Synopsis
Winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize in History "A feast for Civil War buffs. . . . One of the best firsthand records of the Confederate experience. . . . Electrifying."--Walter Clemons, Newsweek "A great epic drama of our greatest national tragedy."--William Styron, New York Review of Books The incomparable Civil War diarist Mary Chesnut wrote that she had the luck "always to stumble in on the real show." Married to a high-ranking member of the Confederate government, she was ideally placed to watch and to record the South's headlong plunge to ruin, and she left in her journals an unsurpassed account of the old regime's death throes, its moment of high drama in world history. With intelligence and passion she described the turbulent events of politics and war, as well as the complex society around her. In her own circles, the aristocratic, patriarchal, slave-holding Mary Chesnut was a figure of heresy and of paradox: she had a horror of slavery and called herself an abolitionist from early youth. Edited by the eminent historian C. Vann Woodward, Mary Chesnut's Civil War presents a full and reliable edition of Chesnut's journals, restoring her to her rightful place in American history and literature., "A feast for Civil War buffs.... One of the best firsthand records of the Confederate experience.... Electrifying."--Walter Clemons, Newsweek "Here is a book to curl up with over a whole lifetime--to read and reread, to ponder and savor."--Selma R. Williams, The Boston Globe "A painfully brilliant record of our old America at daggers drawn.... Mary Chestnut's wit and shrewdness, her fierce abhorrence of slavery, her feminist ambitions, maker her observations peculiarly modern... C. Vann Woodward's editing... is exemplary.... He has reacquainted us with a remarkable woman; and she has reacquainted us with the living past."--Andrew Klavan, Saturday Review "Here is the rich and full context, as the author herself recreated it. It is by all odds the best of all civil War memoirs, and one of the most remarkable eye-witness accounts to emerge from that or any other war."--Louis D. Rubin, Jr., The New Republic "Chestnut's prose and insights dazzle. Lively sketches, biting characterizations, entertaining anecdotes, and vivid reflections fill the page."--Catherine Clinton, The Journal of American History "Thanks to C. Vann Woodawrd], we have the first authoritative text of this great work now revealed as the masterpiece it is; the finest work of literature to come out of the Civil War, perhaps one of the half dozen or so most important diaries in all literature; if you will, a Southern War and Peace. "--Reid Beddow, The Washington Post Book World "A great epic drama of our greatest national tragedy."--William Styron, The New York Review of Books Winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize in History C. Vann Woodward is Sterling Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University.
