Mary Chesnut's Civil War Diary: A Rare Southern Civilian Account Published in 1905

Key facts

• Mary Boykin Chesnut was born in 1823 into South Carolina's slaveholding elite; her father, Stephen Decatur Miller, was a governor and US Senator.
• She married James Chesnut in 1840 at age 17; he was elected to the US Senate in 1858 and resigned after Abraham Lincoln's election.
• Her diary, initially published as A Diary from Dixie in 1905, spans the Civil War and was later reissued in multiple versions.
• She witnessed Jefferson Davis's inauguration as Confederate president in Montgomery, Alabama, and was in Charleston during the Fort Sumter standoff.
• On April 11, 1861, her husband James Chesnut delivered the surrender demand to Major Robert Anderson; when refused, he ordered the firing on Fort Sumter.
• Confederate troops fired some 3,000 rounds over 34 hours, forcing Anderson's surrender and marking the official start of the Civil War.
• Chesnut recorded a slave auction that left her faint, yet she benefited from slavery and defended the institution as a charitable relationship.
• She was close to First Lady Varina Davis and defended President Jefferson Davis against critics; her diary reflects shifting moods from elation to despair.