Mary Chestnut: A Diary From Dixie
By: and
Sign Up Now!
Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title.
Learn about membership options,
or view our freely available titles.
- Synopsis
- From the book: Mary Boykin Chesnut was the wife of James Chesnut, Jr., a South Carolina legislator and U.S. senator who served the Confederacy during the war as as a brigadier-general and as an aide to President Jefferson Davis. In her journal, which eventually became A Diary from Dixie, are vivid pictures of the social life that went on uninterruptedly in the midst of the war; of the economic conditions that resulted from blockaded ports; of the way in which the spirits of the Southern people rose and fell with each victory and defeat; and of the momentous events that took place in Charleston, Montgomery, and Richmond. Mary Chesnut wrote her diary from day to day, as the mood or an occasion prompted her to do so. The fortunes of war changed the location of her home almost as frequently as the seasons changed, but she continued her entries wherever she might be. In all these places Mrs. Chesnut was in close touch with men and women who were in the forefront of the social, military, and political life of the South. Those who live in her pages make up a catalogue of the heroes of the Confederacy- President Jefferson Davis, Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens, General Robert E. Lee, General "Stonewall" Jackson, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, and many others. As her diary constantly shows, Mary Chesnut was a woman of society in the best sense, noted for her personal warmth as well as for her hospitality. She had a love of companionship, great wit, an acute mind, a knowledge of books, and a searching insight into the motives of men and women. In A Diary from Dixie, as perhaps nowhere else in the literature of the Civil War, can be found the Southern spirit of that time expressed in words that are not only charming as literature but genuinely human in their spontaneousness, their delightful frankness. Truly, as her editors claim, Mary Chesnut's words "ring so true that they start echoes."
- Copyright:
- 1997
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Excellent
- Book Size:
- 438 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9780517182666
- Publisher:
- N/A
- Date of Addition:
- 06/16/07
- Copyrighted By:
- Random House Value Publishing, Inc.
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- History, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs
- Submitted By:
- Larry Lumpkin
- Proofread By:
- Lena
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.