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A Belle of the Fifties
She knew everyone and everyone knew her. A wealthy belle, married to prominent legislator, Clement Clay, she became one of Washington, D.C.'s great hostesses.
This is as witty, gossipy, fashionable, and gritty a tale of antebellum Washington as you'll ever read. As her biographical researcher stated:
"I have come upon no record of any other woman of her time who has filled so powerful a place politically, whose belleship has been so long sustained, or whose magnetism and compelling fascinations have swayed others so universally as have those of Mrs. Clay-Clopton."
When the American Civil War came, however, she and her husband transferred their loyalty, services, and her "belleship" to the south. She describes in wonderful detail her life in Washington, the sorrows and privations of the war, and her husband's incarceration after the war during his life-threatening illness.
Once the war was over, Virginia Clay was right back in the midst of high society in Washington. She took her plea for her husband's release personally to Secretary of War Stanton, Lieutenant-General Grant, and right into the office of President Andrew Johnson. Old northern friends embraced her warmly and she was astonished to be welcomed back into social circles.
This volume is Abridged and Annotated.
For less than you'd spend on gas going to the library, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones.
Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.
This is as witty, gossipy, fashionable, and gritty a tale of antebellum Washington as you'll ever read. As her biographical researcher stated:
"I have come upon no record of any other woman of her time who has filled so powerful a place politically, whose belleship has been so long sustained, or whose magnetism and compelling fascinations have swayed others so universally as have those of Mrs. Clay-Clopton."
When the American Civil War came, however, she and her husband transferred their loyalty, services, and her "belleship" to the south. She describes in wonderful detail her life in Washington, the sorrows and privations of the war, and her husband's incarceration after the war during his life-threatening illness.
Once the war was over, Virginia Clay was right back in the midst of high society in Washington. She took her plea for her husband's release personally to Secretary of War Stanton, Lieutenant-General Grant, and right into the office of President Andrew Johnson. Old northern friends embraced her warmly and she was astonished to be welcomed back into social circles.
This volume is Abridged and Annotated.
For less than you'd spend on gas going to the library, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones.
Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.
353 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1905
47 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Virginia Clay-Clopton
4 booksPolitical hostess and activist in Alabama and Washington, DC
She took on different responsibilities after the Civil War. As the wife of US Senator Clement Claiborne Clay from Alabama, she was part of a group of young southerners who boarded together in the capital in particular hotels.
In the immediate postwar period, she worked to gain her husband's freedom from imprisonment at Fort Monroe, where Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederacy, was also held.
In the late 19th century, Clay-Copton became an activist in the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
She took on different responsibilities after the Civil War. As the wife of US Senator Clement Claiborne Clay from Alabama, she was part of a group of young southerners who boarded together in the capital in particular hotels.
In the immediate postwar period, she worked to gain her husband's freedom from imprisonment at Fort Monroe, where Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederacy, was also held.
In the late 19th century, Clay-Copton became an activist in the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 6, 2013
If you can withstand the first few chapters and the endless monotony of Mrs. Clay's social engagements and descriptions of Washington society, the narrative about her experiences during the Civil War is truly amazing.
May 21, 2025
Born in 1825, Virginia Clay-Clopton lived to be 90, dying in 1915. She collaborated with one Ada Sterling to produce this work around 1905, and it is not clear how much is based on contemporaneous records that she may have kept (diaries etc) and how much is reconstructed from memory. I suspect that it was much the latter, although I would like to see a scholarly edition of this work that might answer the question.
In any case, VCC must have been a delightful old lady, and it would be truly a joy to sit with her now and let her memories and stories flow. Her memory even at such an advanced age seems largely intact, and the “stories she told herself about herself” seem to have congealed into a coherent and more-or-less believable rendition of her view of the world and of her place in it, particularly for the period about 1850-1866.
Much of what she relates might qualify as “fluff”; outfits and hair styles and fashion-especially-Parisian, receptions and balls and social life in Washington in the 50s. She does a lot of name-dropping, and she seems to have allowed time to “airbrush away” most unpleasant memories or impressions of people. All that is fine, to be expected, and is as honest as anyone’s memories.
What appalls me is her unwavering support for the course of events that led to such a stupid war as was the US Civil War. She sees nothing wrong with the South’s peculiar institution, indeed she asserts its superiority to that of the north; she never once considers that the war was unnecessary not to mention unwise; she never seems to think that all the suffering it engendered was anything other than an opportunity to exhibit the “noble” character of southerners; and the notion never enters her mind that she, as much as any one individual can be, was responsible for such devastation. As much as she whines about prices and scarcity, she doesn’t seem to have suffered much from them. I’m sure she never had to face that choice faced by so many southern women and girls (and their children); to starve, or to let one of the available men (of whatever race or army) provide for her needs at least temporarily.
The Civil War was an avoidable disaster, and VCC, like the majority of her type, was responsible for all the misery it produced for 150 years. And the best she can do is blame it on the republicans. It’s pathetic.
However…her post-war experience of seeking her husband’s release from Fortress Monroe, where he was kept for over a year (no charges filed, no access to attorneys), along with Jeff Davis, is fascinating. President Johnson’s weakness (political as well as moral) and vacillation shed an interesting light on what he had to deal with. Edwin Stanton (War Department) seems to be the bad guy in this situation, which puts into some perspective the whole mess regarding ‘Whose Cabinet is it anyway?’, Presidential powers generally, the (unconstitutional) Tenure of Office Act and AJ’s subsequent impeachment. It’s a very ugly period in American politics with more than a few powerful echoes of what we’ve been seeing in our own day. I actually feel a certain amount of sympathy for her, her husband, and other contemporaries in a similar situation.
On the other hand, maybe they should have hanged the whole lot of them, wives included.
One other noteworthy feature of this book:
This edition presents itself as “Annotated”, which I take refers to the “Notes” section preceding Ada Sterling’s 1905 Introduction, as well as to the various “Footnotes” throughout the text (presumably not in the original.) It is not clear when nor by whom these Notes and Footnotes were provided, but I find it curious the extent to which this individual felt it necessary to establish the “Progressive” bona fides of Ada Sterling, as well as Ada’s Jewish associations and miscellaneous activities on their behalf during the early rife-with-anti-semitism decades of the 20th Century. I’m quite curious about Ms. Sterling and wish there were better references to her work (even if it has nothing to do with VCC’s Civil War.)
On the other hand, the Footnotes are inadequate at best, not to mention written by a very stupid person, an Idiot even.
In any case, this was an interesting read. Air-brushed history sometimes, but unvarnished at others.
In any case, VCC must have been a delightful old lady, and it would be truly a joy to sit with her now and let her memories and stories flow. Her memory even at such an advanced age seems largely intact, and the “stories she told herself about herself” seem to have congealed into a coherent and more-or-less believable rendition of her view of the world and of her place in it, particularly for the period about 1850-1866.
Much of what she relates might qualify as “fluff”; outfits and hair styles and fashion-especially-Parisian, receptions and balls and social life in Washington in the 50s. She does a lot of name-dropping, and she seems to have allowed time to “airbrush away” most unpleasant memories or impressions of people. All that is fine, to be expected, and is as honest as anyone’s memories.
What appalls me is her unwavering support for the course of events that led to such a stupid war as was the US Civil War. She sees nothing wrong with the South’s peculiar institution, indeed she asserts its superiority to that of the north; she never once considers that the war was unnecessary not to mention unwise; she never seems to think that all the suffering it engendered was anything other than an opportunity to exhibit the “noble” character of southerners; and the notion never enters her mind that she, as much as any one individual can be, was responsible for such devastation. As much as she whines about prices and scarcity, she doesn’t seem to have suffered much from them. I’m sure she never had to face that choice faced by so many southern women and girls (and their children); to starve, or to let one of the available men (of whatever race or army) provide for her needs at least temporarily.
The Civil War was an avoidable disaster, and VCC, like the majority of her type, was responsible for all the misery it produced for 150 years. And the best she can do is blame it on the republicans. It’s pathetic.
However…her post-war experience of seeking her husband’s release from Fortress Monroe, where he was kept for over a year (no charges filed, no access to attorneys), along with Jeff Davis, is fascinating. President Johnson’s weakness (political as well as moral) and vacillation shed an interesting light on what he had to deal with. Edwin Stanton (War Department) seems to be the bad guy in this situation, which puts into some perspective the whole mess regarding ‘Whose Cabinet is it anyway?’, Presidential powers generally, the (unconstitutional) Tenure of Office Act and AJ’s subsequent impeachment. It’s a very ugly period in American politics with more than a few powerful echoes of what we’ve been seeing in our own day. I actually feel a certain amount of sympathy for her, her husband, and other contemporaries in a similar situation.
On the other hand, maybe they should have hanged the whole lot of them, wives included.
One other noteworthy feature of this book:
This edition presents itself as “Annotated”, which I take refers to the “Notes” section preceding Ada Sterling’s 1905 Introduction, as well as to the various “Footnotes” throughout the text (presumably not in the original.) It is not clear when nor by whom these Notes and Footnotes were provided, but I find it curious the extent to which this individual felt it necessary to establish the “Progressive” bona fides of Ada Sterling, as well as Ada’s Jewish associations and miscellaneous activities on their behalf during the early rife-with-anti-semitism decades of the 20th Century. I’m quite curious about Ms. Sterling and wish there were better references to her work (even if it has nothing to do with VCC’s Civil War.)
On the other hand, the Footnotes are inadequate at best, not to mention written by a very stupid person, an Idiot even.
In any case, this was an interesting read. Air-brushed history sometimes, but unvarnished at others.
June 9, 2020
A glimpse at a time and places in our country
I liked the personality vignettes about our country's leaders before and after the war. Mrs. Clay's. Viewpoint is necessarily narrowed to personal events and experiences. It is amazing that she and her husband survived shorn of social pretensions and positive of strong character and substance in spite of abuses. Many things counted important before the war proved worthless in the face of brutal adversity. The principles of honor, integrity, and actions pre and post war to follow the constitutional law allowed preservation of parts of our government in spite of the North's ultimate intent.
I liked the personality vignettes about our country's leaders before and after the war. Mrs. Clay's. Viewpoint is necessarily narrowed to personal events and experiences. It is amazing that she and her husband survived shorn of social pretensions and positive of strong character and substance in spite of abuses. Many things counted important before the war proved worthless in the face of brutal adversity. The principles of honor, integrity, and actions pre and post war to follow the constitutional law allowed preservation of parts of our government in spite of the North's ultimate intent.
August 30, 2024
How do you rate a book that is not all that entertaining but has a lot of historical value in that it highlights the false narrative of the Lost Cause in a way that is easy to identify & understand? Parts of it were boring & a bit tedious, but other parts I found interesting & valuable. Overall, I'm glad I read it, but I eoukd probably only recommend it to diehard fans of Civil War history & even then it might not be your cup of tea.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews