Charles Colcock Jones was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1831 and grew up on his parents' plantation. He enrolled in South Carolina College in 1848, but transferred to and graduated from the University of New Jersey at Princeton in 1852 and Harvard Law School in 1855. He returned to Savannah and was admitted to the bar. In 1860, he was elected mayor of Savannah, and in that capacity gave an ardent speech for secession. During the Civil War, he served the Confederacy as a colonel of artillery. After the war, he moved to New York, where he practiced law. He also began writing around this time and published several books on Georgia history. He eventually returned to Georgia and settled in Augusta, where he died in 1893.

Jones wrote The Siege of Savannah, December, 1864, and the Confederate Operations in Georgia and the Third Military District of South Carolina During General Sherman's March from Atlanta to the Sea (1874) in order to provide an accurate, Confederate perspective of Sherman's historic march. Jones carefully outlines Sherman's motivations as he understands them and gives a detailed explanation of the military situation in Georgia at the time. The narrative then follows Sherman's advances and describes the conditions under which he found the cities in his path. Jones also includes several circulars written by Georgia statesmen, warning their constituents of the coming dangers. The narrative culminates with the siege of Savannah. Jones gives a detailed account of the southern defenses and positions and describes Sherman's tactics for taking the city, which surrendered in December of 1864. Jones closes with his assessment of the Union troops' behavior and their destruction of private property.

Work Consulted: Johnson, Allen et al., eds., Dictionary of American Biography, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1946.

Harris Henderson