Mary
Chesnut
Mary Chesnut
(1823-1886), lived in
Charleston,
South Carolina, and is famous for keeping an extremely detailed diary describing
the
American
Civil War. She was born in Stateboro, South Carolina, to Mary Boykin and Stephen
Decatur Miller, who had been a senator and Governor of South Carolina.
On 23
April 1840, she married James Chesnut Jr who was elected to the senate in 1850.
Her diary, called A Diary from Dixie begins on February 15, 1861, and
ends on Aug. 2, 1865. It was originally published in 1905, and a larger edition
was published in 1949.
