Secret and Sacred : The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder

by Hammond, James Henry; Bleser, Carol K. Rothrock

• ISBN13: 9781570032226
• ISBN10: 157003222X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Pr

Summary

A remarkably candid set of diaries, Secret and Sacred brings to light the intimate journal notations of James Henry Hammond, a prominent South Carolina planter and slaveholder whose life story is as intriguing as that of a Faulkner character. James Henry Hammond was born into poverty but married into wealth and expanded his plantations and slaveholdings until they were among the largest in the South. A leading spokesman for the South, he served as a congressman, U.S. senator, and South Carolina governor. In his private life, he dominated his family, sexually violated his young nieces (causing a scandal that nearly wrecked his career), and fathered children by his slaves. All the while he kept his "secret and sacred" journals. These diaries, which span from 1841 to 1864, reveal a man whose fortune and intellect combined to make him an important southern leader but whose deep character flaws kept him from the true greatness to which he aspired. Carol Bleser gracefully explicates Hammond's background and weaves his entries into a cohesive collection that reads like a novel of the Old South. "(Hammond's) extensive entries shed much light on state and national politics in the late antebellum period. The greatest value of this book, however, is the extraordinary insight it provides into the mentality and psychology of a powerful member of the slave-owning class". -- Choice

Table of Contents

Introduction Young James Henry Hammond, 1807 - 1840	3	(22)
I 6 FEBRUARY 1841 - 12 MAY 1841	25	(32)
II 2 MAY 1841 - 30 MARCH 1842	57	(35)
III 26 APRIL 1842 - 19 DECEMBER 1842	92	(26)
IV 31 JANUARY 1844 - 19 FEBRUARY 1846	118	(39)
V 4 APRIL 1846 - 30 DECEMBER 1849	157	(40)
VI 17 MARCH 1850 - 31 DECEMBER 1850	197	(28)
VII 2 JANUARY 1854 - 10 JANUARY 1854	225	(39)
VIII 3 OCTOBER 1854 - 20 SEPTEMBER 1862	264	(16)
IX 2 OCTOBER 1861 - 13 NOVEMBER 1864 Plantation Journal	280	(23)
Epilogue	303	(4)
Biographical Directory (with Bibliography)	307	(24)
Index	331