Mary Boykin Chesnut Birth -- Death Years

Birth: March 31, 1823, South Carolina, United States

Death: November 22, 1886, Camden, South Carolina, United States

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Most Noted For A book written by her titled 'A Diary From Dixie' which became one of the most important works from the Civil War era.

Character Profile Report

Biographical Information: Include life experiences that impacted thoughts and impact on United States history.

Mary Boykin Chesnut was brought up in a plantation near Stateburg, South Carolina and was married to James Chesnut Jr. of Mulberry Plantation near Camden when she was seventeen. Since James was a political and military person, Mary also got influenced and her interaction with the elite of that government, the Confederacy, started. She observed everything about them. Although herself a slaveowner, she despised slavery and wanted to put an end to this system. During the Civil War, she observed everything carefully and also became the hostess of salons. She used to observe not only the political and military developments, but also the way civilians, soldiers, masters and slaves see the events and used to record this information in her diary. Her diary extracts as well as her narrative journal enables United States to look at the events of the Civil War from an independent perspective.

Historical/Political...

This is not about the person's accomplishments.
While Mary Chesnut had a social role, she was also more of a politician. In 1860, the war became more savage and her husband resigned from his seat in the Senate and came back to South Carolina to aid in the drafting of an ordinance of secession. Mary knew that the events that she was able to witness were of much importance and thus she knew that she had to record everything, as her position was also strategic. She had been in Charleston during the time Major Robert Anderson shifted to Fort Sumter, located in Montgomery due to the induction of Jefferson Davis, as well as in Charleston all through the shooting on Fort Sumter, wherein James assisted General Pierre G. T. Beauregard (Johnson et al. 2012, 56).

Beliefs on the Important Issues of the Day:

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As the hostess of the salon where men used to gather while endeavoring to form a new government along with their wives who congregated, Mary got a great chance to record the events of the country buzzing with excitement. She was very eager to visit the wounded and the sick from the war and to tend to them. She expressed her feeling about certain events when she was excited in her journal or otherwise outraged over the antics of the men on higher levels of authority. In March 1861, she wrote in her diary: "This war…