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She had the sense of the South's living through its time on a world stage, and she captured the growing difficulties of all classes of the
Confederacy as they faced defeat at the end of the war. Chesnut analyzed and portrayed the various classes of the South throughout the war, providing a detailed view of Southern society and especially of the mixed roles of men and women. She was forthright about the complex and fraught situations related to slavery, particularly the
389:, where she was among witnesses of the first shots of the Civil War; Columbia, South Carolina, where her husband served as the Chief of the Department of the Military of South Carolina and brigadier general in command of South Carolina reserve forces; and again Richmond, where her husband served as an aide to the president. At times, they also lived with his parents at their house at
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By his father's will, James
Chesnut, Jr. had the use of Mulberry and Sandy Hill plantations only during his lifetime. In February 1885, both he and Mary's mother died. The plantations passed on to a male Chesnut descendant, and Mary Boykin Chesnut received almost no income. She also found her husband
594:
The very rhythm of her opening pages at once puts us under the spell of a writer who is not merely jotting down her days but establishing, as a novelist does, an atmosphere, an emotional tone...Starting out with situations or relationships of which she cannot know the outcome, she takes advantage of
418:
Examination of Mary
Chesnut's papers has revealed the history of her development as a writer and of her work on the diary as a book. Before working to revise her diary as a book in the 1880s, Chesnut wrote a translation of French poetry, essays, and a family history. She also wrote three full novels
396:
Chesnut was aware of the historical importance of what she witnessed. The diary was filled with the cycle of changing fortunes of the South during the Civil War. Chesnut edited the diary, wrote new drafts in 1881–1884 for publication, and retained the sense of events unfolding without foreknowledge.
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Like many slaveowners, the
Chesnuts faced financial difficulties after the war. They lost 1,000 slaves as property through emancipation. James Chesnut, Sr. died in 1866; his will left his son the use of Mulberry Plantation and Sandy Hill, both of which were encumbered by debt, and 83 slaves by name,
221:
At age 13, Miller began her formal education in
Charleston, South Carolina, where she boarded at Madame Talvande's French School for Young Ladies, which attracted daughters from the Ă©lite of the slaveowner class. Talvande was among the many French colonial refugees who had settled in Charleston from
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review of
Woodward's edition of the diaries. Lynn argues that the diary was "composed", rather than simply rewritten, in the 1881-84 period, emphasizing that Chesnut both omitted a great deal from the original diaries and added much new material: "She dwelt upon the personalities of people to whom
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Mary Boykin
Chesnut began her diary on February 18, 1861, and ended it on June 26, 1865. She would write at the outset: “This journal is intended to be entirely objective. My subjective days are over.” Chesnut was an eyewitness to many historic events as she accompanied her husband to significant
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Chesnut used her diary and notes to work toward a final version in 1881–1884. Based on her drafts, historians do not believe she was finished with her work. Because
Chesnut had no children, before her death she gave her diary to her closest friend, Isabella D. Martin, and urged her to have it
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Chesnut's reputation rests on the fact that she created literature while keeping the sense of events unfolding; she described people in penetrating and enlivening terms and conveyed a novelistic sense of events through a "mixture of reportage, memoir and social criticism". Critic and writer
261:. His father, James Chesnut, Sr. (whom Mary referred to throughout her diaries as the “Old Colonel”), had gradually purchased and reunited the land holdings of his father John. He was said to have owned about five square miles at the maximum and to hold about 500 slaves by 1849.
135:
Miller; March 31, 1823 – November 22, 1886) was an
American writer noted for a book published as her Civil War diary, a "vivid picture of a society in the throes of its life-and-death struggle." She described the war from within her upper-class circles of Southern
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Chesnut worked toward a final form of her book in 1881–1884, based on her extensive diary written during the war years. It was published in 1905, 19 years after her death. New versions were published after her papers were discovered, in 1949 by the novelist
291:
Intelligent and witty, Mary
Chesnut took part in her husband's career, as entertaining was an important part of building political networks. She had her best times when they were in the capitals of Washington, D.C., and Richmond. She suffered from
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343:
and her husband Roger, a Congressman. Sara Pryor, Virginia Clay-Clopton and Louise Wigfall Wright wrote memoirs of the war years which were published in the early 20th century; their three works were particularly recommended by the
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published. The diary was first published in 1905 as a heavily edited and abridged edition. Williams' 1949 version was described as more readable, but sacrificing historical reliability and many of Chesnut's literary references.
300:. The Chesnuts' marriage was at times stormy owing to their differences in temperament (she was more hot-tempered and sometimes considered her husband reserved), but their companionship was mostly warm and affectionate.
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As Mary Chesnut describes in her diary, the Chesnuts had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the upper society of the South and government of the Confederacy. Among them were, for example, Confederate general
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one sees in every family ... resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from the
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Because neither Chesnut nor her later editors conceded that she had heavily revised her work, Lynn's view that the whole project is a fraud is a minority one. In 1982, Woodward's edition of Chesnut's diary won a
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she had previously referred only briefly, plucked a host of bygone conversations from her memory and interjected numerous authorial reflections on historical and personal events."
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253:(1815–85), who was eight years her senior. At age 17, Miller married Chesnut on April 23, 1840. They first lived with his parents and sisters at
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had many debts related to the estate which he had been unable to clear. She struggled in her last year, dying in 1886 at her home Sarsfield in
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and his wife Charlotte (also known as Louise). The Chesnuts were also family friends of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his wife
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near Camden. While the property was relatively isolated in thousands of acres of plantation and woodland, they entertained many visitors.
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and hundreds of slaves. Mary lived in Mississippi for short periods between school terms but was reportedly more fond of the city.
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A Belle of the Fifties: Memoirs of Mrs. Clay, of Alabama, Covering Social and Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853-66
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218:. Mary was the oldest of four children; she had a younger brother Stephen and two sisters: Catherine and Sarah Amelia.
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and the power exercised by white men. For instance, Chesnut discussed the problem of white slaveowners' fathering
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termed it "a work of art" and a "masterpiece" of the genre — as the most important work by a Confederate author.
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Press, with a foreword by Edmund Wilson, originally published in 1962 as an essay on Chesnut.
520:. New York: D. Appleton and Company 1905, available online as a part of the UNC-CH database "
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the actual turn of events to develop them and round them out as if she were molding a novel.
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in 2002 and wrote a biography of Chesnut, described them as her writing "apprenticeship."
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364:. She was buried next to her husband in Knights Hill Cemetery in Camden, South Carolina.
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In 1858, by then an established lawyer and politician, James Chesnut, Jr. was elected a
919:, Foreword by C. Vann Woodward, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1992
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816:, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1905, c1904, full online text available at
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In 1836, while in Charleston, 13-year-old Mary Boykin Miller met her future husband,
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used extensive readings from Chesnut's diary in his documentary television series
569:, edited and Introduction by Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, University of Virginia Press.
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296:, in part because of her inability to have children, and she occasionally took
799:
Blood and Irony: Southern White Women's Narratives of the Civil War, 1861–1937
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230:. Miller became fluent in French and German, and received a strong education.
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in 1982. Literary critics have praised Chesnut's diary—the influential writer
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from the United States in December 1860, shortly following the election of
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Mary Chesnut was born on March 31, 1823, on her maternal grandparents'
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576:, with an introduction by Catherine Clinton, Penguin Classic edition.
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society, but encompassed all classes in her book. She was married to
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Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War
607:. He described her work as a "hoax" and a "fabrication" in a 1981
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861:, Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, ed., University of Virginia Press, 2002.
276:. Once the Civil War began, Chesnut became an aide to President
749:"Chesnut Cottage, Richland County (1718 Hampton St., Columbia)"
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Woodward, C. Vann. "Introduction", Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut,
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children with enslaved women within their extended households.
910:(New Haven: Yale University Press 1981), ed. C. Vann Woodward.
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to enhance its readability and annotated. Reissued in 1980 by
944:, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1905, Digitized text on
954:, National Historic Landmarks Program, National Park Service
935:, ed. C. Vann Woodward, reprint, Yale University Press, 1993
206:, and Mary Boykin (1804–85). In 1829 her father was elected
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Chesnut has had some detractors, notably history professor
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Mulberry Plantation (James and Mary Boykin Chesnut House)
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A Diary From Dixie. Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, 1823-1886
435:, who edited the first two novels for publication by the
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Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America
708:. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962, pp. 279-80.
840:"The Grimke Sisters and the Indelible Stain of Slavery"
802:, University of North Carolina Press, 2006, pp. 128–130
552:. Reprinted in 1993 and available in preview online.
755:. South Carolina Department of Archives and History
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1042:People of South Carolina in the American Civil War
27:American Confederacy Civil War diarist (1823–1886)
373:sites of the American Civil War. Among them were
876:, "Letters to the Editor" section, May 17, 1981.
641:, the house of James and Mary Boykin Chesnut in
280:and was commissioned a brigadier general in the
233:Leaving politics, her father took his family to
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268:from South Carolina, a position he held until
753:National Register Properties in South Carolina
316:and his wife Caroline, general and politician
1047:Montgomery, Alabama in the American Civil War
531:, an expanded version edited by the novelist
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1052:Richmond, Virginia in the American Civil War
723:National Park Service, accessed May 29, 2008
982:American Writers: A Journey Through History
870:Taylor, William R. "Mary Chesnut's Diary".
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164:, whose annotated edition of the diary,
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948:, University of North Carolina website
1087:Spouses of South Carolina politicians
1037:People from Stateburg, South Carolina
988:Works by or about Mary Boykin Chesnut
548:, edited and with an introduction by
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887:"The Masterpiece That Became a Hoax"
567:Two Years - or The Way We Lived Then
1077:19th-century American women writers
1072:19th-century American Episcopalians
346:United Daughters of the Confederacy
721:Nomination for Mulberry Plantation
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202:(1788–1838), who had served as a
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916:Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biography
516:, ed. by Isabella D. Martin and
1062:Women in the American Civil War
160:, and in 1981 by the historian
1032:19th-century American diarists
820:, University of North Carolina
818:Documenting the American South
787:, minute mark 42:00 and after.
522:Documenting the American South
339:Also among these circles were
190:, called Mount Pleasant, near
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960:, About Famous People website
829:Muhlenfeld (1992), pp. 218–19
737:Encyclopedia of World History
328:, and general and politician
997:Works by Mary Boykin Chesnut
930:Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut,
590:summarized her achievement:
501:Resources in other libraries
477:Resources in other libraries
437:University of Virginia Press
423:, completed about 1875; and
1067:Writers from South Carolina
1003:(public domain audiobooks)
563:The Colonel and the Captain
421:The Captain and the Colonel
399:abuses of women's sexuality
348:to their large membership.
214:. The family then lived in
144:, a lawyer who served as a
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973:"Writings of Mary Chesnut"
913:Muhlenfeld, Elisabeth S.,
784:The Civil War: “The Cause”
647:National Historic Landmark
419:that she never published:
270:South Carolina's secession
208:Governor of South Carolina
172:Pulitzer Prize for History
18:Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut
1082:American women memoirists
496:Resources in your library
472:Resources in your library
312:, general and politician
192:Stateburg, South Carolina
66:Stateburg, South Carolina
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932:Mary Chesnut's Civil War
908:Mary Chesnut's Civil War
693:Mary Chesnut's Civil War
605:Johns Hopkins University
545:Mary Chesnut's Civil War
284:. The couple resided at
257:, their plantation near
167:Mary Chesnut's Civil War
1057:American women diarists
150:Confederate States Army
906:Chesnut, Mary Boykin.
857:Chesnut, Mary Boykin,
643:Camden, South Carolina
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485:By Mary Boykin Chesnut
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362:Camden, South Carolina
259:Camden, South Carolina
200:Stephen Decatur Miller
89:Camden, South Carolina
958:"Mary Boykin Chesnut"
946:Documenting the South
939:Mary Boykin Chesnut,
733:"Mary Boykin Chesnut"
634:read these sections.
620:. A few years later,
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368:Writing and the diary
341:Sara Agnes Rice Pryor
326:Virginia Clay-Clopton
146:United States senator
581:Reception and legacy
574:Mary Chesnut's Diary
556:2002, Mary Chesnut,
433:Elisabeth Muhlenfeld
425:Two Years of My Life
196:High Hills of Santee
48:Chesnut in the 1860s
964:Mary Boykin Chesnut
838:Drew Gilpin Faust,
645:, was designated a
639:Mulberry Plantation
518:Myrta Lockett Avary
458:Mary Boykin Chesnut
447:Publication history
391:Mulberry Plantation
375:Montgomery, Alabama
204:U.S. Representative
198:. Her parents were
148:and officer in the
127:Mary Boykin Chesnut
36:Mary Boykin Chesnut
941:A Diary from Dixie
797:Sarah E. Gardner,
537:Harvard University
529:A Diary from Dixie
379:Richmond, Virginia
251:James Chesnut, Jr.
239:cotton plantations
228:Haitian Revolution
226:(Haiti) after the
58:Mary Boykin Miller
893:, April 26, 1981.
885:Lynn, Kenneth S.
533:Ben Ames Williams
453:Library resources
352:who were by then
210:and in 1831 as a
158:Ben Ames Williams
142:James Chesnut Jr.
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119:James Chesnut Jr.
109:Civil War diaries
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16:(Redirected from
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170:(1981), won the
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1027:1886 deaths
1022:1823 births
561:, includes
235:Mississippi
97:Nationality
1016:Categories
859:Two Novels
779:Burns, Ken
759:January 7,
653:References
630:. Actress
558:Two Novels
403:mixed-race
387:Charleston
385:convened;
294:depression
216:Charleston
188:plantation
138:slaveowner
81:1886-11-23
637:In 2000,
622:Ken Burns
194:, in the
1001:LibriVox
429:Manassas
411:mulattos
354:freedmen
255:Mulberry
245:Marriage
100:American
990:at the
695:, 1981.
414:clouds.
79: (
977:C-SPAN
572:2011:
565:; and
543:1981:
527:1949:
511:1905:
455:about
377:, and
115:Spouse
975:from
658:Notes
603:, of
298:opium
64:near
761:2014
409:The
182:Life
91:, US
74:Died
68:, US
54:Born
999:at
979:'s
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