Book Description
This original diary of the wife of Confederate General James Chestnut, Jr., who was also an aide to President Jefferson Davis, provides an eyewitness narrative of all the years of the war. Period photographs illustrate this you-are-there account of the daily lives and tribulations of all who suffered through the war, from ordinary people to the Confederacy's generals and political figures.
Customer Reviews:
History From the Inside.......2006-01-04
Mary Chestnut's diary received great exposure as a result of Ken Burns' documentary on PBS. It is well worth reading because 90% of the history we read of the American Civil War focuses on the military campaigns and the politics. Ms. Chestnut tells us more about the social impact of the war than we get from most authors. On top of that, she was a highly intelligent woman who was writing things in confidence that she would be unlikely to say outloud. She had a unique window into the workings of southern society and Confederate politics and she was completely honest in her evaluations. What we get here are very carefully worded opinions that no self-respecting southerner would have dared to admit in 1863. On the topic of slavery, Ms. Chestnut declares, "Ours is a monstrous system." Amid newspaper reports blasting Union General Grant for his brutal tactics and lack of finesse, Ms. Chestnut observes, "He has the disagreeable habit of not retreating before our irresistable veterans." All in all, hers is one of the most honest and well-written accounts of civilian life in the south during the Civil War.
The southern homefront.......2005-06-24
C-Span did a series called "American Writers" in 2001 and although I consider myself well read it was the first time I had ever heard of Mary Chesnut.
This story of the Civil War, told from the perspective of the civilians at home, was a real eye opener. Mary Chesnut, the wife of a Confederate general, was well off, but even Mary and the ladies in her circle couldn't get shoes to replace their worn ones and could only afford the outrageous prices for food because they had money. One can only imagine the suffering of those less fortunate. Life for civilians was severe and the news from the front, often heartbreaking, added to their woes. This is a unique first person account of the Civil War.
I remember reading that the author of "Gone With the Wind", Margaret Mitchell, did about five years of research before she actually started writing her book. I feel it is highly likely that she read Mary Chesnut's book as part of that research.
Superseded Edition of a Classic.......2005-04-09
Mary Chesnut's diary of life in the South during the American Civil War is possibly the best of all American diaries. You could spend weeks making your way through the labyrinth of events -- trivial and important -- and personalities found in the diary.
This edition of the diary is superseded by a better one: "Mary Chesnut's Civil War" edited by C. Vann Woodward which won a Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982. Woodward's edition offers a more complete text and is heavily footnoted with explanatory material. The text in Woodward includes many interesting passages excluded from "A Diary from Dixie" because of limitations of space and because some of them reflected unfavorably on the South and Southerners.
One virtue of this edition is a fine foreword about the diary by literary critic Edmund Wilson, but Wilson's foreword can also be read in his book "Patriotic Gore." I recommend you read Woodward's "Mary Chesnut's Civil War" instead of this book.
Smallchief
5 Stars for educational value.......2004-07-23
This book deserves 5 stars for educational value alone. While it does have its slow points, I can say that I have learned more about antebellum culture and Southern war perspective from this book than any other I have read up to this point. The book gives us a glimpse into the mindsets of a demographic of the Southern population we can rarely find anywhere else, and it's incredible to believe that this work was almost thrown into the fire for fear of capture when McClellan's forces dwelt a mere six miles from Richmond's door in early 1862.
An invaluable insight into the Southern Confederacy.......2003-10-03
This primary source document is one of the best windows we have into southern society during the American Civil War. Mary Chestnut was a southern aristocrat, married to the man who was the first to resign his seat in the US Senate before the war. She knew many prominent Confederate leaders well--Jefferson Davis, John Bell Hood, and Wade Hampton among them--and was acquainted with nearly all of the major players in the war (she even spent several occasions in the company of Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnston). Because she knew so many people, she was in a position to cast a very revealing light on the war from the southern point of view.
Besides knowing so many influential leaders, Mary Chestnut also lived in both Confederate capitals--Montgomery, Alabama and Richmond, Virginia--while they were the government seats. Her husband's plantation was in South Carolina, and in fact her home in Columbia, South Carolina lay right in the path of Sherman's destructive march through the South. As such, Chestnut is poised to offer very interesting commentary on the fire that burned much of that city. Mary and her husband gave their all to the Confederacy, and lost much of what they had because of the Civil War.
Several things in this journal are unique and worthy of mention. First, Chestnut and her friends are living the high life for much of the war, having parties, dinners, and luncheons and more-or-less living it up, even when the Yankees are approaching Richmond. They live comfortable lives, and, though Mary has a very insightful perspective into the suffering of her soldiers, she often spends as much time complaining about some minor inconvenience (such as being without her maid for a week) as she does deploring the sorry state of the starved and ill-clothed soldiers. Mary does what she can, and helps in many ways, but she is not willing to give up her parties, even when her husband repeatedly begs her too.
This diary also provides a unique view of slavery. A staunch abolitionist, Chestnut hated slavery less for the cruel treatment of the slaves than for the insolent behavior of many of them. Her husband's slaves were well taken care of, and did less work than they consumed in goods. Mary recounts many horrific tales of what happened when the slaves were set free--a story of a white family going along a road and picking up a wagonload of Negro infants which had been abandoned by parents enjoying their freedom, for example. She never questions that slavery is wrong, but she does argue that Harriet Beecher Stowe's account of slavery was the exception, not the rule. This is an interesting perspective, whatever the truth of it.
All in all, this is a great diary, and a splendid resource. Thank goodness this book has been reissued. The edition edited by Ben Ames Williams contained unsatisfactory notes, including some in which Williams shamelessly engaged in self-promotion of his novel. This book is indispensable for anyone looking for primary accounts of the human aspect of the war between the states.
Average customer rating:
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Diary from Dixie. Edited by Ben Ames Williams.
Mary B. CHESNUT
Manufacturer: CHESNUT, Mary B. A Diary from Dixie. Edited by Ben Ames Williams. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., [1949]. 572pp. Orig. cloth, Fine. A reprint of Howes C-352.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000S8T0BE |
Book Description
William W. Freehling is one of America's leading historians. His groundbreaking works on slavery and the years leading up to the Civil War have earned him numerous awards and prizes. His first book, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836, was hailed as one of the most significant studies of the pre-Civil War era, and earned him the prestigious Bancroft Prize and the Allan Nevins Prize for history. And his Owsley Prize-winning The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, was praised by the Washington Times as "A triumph of historical research and art." This provocative collection of essays, all of them new or thoroughly revised, synthesizes thirty years of Freehling's writing and reflection on the nature of slavery and the causes of the Civil War. He offers a fascinating look at subjects such as the nonradical nature of the American Revolution, as seen in the Founding Fathers' chary manner in promoting the antislavery cause. He illuminates the problematic concept of a "paternalism" which supposedly harmonized liberty for slaveholders (those who could protect themselves) with protection for slaves and impoverished whites (those who would allegedly fail as free men). Freehling then considers slaveholders' attempts to reconcile slavery with democracy and thus formulate a coherent world view, especially as seen in the strained ideologies of John C. Calhoun, George Fitzhugh, and James Henley Thornwell. In an important new interpretation of slave resistance, such as the Denmark Vesey uprising of 1822 (which sought to undercut this paternalistic reconciliation of democracy and slavery), he describes rebellious slaves' success in casting doubt on the compatibility of democratic and authoritarian realms, and fugitive slaves' success in provoking Civil War and emancipation. Stressing the need for a new synthesis of American history both chronologically and topically, Freehling explains why the Civil War came, relating it to the American Revolution and the reasons why the Confederacy lost the Civil War. Likewise, the nature of slavery as a social institution is connected with the nature of pre-war politics and to the outcome of wartime military encounters. Enhanced with brief introductions, the essays lay out the design of a new multicultural history of the United States, one which emphasizes the way African Americans, white women, and white men condition each other and foster social and political change.
Customer Reviews:
The Way of the Lash: Slavocracy in Thought and Action.......2005-03-29
William W. Freehling calls for a new, 'reintegrated' American history, merging social, political and military history, in his fascinating essay collection, which follows the evolution of the Slavocratic South in roughly chronological order: the second essay deals with the Founding Fathers' attitudes towards slavery, while the later ones map Southern history to Appomattox.
The main thread through Freehling's essays is the conflict he sees between two incompatible Southern ideologies: Paternalism - the view that a Southern Slavocracy has to guide not only black slaves and white women, but also 'lesser' white men; and what he calls Herrenvolkism, or white supremacy - the notion, associated with Andrew Jackson, that America is the republic of equal white men.
Most exciting is Freehling's description of a tendency - one may almost say conspiracy - by Southern Paternalists to undermine the main instrument of the Herrenvolk ideology, the Jacksonian Democratic party, and replace it with a solid, Paternalistic, anti-antislavery South. The prime suspect is Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, who commenced the struggle for the annexation of Texas as a way to awaken Southern consciousness: "There is [a] systematic conspiracy against the South and its institution..." Upshur wrote "[t]he South will be deceived... and will wake up, only to find itself powerless". Upshur saw the danger in "Northern Politicians... ever ready to sacrifice both political and moral principle" (quoted on pp. 126-128). Abel Upshur considered Herrenvolk democracy untrustworthy because not all Southerners had slave property and thus a stake in the system. Instead, they could be deluded by Jacksonian demagogues. (pp. 130-131). The Texas annexation issue was thus, at least partially, a measure against the Democratic Party.
Possibly because Freehling's research covers such long periods, he downplays the role of contingencies. In his discussion of the causes of Southern defeat in the Civil War, Freehling criticizes historians such as James McPherson, who believe that the outcome of the Civil War was dependent upon battlefield victories. "[M]ilitary narrators [argue]... military outcomes shaped social outcomes, not vice versa, and military outcomes might easily have been reversed". Freehling convincingly argues that regardless of the outcome of Antietam, British pro Southern Military intervention was unlikely, and that even had George McClellan won the 8164 presidential elections, the war for the Union would have continued (pp. 224-228). Freehling locates social causes for Southern defeat: the defection of upper South whites and of blacks to the North.
Here Freehling fails to differentiate between the circumstances of the war and the causes for the defeat. In the 1850s, the sectional conflict was between Southerners and Northerners - but in the 1860s, the American Civil War raged between the eleven states of the Confederacy and the rest of the United States. Did Southerners lose the war before they began to fight it because of their political failure to win the allegiance of the Boarder South?
Possibly, but Freehling should prove it. When the war broke, the Confederates had several advantages: 2 million square kilometers of territory that the North had to conquer, some of the best soldiers in the United States, experienced leadership, and most important, it had to merely defend itself in an age of war technology advantageous to the defense. Certainly, the task was onerous, but Freehling hardly considers the failure to devise means corresponding to the ends: the failure of strategy.
Unlike the Northern 'Anaconda Plan', which was tailored to the North's strengths and the South's weaknesses, the South's strategy, as far as there was one, made absolutely no sense - the South spent its precious manpower and best commanders on pointless invasions of the North along the Eastern front, while allowing Grant to defeat them in the West. Had the South chosen a defensive strategy, forcing the North to waste its power against heavy artillery in the bulwarks, the war might have ended very differently. By 1863, the Confederacy might have been doomed - but that was due to defective leadership, not necessarily to the long patterns of Southern history.
Similarly, Freehling does not distinguish between the South's reasons to press for strict Fugitive Slave Laws and for largely symbolic victories in Kansas and Nebraska from the reasons for Southern secession in 1860 (p. 143). Historians' consensus on the second question is clear: Southerners left the Union because the Republican Revolution meant that the Union was no longer in Slaveholder's hands, and thus no longer safe for slavery. But why did Southerners, by forcing proslavery measures, undermine the antebellum two party system and thus their control of American politics?
Freehling offers an intriguing partial answer: Southerners feared that increasing Fugitives from Boarder states would undermine slavery in the Upper South, and that, as the rates of slavery in the boarder states would decline, 'demagogues' - that is, anti-slavery advocates - would triumph in them, leading to the eventual abolition of slavery throughout the United States. Similarly, the agitation to reopen the slave trade was to solve the dwindling of slavery in the upper South (p.210). Thus the pro-Slavery campaigns were rational, if miscalculated, reactions to the social disunity of the South.
This is part of Freehling's campaign for a 'reintegrated' American History - "the whole socio/political/military history flow[ing] in one piece" (p. 274). I find two flaws in Freehling's approach: it underemphasizes Economics, and it lacks systematic quantification.
Viewing slavery as an economic system offers two alternative explanations for the phenomena he described: that the higher productivity of slavery in the tropical lower South, not fugitive slaves and anti-slavery propaganda, caused the dwindling of slavery in the boarder regions, and that similarly, the booming lower South economy of the 1850s, and the shortage of slaves, were the roots of the agitation for reopening the slave trade.
The solution to both questions can not come from general sociology, from reading the mind of Southerners, or from political history. The only way to answer these questions is a systematic quantitative approach. As Colin McEvedy wrote: "History being a branch of the biological sciences, its ultimate expression must be mathematical."
wow.......2003-11-06
if you're interested in civil war causation and the ante-bellum south, GET THIS BOOK! i've studied the civil war-era for a while now and every single essay taught me something new. I LOVE THIS FREAKING BOOK! thanks, mr. freehling.
Fascinating History.......2000-10-13
William Freehling, the well respected author of Road to Disunion here turns his attention to the broader questions of nineteenth century American history and the historical profession.
In REINTEGRATION, Freehling calls for a return to the type of history that broadly tells the story of America, and does not just chronical the history of one small group or event. In many ways this book is very bold because it goes againsed the thrust of the latest trends in historical inquiry, the trend twords putting every group or event into "little boxes."
Freehlings book is interesting and persuasive, and enjoyable for anyone interested in American history.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Collection.......2007-06-09
This magnificent little book is well titled. It brings us a reintegration of our antebellum history. One of the most impressive artoicles is that dealing with the southern tholog Thornton in which Freehling gives us a clear view of paternalistic religion in defense of slavery. A great read. Highly recommended.
Customer Reviews:
Putting the American President on the psychiatrist's couch.......2001-05-10
This is an incredibly fascinating book for those interested in the history of the American Presidency and particularly of the occupants of that office. Mr. Barber analyzes the presidents by two main factors: activity (how much effort a particular president put into performing his job) and the president's personality type and world-view (whether a president viewed his role in the world in a positive or negative light). From this Mr. Barber theorizes that there are four major presidential types: active-positive, active-negative, passive-positive, and passive-negative. By analyzing an individual's personality prior to his entry into the White House, Mr. Barber suggests that one can predict his performance while in the presidency. For example, he categorizes FDR, JFK, and Truman as active-positives (high activity while president with each having a positive view of the world), Taft, Harding and Reagan as passive-positives (low effort put into performance of their duties, while trying to show a positive, if timorous, face to the world), and Coolidge and Ike as passive-negatives (each viewing his role in the presidency as a duty to perform rather than something in which to look forward).
The best parts of the book are in which Mr. Barber talks about the active-negative presidents, all of whom have proved disastrous to the office. Each of these presidents had put much effort and personal investment into the performance of his duties, but without any enjoyment. For each of these men, life has always been a struggle and the personal rewards few. Compulsiveness and anxiety was each man's life-script. None of them could ever afford to rest on his laurels after some success, because if he did so, he would only have to re-double his efforts next time for fear of committing failure. None could admit error and saw compromise with his opposition something to avoid at all costs. All became frozen in the rightness of a certain policy line. This was despite all evidence showing that policy had long been proven a failure.
Woodrow Wilson would not compromise with opposition Republican Senators who had certain reservations about the U.S. becoming a member of the League of Nations. The result was that the League treaty was voted down, the U.S. never became a member, and America entered a generation of isolationism. World War II was the final outcome. Herbert Hoover, sticking to his belief in "rugged individualism," would not modify his opposition to the government's stepping in to ameliorate of the effects of the Great Depression. By the time Hoover put forth his Reconstruction Finance Corporation proposal to provide loans to some businesses, the financial and unemployment crisis in the country seemed beyond repair. The voting public was ready to dump the seemingly heartless and "inactive" Hoover (who was really anything but) for the more positive and hopeful FDR. Lyndon Johnson persisted in sending more and more troops into the Vietnam quagmire despite all evidence indicating that his persistent escalation of the war had long been proven wrong. The result was ever-rising death toll of American boys, massive anti-war demonstrations, and devastating urban riots. Then, of course, there was Richard Nixon, who persisted in his lies and deceipt in the coverup of the Watergate Scandal. Not only did he become the first president to resign, but his legacy was a weakened presidency by a casting of mistrust and suspicion on all the future inhabitants of that esteemed office. Mr. Barber said that all of this could have been avoided if the American people had paid closer attention to Nixon's behavior in previous political campaigns and then deciding not to honor him by elevating him to president.
To Mr. Barber's credit, he readily admits that some presidents do not fit easily into one category or the other. For example, while he generally classifies Eisenhower as a passive-negative, Ike showed from time to time some active traits in the presidency. Likewise, while Truman was basically an active-positive, he often peevish personality could have easily lead him into some negative policy trap.
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Books Index
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General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
The Private Mary Chesnut: The Unpublished Civil War Diaries (A Galaxy Book)
Mary Chesnut's Civil War
Sarah Morgan: The Civil War Diary Of A Southern Woman
All for the Union: The Civil War Diary & Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes
Mary's World: Love, War, and Family Ties in Nineteenth-century Charleston
