Chesnut's autobiographical writings, her papers, and those of her family, as well as published sources. It traces her life in South Carolina from her childhood, as the daughter of a governor and United States senator, through her schooling and her marriage to James Chesnut, Jr. During the war her husband served as an aide to P. Beauregard and to Jefferson Davis, achieving the rank of general. Muhlenfeld emphasizes Mary Chesnut's last twenty years, when she helped her family through the intricacies of repaying immense debts incurred during the Civil War, rebuilding wrecked homes, and reestablishing some measure of order and security.
These were also the years of her serious writing. She experimented with fiction, writing three novels and translating others from the French; and in she began the last revisions of her Civil War journal. In the descriptive passages, characterizations, thematic patterns, and overall structure of the revised journal, Chesnut employed the techniques she had learned by writing fiction. Besides adding to our knowledge of this unusual nineteenth-century southern woman, Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biography enhances our knowledge of the history of women in general as it delineates the transformation of a wartime diary into the chronicle that remains a major document in southern history.
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To ask other readers questions about Mary Boykin Chesnut , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jul 16, Carol rated it liked it. While visiting Columbia, South Carolina we stayed at a small bed and breakfast, Mary Chestnut House, because of its connection to the Civil War the Civil War being part of the theme of our trip. We knew nothing about Ms. Chestnut prior to arrival; however, there were many books documenting her life and adventures. After reading the introductions to several of the books I decided to dive deeper. Muhlenfeld has done a good job bringing a woman who was an exception to her times to life.
Mary Boykin Chestnut was well educated and extroverted, two characteristics that allowed her to circulate with confidence among the members of the south's planter class as well as Civil War officers. She married well, though she was to learn later not as well as she thought. She had the opportunity to mingle with the movers and shakers in Washington D. Her husband was the first southern Senator to resign from Congress when Abraham Lincoln was voted President.
Thus their course was laid, and hers, to support the southern cause.
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Mary Chestnut kept extensive diaries during this period of political turmoil and throughout the Civil War. Her story becomes somewhat more elusive following the Civil War due to hardships she and hers were working to overcome following the war. She supported her husband throughout their marriage and wanted to publish a biography on him; however, several recommended the south was no longer interested in stories of generals and that her story would be of more interest.
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Mary began to polish her diaries and in the midst of doing so wrote several books of fiction that in some respects are autobiographical. Unfortunately, she did not complete the revisions to her diaries to the point of publication prior to her death. While said diaries have since been published, on three different occasions, and are considered an excellent source of information about the South during the Civil War, one must read them with a questioning mind.
First, Mary worked through at least 3 revisions 20 plus years following the war so details no doubt were modified. Second, the persons to whom she bequeathed the papers further revised them prior to publication in the early s in order to protect people mentioned. Third, the version of the published diary, the one most highly acclaimed, was highly romanticized.
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Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biography by Elisabeth Muhlenfeld
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Mary Boykin Chesnut
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Mary Boykin Chesnut
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