Voices from the Century Before

A remarkable family album unfolding as a personal drama of slavery, Civil War and the turmoil of Reconstruction, these letters were written between 1843 and 1867 by freelancer Berry's ancestors, who fought, variously, for both the Union and the Confederacy. Her great-grandfather Brutus Clay, one of Kentucky's major slave owners, was a staunchly conservative yet pro-Union, border-state congressman whose anti-abolitionist stance was diametrically opposite that of his brother Cassius Clay, outspoken opponent of slavery and emancipationist newspaper publisher. Cassius, a Mexican War hero and quixotic adventurer who served as Lincoln's ambassador to Russia, became a folk hero because of his violent public brawls with supporters of slavery. The chatty letters, skillfully linked by Berry's commentary, yield an unvarnished account of the brutal realities of slavery. Punctuated by personal tragedies, the letters are a window on Lincoln's election and the war's outbreak and bloody course, the 1849 cholera epidemic and medical practices, cattle shows and revival meetings. In short, they are a microcosm of the political and moral fissures that transformed the nation. Photos. (Nov.)