Clifford Dowdey (January 23, 1904 – May 30, 1979) was an American writer of fiction and nonfiction dealing with the American South, Virginia and especially the Civil War era.

Early life and education

Clifford Dowdey was born in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

January 23, 1904. His father, who worked for

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...

, was descended from immigrants surnamed O'Dowda of

County Galway "Righteousness and Justice" , anthem = () , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Galway.svg , map_caption = Location in Ireland , area_footnotes = , area_total_km2 = ...

, Ireland. His mother, a housewife, could trace her ancestors to an English settler of Jamestown. His grandmother lived with his family until she died when Dowdey was age 19. Four of her brothers had been Confederate soldiers, and her reminiscences spurred his lifelong interest in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

and Virginia history."Taylor, W. D. Virginia Authors Past and Present, 1972". Dowdey graduated from John Marshall High School in Richmond, then traveled to New York City to attend

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

from 1921–1925.

Career

Following graduation, Dowdey worked for about a year as a newspaper reporter and book reviewer for the ''Richmond News Leader''. Returning to New York City, he worked for the Brooklyn ''Daily Eagle'', then as an editor for various

pulp magazines Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...

(Munsey's, Argosy and Dell) from 1926 to around 1935. About 1933 he started writing seriously on what eventually would become his first novel, ''Bugles Blow No More'' (1937), a love story set in Confederate Richmond. It received acclaim for its realistic detail, and Dowdey began a lengthy correspondence with

Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel '' Gone with the Wind'', for which she wo ...

, whose ''Gone with the Wind'' had been published the previous year. Leaving the magazines and accepting a Guggenheim fellowship, he and his wife moved to Florida for a season, but his next four novels (three set in Virginia) received less acclaim. During the 1940s, Dowdey lived in various states, including Connecticut, Florida, Arizona and California, writing screenplays. In 1945 Dowdey returned to Richmond, Virginia and finished ''Experiment in Rebellion'', his first nonfiction book, which proved another turning point in his career. The book focused on the administration of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and became an initial choice of the History Book Club. His ''The Land They Fought For'' (1955), about the nullification crisis of 1832 through the Civil War became a finalist for the 1956 National Book Award. For the rest of his life, Dowdey lived in Richmond and worked as a writer of historical fiction and history, the city's first vocational writer since

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

. Both progressive and liberal, Dowdey fought idealization of the Southern past, while also declaring that the region could not be understood without respecting its history. In 1958, Virginia's governor

J. Lindsay Almond James Lindsay Almond Jr. (June 15, 1898 – April 14, 1986) was an American lawyer, state and federal judge and Democratic party politician. His political offices included as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 6th congre ...

appointed Dowdey to Virginia's Civil War Centennial Commission, but after that event, he had difficulty getting his works about the conflict published. Thus, his last two books were about Virginia's colonial oligarchy in the 17th and 18th centuries. Dowdey also reviewed others' historical works in academic journals, such as ''The Journal of Southern History'' and ''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography''. Even though he had no formal training as an historian and used few if any footnotes, several of his works received critical acclaim by noted historians. Ripon College awarded Dowdey an honorary LL.D. in 1961, and Virginia's governor

Linwood Holton Abner Linwood Holton Jr. (September 21, 1923October 28, 2021) was an American politician and attorney. He served as the 61st governor of Virginia, from 1970 to 1974, and was the first elected Republican governor of Virginia of the 20th century. ...

in September 1972 honored him and 34 other Virginians for their contributions to arts and the humanities. Dowdey's historical novels were popular and reviewed in ''The New York Times''."Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002".

Death and legacy

Dowdey died in Richmond on May 30, 1979 from complications of emphysema and lung cancer. Richmond newspapers, the ''Richmond Times Dispatch and the Richmond News Leader''. The

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

holds Dowdey's papers at the

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia is a research library that specializes in American history and literature, history of Virginia and the southeastern United States, the history of the University ...

Family life

In 1930, Dowdey married Katherine Wright Carrington, a New York stage actress, but they divorced before 1934. On July 13, 1944, Dowdey married Frances Wilson, a

clinical psychologist Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...

; she died July 1970."https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15416182". He was the father of two daughters, Frances and Sarah. Later on 9 September 1971 he married a third time, to Carolyn DeCamps, a librarian with

Chesterfield County, Virginia Chesterfield County is located just south of Richmond, Virginia, Richmond in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. The county's borders are primarily defined by the James River to the north and the Appomattox River to the sout ...

.Obituary of Clifford Dowdey at lva.virginia.gov
Retrieved 23 July 2018

Publications

Novels

*''Bugles Blow No More''. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1937. *''Gamble's Hundred''. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1939. *''Sing for a Penny''. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1941. *''Tidewater''. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1943. *''Where My Loves Sleeps''. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1945. *''Weep for My Brother''. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1950. *''Jasmine Street''. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1952. *''The Proud Retreat: A Novel of the Lost Confederate Treasure''. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1953. *''Last Night the Nightingale''. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1962.

Historical Works

*''Experiment in Rebellion''. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1946. *''The Land They Fought for: Story of the South as the Confederacy, 1832 -1865''. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955. *''The Great Plantation: A Profile of Berkeley Hundred and Plantation Virginia from Jamestown to Appomattox''. New York: Rinehart, 1957. *''Death of a Nation: The story of Lee and His Men at Gettysburg''. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1958. *''Lee's Last Campaign: The Story of Lee and His Men Against Grant - 1864''. University of Nebraska Press, 1960. * Ed., ''Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee''. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1961. *''The Seven Days: The Emergence of Lee''. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1964. *''Lee''. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1965. *''The Virginia Dynasties: The Emergence of 'King' Carter and the Golden Age''. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1969. *''The Golden Age: A Climate for Greatness, Virginia 1732-1775''. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1970.