portions of the volume.

Beginning in the late 1850s a major subject in the correspondence is the separation of the North and the South. The letters sent home by Anna’s sons lack detail, except for their movements and general life. Battle description is rare and brief. However, one letter describing the last hours of Pettigrew is interesting and informative.

There is also some discussion of the Yankee blockade’s effect on the City of Charleston and the occasional artillery fire inflicted on the town.

 After the war the letters are few and far between, with some talk of trying to revive the family business and life in general in the South.

Gentlemen Merchants is an intense book for the reader as it is over 800 pages of 10-point type and thus can become tedious to read. Many of the letters are about mundane everyday life. They do provide an interesting look at the trials of two prominent South Carolina families and open a window for the reader on what life was really like in the Old South in both peace and war.