Book recommendation: Mary Chesnut’s Civil War.

Book recommendation: Mary Chesnut’s Civil War. By Mary Boykin Chesnut, edited by C. Vann Woodward.
https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Chesnuts-Civil-Boykin-Chesnut/dp/B000SSQZSA/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2L2PMFLVAMCD2&dchild=1&keywords=mary+chesnut+civil+war&qid=1589399051&sprefix=Mary+Chesnuts+Civil+War%2Caps%2C186&sr=8-2
As a history buff, I have seen Mary Chesnut quoted in numerous histories of the war. So, when I found this 1982 Pulitzer Prize in History book, I grabbed it, despite its daunting size.

The edited does a superb job of blending both her published 1880s diary, and the surviving parts of her longer journal from 1861-1865. The book also has excellent footnotes to tell you who the personages she mentions are. It has a 58-page introduction, which must be read to understand the book, and 836 pages of text.

Mary Botkin Chesnut was a contradiction. She was mistress of a great slave plantation, but at heart an abolitionist who though that slavery must go no matter who won. Yet she enjoyed her life of ease, waited on by black house servants. Many of them stayed loyally with her even after the war freed them, at least for the time period of the book. She was also far better read in literature and history than 985 of Americans today, but slavery gave her the leisure to read. She wasn’t afraid of work, knitting socks for soldiers or working in the hospitals.

For her time, you might call her a feminist. Her husband, a former US Senator, served in the Confederate senate and later as a brigadier general in the Confederate army. A southern patriot, she was an aristocrat at the top levels of Confederate society. She was an intimate friend of Varina and Jeff Davis, and a partisan of Davis. She knew J.B. Hood, the Lees, and other Confederate officers and officials, and especially their women.

It is comforting to us today to realize how much politics, backbiting, position-seeking and slander were involved in the Confederacy, much like our politics now. She details the long feud between Davis and General Joe Johnson. She also excoriates the press, particular the Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Examiner, for undermining the government, lowering the morale of the troops, and giving the Union military information. Sound familiar? She says that if a Yankee bomb landed in the Examiner’s offices, it would do the Confederacy a service! She has no time for those not in uniform criticizing the government and generals.

Some readers will find the endless gossip about women and men tedious. I found it entertaining. Given her position, well into 1864, she was going to plays, teas, dances and elaborate dinners, often featuring venison, ham, partridges and oysters at the same meal, while the solders were starving. Even in the late days of the war, when she was destitute, friends sent her excellent meals.

I am a Union man. My grate great grandfather, Sgt. Oliver Vernal fought through the war with the Sixth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. He was badly wounded twice putting down the slave power, and I would have died with him, as he was single. But this book is a source document in American history. It is possible to appreciate it while loathing the cause she supported.