John Beauchamp Jones facts for kids

John Beauchamp Jones (born March 6, 1810 – died February 4, 1866) was an American writer. His books were very popular in the mid-1800s. Jones wrote many novels, especially about the American West and the American South. He was also a well-known editor and journalist in the years before the American Civil War. During the war, he worked for the Confederate War Department. Today, he is mostly remembered for the detailed diary he kept during that time.

Life Before the Civil War

John Beauchamp Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He spent his childhood growing up in Kentucky and Missouri. In 1835, he settled in Arrow Rock, Missouri, where he worked as a storekeeper.

Jones got married in 1840. The next year, he became the editor of a newspaper called the Baltimore Sunday Visitor. His first novel, Wild Western Scenes, was published in parts in this newspaper. Later, Jones became the editor of the Madisonian, a newspaper that supported President John Tyler. Because of his work, he was given a job as a U.S. consul (a diplomat) in Naples.

In 1857, he started and edited a newspaper called the Southern Monitor in Philadelphia. As the American Civil War was about to begin, he left his newspaper and his family. He traveled to Montgomery, Alabama. He arrived in Richmond, Virginia on the very day that Fort Sumter was attacked, which marked the start of the war.

Working During the Civil War

In Montgomery, Jones got a job as a high-ranking government clerk in the Confederate States War Department. When the Confederate government moved to Richmond, Virginia, his family joined him there.

From the first day he left the North, Jones began writing in a diary. He wanted to record all the important events of these times so they could be published later. After the war ended, Jones and his family went back to his farm in Burlington, New Jersey. He then got his diary ready to be published.

In 1866, the same year he died, his diary was published. It was called A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary at the Confederate States Capital. Sadly, he never saw his book in print. His published diary is one of the best ways to learn about daily life in Richmond during the war. It also shares many details about how the War Department worked. James I. Robertson, Jr., a famous historian, called him "The Civil War's Most Valuable Diarist."

Jones's Books and Writings

Jones's stories and his work as an editor caught the eye of other famous writers of his time. These included Edgar Allan Poe and William Gilmore Simms.

His early novels, like Wild Western Scenes (1841) and The Western Merchant (1849), described the beautiful and peaceful qualities of the American West. This was where Jones had spent his younger years. In his novels, Jones praised the honesty of ordinary people. He believed they would succeed because of the democratic ideas of Thomas Jefferson.

In one of his novels, Wild Southern Scenes. A Tale of Disunion! and Border War!, Jones imagined a very difficult future. He wrote about a time when Southerners would face great hardship. He described how Northern leaders might set up special courts and execute people who supported slavery or the South. He even imagined a Northern ruler who wanted to create a new empire. This ruler wanted to erase all state lines and make everyone identify only as Americans. However, his plan failed when Britain joined the war. In the end of the book, the American armies united, and the country was put back together.

Jones in Popular Culture

John Beauchamp Jones appears as a funny supporting character in a science fiction novel. This book is called The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. It is a story set in the 1860s.

List of Works

Novels

• Wild Western Scenes, 1849.
• The Western Merchant: A Narrative. Containing Useful Instruction for the Western Man of Business, 1849.
• The City Merchant: or, The Mysterious Failure, 1851.
• The Rival Belles; or, Life in Washington, 1878 (first published 1852).
• Adventures of Col. Gracchus Vanderbomb, of Sloughcreek, in Pursuit of the Presidency: Also the Exploits of Mr. Numberius Plutarch Kipps, his Private Secretary, 1852.
• Freaks of Fortune; or, The History and Adventures of Ned Lorn, 1854.
• The Monarchist: An Historical Novel Embracing Real Characters and Romantic Adventures, 1853.
• The Winkles; or, The Merry Monomaniacs. An American Picture with Portraits of the Natives, 1855.
• Wild Western Scenes-Second Series. The Warpath: A Narrative of Adventures in the Wilderness, 1856.
• Life and Adventures of a Country Merchant : A Narrative of his Exploits at Home, During his Travels, and in the Cities, Designed to Amuse and Instruct, 1857.
• Wild Southern Scenes. A Tale of Disunion! and Border War!, 1859.
• Secession, Coercion, and Civil War. The Story of 1861, 1861.
• Wild Western Scenes; or, The White Spirit of the Wilderness. Being a Narrative of Adventures, Embracing the Same Characters Portrayed in the Original "Wild Western Scenes." New Series, 1863.
• Love and Money, 1865.
• Life and Adventures of a Country Merchant: A Narrative of his Exploits at Home, During his Travels, and in the Cities, 1875.

Diary

• A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Vol. 2, 1866.