Mary Chesnut's Civil War by Mary Boykin Chesnut

Finally, the chapter looks at her reminiscence about being invited, along with twelve other young ladies, to serenade president-elect George Washington at Trenton en route to New York for his inauguration in 1789. After exploring Chesnut's “magnificent obsession” with Uncle Tom's Cabin, the chapter turns to the remarkable ways in which Chesnut inadvertently and unconsciously identified her mother-in-law, the profoundly Christian, charitable, and voraciously bookish Mary Cox Chesnut, with Stowe's heroine, little Eva. Accordingly, her central grievance was offered on the grounds of Stowe's cultural ignorance.

Chesnut's own thesis was that Stowe knew nothing of slavery, plantation life, or “Negro” culture under bondage in America.

Particular characters-Tom, Eva, Topsy, and Legree-captivated and also inflamed the writer and her peers, particularly proslavery women such as Louisa McCord, who reviewed the novel in January 1853. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.This chapter on Mary Chesnut's scrutiny of slavery, sentiment, and Stowe first explores details of Uncle Tom's Cabin itself as they resonate in Chesnut's 1880s narrative. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. One of the most frequently cited memoirs of the war, Mary Chesnut's Diary captures the urgency and nuance of the period in an epic rich with commentary on race, status, and power within a nation divided.įor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. As the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner and the wife of an aide to the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, Chesnut was well acquainted with the Confederacy's prominent players and-from the very first shots in Charleston, South Carolina-diligently recorded her impressions of the conflict's most significant moments. One of the most compelling personal narratives of the Civil War, Mary Chesnut's Diary was written between 18. An unrivalled account of the American Civil War from the Confederate perspective.

Mary Chesnut's Civil War by Mary Boykin Chesnut