Mary Boykin Chesnut
Encyclopedia
Mary Boykin Chesnut, born Mary Boykin Miller (March 31, 1823 – November 22, 1886), was a South Carolina
author 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 planter
society, but encompassed all classes in her book. She was married to a lawyer who served as a United States senator and Confederate
officer.
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 after her death in 1905. New versions were published after her papers were discovered, in 1949 by the novelist Ben Ames Williams
, and in 1981 by the historian
C. Vann Woodward
. His annotated edition of the diary, Mary Chesnut's Civil War (1981), won the Pulitzer Prize
for history in 1982. Literary critics have called Chesnut's diary "a work of art" and the most important work by a Confederate
author.
, called Mount Pleasant, near Stateburg, South Carolina
, in the High Hills of Santee
. Her parents were Mary Boykin (1804–85) and Stephen Decatur Miller
(1788–1838), who had served as a U.S. Representative
. In 1829 he was elected governor of South Carolina
and in 1831 as a U.S. Senator. The family then lived in Charleston. Mary was the oldest of four children; she had a younger brother Stephen and two sisters: Catherine and Sarah Amelia.
At age 12, Miller began her formal education in Charleston
, where she boarded at Mme. Talvande's French School for Young Ladies, which attracted daughters from the elite of the planter class. Talvande was among the many French colonial refugees who had settled in Charleston from Saint-Domingue
(Haiti) after its Revolution. Miller became fluent in French
and German
, and received a strong education.
Leaving politics, her father took his family to Mississippi where he bought extensive acreage. It was a crude, rough frontier compared to Charleston. He owned three cotton plantations and hundreds of slaves. Mary lived in Mississippi for short periods between school terms but was much more fond of the city.
(1815–85), who was eight years her senior. Her parents at first opposed his suit, but at sixteen Mary began to take an interest in the young man. At age seventeen, Miller married Chesnut on April 23, 1840. They first lived with his parents and sisters at Mulberry, their plantation outside Camden, South Carolina
. His father, James Chesnut, Sr. (who Mary referred to as the old Colonel), had gradually purchased and reunited the land holdings of his father John. He was said to own about five square miles at the maximum and to hold about 500 slaves by 1849.
In 1858, by then an established lawyer and politician, James Chesnut, Jr. was elected a U.S. Senator
from South Carolina and served as such until South Carolina's secession
from the Union
in 1860. Once the Civil War broke out, Chesnut became an aide to President Jefferson Davis
and was commissioned a brigadier general
in the Confederate Army.
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, DC and Richmond. She suffered from depression
, in part because of her inability to have children. The Chesnuts’ marriage was at times stormy due to their differences in temperament (she was more hot-tempered and sometimes considered her husband reserved), but their companionship was mostly warm and affectionate.
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 John Bell Hood
, politician John L. Manning, general and politician John S. Preston
and his wife Caroline, general and politician Wade Hampton III
, politician Clement C. Clay
and his wife Virginia
, and general and politician Louis T. Wigfall and his wife Charlotte. The Chesnuts were also family friends of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina Howell
.
The Chesnuts fell onto hard times after the war. James Chesnut, Sr. died in 1866; his will left his son the use of Mulberry Plantation and Sandy Field, both of which were encumbered by debt, and eighty-three "slaves" by name, who were by then freedmen. The younger Chesnut struggled to build up the plantations and support his father's dependents.
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 that she never published: The Captain and the Colonel, completed about 1875; and Two Years of My Life, finished about the same time. She finished most of a draft of a third long novel, called Manassas. Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, who edited the first two novels for publication by the University of Virginia Press in 2002 and wrote a biography of Chesnut, described them as her writing "apprenticeship."
By his father's will, James Chesnut, Jr. had the use of Mulberry and Sandy Field 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 for her support; she also found her husband 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 Camden, South Carolina
and was buried next to her husband in Knights Hill Cemetery in Camden, South Carolina.
and Richmond, Virginia
, where the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America
convened; Charleston, 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 her parents-in-law at their house at Mulberry Plantation
near Camden. While the property was relatively isolated in thousands of acres of plantation
and woodland, they entertained many visitors.
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 it and wrote new drafts in 1881-1884 for publication, and retained the sense of events unfolding without foreknowledge. She had the sense of the South's living through its time on a world stage. Politically aware, Chesnut analyzed and portrayed the various classes of the South through the years of the war. She portrayed southern society in detail and studied the mixed roles of men and women. She was forthright about the complex and fraught situations related to slavery, particularly the abuses of sexuality and power. For instance, Chesnut discussed the problem of white planters' fathering mixed-race children with enslaved women within their extended households.
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. 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. Chesnut captured the growing difficulties of all classes of the Confederacy as the society faced defeat at the end of the war. Literary scholars have called the Chesnut diary the most important work by a Confederate
author. Edmund Wilson
called it a " 'work of art'—informal department or not". He writes,
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 published. The diary was first published in 1905 as a heavily edited and abridged edition. Williams' version was described as more readable, but sacrificing historical reliability and many of Chesnut's literary references. The version by C. Vann Woodward retained more of her original work, provides an overview of her life and society in the "Introduction", and was annotated to identify fully the large cast of characters, places and events.
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
author 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 planter
Plantations in the American South
Plantations were an important aspect of the history of the American South, particularly the antebellum .-Planter :The owner of a plantation was called a planter...
society, but encompassed all classes in her book. She was married to a lawyer who served as a United States senator and Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
officer.
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 after her death in 1905. New versions were published after her papers were discovered, in 1949 by the novelist Ben Ames Williams
Ben Ames Williams
Ben Ames Williams American writer who published over thirty novels, including All the Brothers Were Valiant ,Come Spring ,The Strange Woman , House Divided , Leave Her to Heaven and The Unconquered...
, and in 1981 by the historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
C. Vann Woodward
C. Vann Woodward
Comer Vann Woodward was a preeminent American historian focusing primarily on the American South and race relations. He was considered, along with Richard Hofstadter and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to be one of the most influential historians of the postwar era, 1940s-1970s, both by scholars and by...
. His annotated edition of the diary, Mary Chesnut's Civil War (1981), won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for history in 1982. Literary critics have called Chesnut's diary "a work of art" and the most important work by a Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
author.
Early life
Mary Boykin Miller was born on March 31, 1823, on her maternal grandparents' plantationPlantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
, called Mount Pleasant, near Stateburg, South Carolina
Stateburg, South Carolina
Stateburg is a census-designated place in the High Hills of Santee in Sumter County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 1,264 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Sumter, South Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, in the High Hills of Santee
High Hills of Santee
The High Hills of Santee, sometimes known as the High Hills of the Santee, is a long, narrow hilly region in the western part of Sumter County, South Carolina. It has been called "one of the state's most famous areas". The High Hills of Santee region lies north of the Santee River and east of the...
. Her parents were Mary Boykin (1804–85) and Stephen Decatur Miller
Stephen Decatur Miller
Stephen Decatur Miller was an American politician, who served as the 52nd Governor of South Carolina from 1828 to 1830. He represented South Carolina as a U.S. Representative from 1817 to 1819, and as a U.S. Senator from 1831 to 1833.He was born in Waxhaw settlement, South Carolina and graduated...
(1788–1838), who had served as a U.S. Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
. In 1829 he was elected governor of South Carolina
Governor of South Carolina
The Governor of the State of South Carolina is the head of state for the State of South Carolina. Under the South Carolina Constitution, the Governor is also the head of government, serving as the chief executive of the South Carolina executive branch. The Governor is the ex officio...
and in 1831 as a U.S. Senator. The family then lived in Charleston. Mary was the oldest of four children; she had a younger brother Stephen and two sisters: Catherine and Sarah Amelia.
At age 12, Miller began her formal education in Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
, where she boarded at Mme. Talvande's French School for Young Ladies, which attracted daughters from the elite of the planter class. Talvande was among the many French colonial refugees who had settled in Charleston from Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue
The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...
(Haiti) after its Revolution. Miller became fluent in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and received a strong education.
Leaving politics, her father took his family to Mississippi where he bought extensive acreage. It was a crude, rough frontier compared to Charleston. He owned three cotton plantations and hundreds of slaves. Mary lived in Mississippi for short periods between school terms but was much more fond of the city.
Marriage
In 1836, while in Charleston, thirteen-year-old Mary Boykin Miller met her future husband, James Chesnut, Jr.James Chesnut, Jr.
James Chesnut, Jr. of Camden, South Carolina, was a planter, lawyer, United States Senator, a signatory of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, and a Confederate States Army general...
(1815–85), who was eight years her senior. Her parents at first opposed his suit, but at sixteen Mary began to take an interest in the young man. At age seventeen, Miller married Chesnut on April 23, 1840. They first lived with his parents and sisters at Mulberry, their plantation outside Camden, South Carolina
Camden, South Carolina
Camden is the fourth oldest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina and is also the county seat of Kershaw County, South Carolina, United States. The population was an estimated 7,103 in 2009...
. His father, James Chesnut, Sr. (who Mary referred to as the old Colonel), had gradually purchased and reunited the land holdings of his father John. He was said to own about five square miles at the maximum and to hold about 500 slaves by 1849.
In 1858, by then an established lawyer and politician, James Chesnut, Jr. was elected a U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
from South Carolina and served as such until South Carolina's secession
Secession in the United States
Secession in the United States can refer to secession of a state from the United States, secession of part of a state from that state to form a new state, or secession of an area from a city or county....
from the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
in 1860. Once the Civil War broke out, Chesnut became an aide to President Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
and was commissioned a brigadier general
Brigadier General
Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
in the Confederate Army.
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, DC and Richmond. She suffered from depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
, in part because of her inability to have children. The Chesnuts’ marriage was at times stormy due to their differences in temperament (she was more hot-tempered and sometimes considered her husband reserved), but their companionship was mostly warm and affectionate.
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 John Bell Hood
John Bell Hood
John Bell Hood was a Confederate general during the American Civil War. Hood had a reputation for bravery and aggressiveness that sometimes bordered on recklessness...
, politician John L. Manning, general and politician John S. Preston
John S. Preston
John Smith Preston was a wealthy planter, soldier, and attorney who became prominent in South Carolina politics in the 19th century...
and his wife Caroline, general and politician Wade Hampton III
Wade Hampton III
Wade Hampton III was a Confederate cavalry leader during the American Civil War and afterward a politician from South Carolina, serving as its 77th Governor and as a U.S...
, politician Clement C. Clay
Clement Claiborne Clay
Clement Claiborne Clay was a U.S. senator from the state of Alabama from 1853 to 1861, and a C.S.A. senator from the Alabama from 1861 to 1863...
and his wife Virginia
Virginia Clay-Clopton
Virginia Clay-Clopton was an American memoirist and political hostess. She was also known as Virginia Tunstall, Virginia Clay, and Mrs. Clement Claiborne Clay.-Biography:...
, and general and politician Louis T. Wigfall and his wife Charlotte. The Chesnuts were also family friends of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina Howell
Varina Howell
Varina Banks Howell Davis was an American author who was best known as the First Lady of the Confederate States of America, second wife of President Jefferson Davis.-Childhood:...
.
The Chesnuts fell onto hard times after the war. James Chesnut, Sr. died in 1866; his will left his son the use of Mulberry Plantation and Sandy Field, both of which were encumbered by debt, and eighty-three "slaves" by name, who were by then freedmen. The younger Chesnut struggled to build up the plantations and support his father's dependents.
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 that she never published: The Captain and the Colonel, completed about 1875; and Two Years of My Life, finished about the same time. She finished most of a draft of a third long novel, called Manassas. Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, who edited the first two novels for publication by the University of Virginia Press in 2002 and wrote a biography of Chesnut, described them as her writing "apprenticeship."
By his father's will, James Chesnut, Jr. had the use of Mulberry and Sandy Field 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 for her support; she also found her husband 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 Camden, South Carolina
Camden, South Carolina
Camden is the fourth oldest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina and is also the county seat of Kershaw County, South Carolina, United States. The population was an estimated 7,103 in 2009...
and was buried next to her husband in Knights Hill Cemetery in Camden, South Carolina.
The diary
Mary Boykin Chesnut began her diary on February 18, 1861, and ended it on June 26, 1865. She was an eyewitness to many historic events as she accompanied her husband to significant sites of the Civil War. Among them were Montgomery, AlabamaMontgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
and Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, where the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America
Provisional Confederate Congress
The Provisional Confederate Congress, for a time the legislative branch of the Confederate States of America, was the body which drafted the Confederate Constitution, elected Jefferson Davis President of the Confederacy, and designed the first Confederate flag...
convened; Charleston, where she was among witnesses of the first shots of the Civil War; Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
, 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 her parents-in-law at their house at Mulberry Plantation
Mulberry Plantation (James and Mary Boykin Chesnut House)
Mulberry Plantation , also known as Mulberry Plantation "is nationally significant in the area of American literature for its association with Mary Boykin Chesnut's remarkable first-hand account of southern society during the Civil War...
near Camden. While the property was relatively isolated in thousands of acres of plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
and woodland, they entertained many visitors.
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 it and wrote new drafts in 1881-1884 for publication, and retained the sense of events unfolding without foreknowledge. She had the sense of the South's living through its time on a world stage. Politically aware, Chesnut analyzed and portrayed the various classes of the South through the years of the war. She portrayed southern society in detail and studied the mixed roles of men and women. She was forthright about the complex and fraught situations related to slavery, particularly the abuses of sexuality and power. For instance, Chesnut discussed the problem of white planters' fathering mixed-race children with enslaved women within their extended households.
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. 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. Chesnut captured the growing difficulties of all classes of the Confederacy as the society faced defeat at the end of the war. Literary scholars have called the Chesnut diary the most important work by a Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
author. Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...
called it a " 'work of art'—informal department or not". He writes,
"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 the actual turn of events to develop them and round them out as if she were molding a novel."
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 published. The diary was first published in 1905 as a heavily edited and abridged edition. Williams' version was described as more readable, but sacrificing historical reliability and many of Chesnut's literary references. The version by C. Vann Woodward retained more of her original work, provides an overview of her life and society in the "Introduction", and was annotated to identify fully the large cast of characters, places and events.
Publication history
- 1905: A Diary From Dixie: Electronic Edition. Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, 1823-1886, ed. by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary. New York: D. Appleton and Company 1905, available online as a part of the UNC-CH database "Documenting the American South."
- 1949: A Diary from Dixie, an expanded version edited by the novelist Ben Ames WilliamsBen Ames WilliamsBen Ames Williams American writer who published over thirty novels, including All the Brothers Were Valiant ,Come Spring ,The Strange Woman , House Divided , Leave Her to Heaven and The Unconquered...
to enhance its readability and annotated. Reissued in 1980 by Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
Press, with a "Foreword" by Edmund Wilson, originally published in 1962 as an essay on Chesnut.
- 1981: Mary Chesnut's Civil War, edited and Introduction by C. Vann Woodward. Reprinted in 1993 and available in preview online.
- 2002, Mary Chesnut, Two Novels, includes The Colonel and the Captain; and Two Years - or The Way We Lived Then, edited and Introduction by Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, University of Virginia Press.
Honors and Legacy
- 1982, Mary Chesnut's Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward, won a Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
. - Ken BurnsKen BurnsKenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...
used extensive readings from Chesnut's diary in his documentaryDocumentary filmDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
television series, The Civil WarThe Civil War (documentary)The Civil War is a documentary film created by Ken Burns about the American Civil War. It was first broadcast on PBS on five consecutive nights from Sunday, September 23 to Thursday, September 27, 1990. Forty million viewers watched it during its initial broadcast, making it the most-watched...
. Academy Award-nominated actress Julie HarrisJulie HarrisJulia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...
read these sections. - In 2000, Mulberry PlantationMulberry Plantation (James and Mary Boykin Chesnut House)Mulberry Plantation , also known as Mulberry Plantation "is nationally significant in the area of American literature for its association with Mary Boykin Chesnut's remarkable first-hand account of southern society during the Civil War...
, the house of James and Mary Boykin Chesnut in Camden, South CarolinaCamden, South CarolinaCamden is the fourth oldest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina and is also the county seat of Kershaw County, South Carolina, United States. The population was an estimated 7,103 in 2009...
, was designated a National Historic LandmarkNational Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
, due to its importance to America's national heritage and literature. The plantation and its buildings are representative of James and Mary Chesnut's elite planterPlantations in the American SouthPlantations were an important aspect of the history of the American South, particularly the antebellum .-Planter :The owner of a plantation was called a planter...
class.
External links
- Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, Mary Chesnut's Civil War, ed. C. Vann Woodward, reprint, Yale University Press, 1993
- Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Diary from Dixie, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1905, Digitized text on Documenting the South, University of North Carolina website
- Mulberry Plantation (James and Mary Boykin Chesnut House), National Historic Landmarks Program, National Park Service
- "Mary Boykin Chesnut", About Famous People website