Mary Chesnut's Civil War by Mary Boykin Chesnut

Her love for the South also meant she supported the decision to break from the North to form an independent confederacy. In letters to friends she referred to the institution as “a monstrous system” that “breeds hypocrisy.” Because she esteemed most traditions of the South, Chesnut considered slavery a blemish on an otherwise honorable and admirable culture. By birth and by marriage, Mary Chesnut belonged to families of the planter elite, but she was a candid opponent of slavery. He held this office until South Carolina seceded from the union in 1860. James Chesnut had political ambitions, and in 1858, was elected to represent South Carolina in the US Senate. Chesnut preferred living in the city and only joined her family in Mississippi during school breaks.Īt age seventeen, Mary Miller became Mary Chesnut after wedding James Chesnut, Jr., a lawyer and the son of a plantation owner. In 1833, Chesnut’s father left politics and purchased three plantations in Mississippi, along with hundreds of slaves. Chesnut learned French and developed a passion for literature and writing. This exclusive academy provided the daughters of affluent families with a strong education. Mary Chesnut (née Miller) attended Madame Talvande’s French School for Ladies in Charleston. senator her mother’s family belonged to the wealthy class of plantation owners.

After serving as governor of the state, Chesnut’s father became a U. Chesnut was born in 1823 in South Carolina. The first and final sections address the various versions of Chestnut’s “diary” and Woodward’s “Editorial Problems and Policies.” The middle sections briefly profile Mary Chesnut’s life and her “heretical” views on slavery and women. Woodward’s Introduction is divided into four sections. Woodward’s book recovers her original wartime journals, which he supplements, when necessary, with material from the 1880s revisions.

Titled Diary from Dixie, this early publication was based on Chesnut’s 1880s revisions of her 1860s journals. A version of Chesnut’s Civil War chronicle first appeared in 1905. Vann Woodward, as well as annotations that clarify Chesnut’s references to people and books. Published in 1981, the volume includes a lengthy introduction by its editor, historian C. Mary Chesnut’s Civil War is a compilation of journals written by an aristocratic Southern woman during and after the American Civil War.

Mary Chesnut's Civil War by Mary Boykin Chesnut