Mary Boykin (Miller) Chesnut (1823 - 1886)

Born 31 Mar 1823 in Stateburg, Sumter, South Carolina, United States

Ancestors

Wife of James Chesnut Jr. — married 23 Apr 1840 in South Carolina

Died 22 Nov 1886 at age 63 in Camden, Kershaw, South Carolina, United States

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Biography

Mary (Miller) Chesnut is Notable.

The following is copied from Wikipedia:^[1]

Mary Boykin Chesnut was a South Carolina author noted for a book published as her Civil War diary, a "vivid picture of a society in the throes of its life-and-death struggle."[1] She described the war from within her upper-class circles of Southern planter society, but encompassed all classes in her book. She was married to a lawyer who served as a United States senator and Confederate officer. Unlike her husband, Mary secretly held anti-slavery views. Chesnut worked toward a final form of her book in 1881–1884, based on her extensive diary written during the war years. It was published in 1905, 19 years after her death. New versions were published after her papers were discovered, in 1949 by the novelist Ben Ames Williams, and in 1981 by the historian C. Vann Woodward. His annotated edition of the diary, Mary Chesnut's Civil War (1981), won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982. Literary critics have praised Chesnut's diary—the influential writer Edmund Wilson termed it "a work of art" and a "masterpiece" of the genre[2]—and the most important work by a Confederate author.

Mary Boykin Chesnut was a Confederate Civil War diarist.

• Fact: Residence (1880) Kirkwood, Kershaw, South Carolina, United States^[2]

Mary died on Nov 22, 1886 and was buried at Knights Hill Cemetery in Camden, Kershaw Co., South Carolina.^[3]

• Fact: http://familysearch.org/v1/LifeSketch

Research Notes

The footnotes in Woodward ^[4] are dense with genealogical information, usually explaining how people mentioned in the text are related to Mary or James Chestnut or to each other.

Sources

1. ↑ Mary Boykin Chesnut
2. ↑ "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6SN-838 : 20 February 2021), Mary Chesnut in household of James Chesnut, Kirkwood, Kershaw, South Carolina, United States; citing enumeration district ED 71, sheet 72D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm 1,255,232.
3. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8574/mary-boykin-chesnut : accessed 17 August 2021), memorial page for Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut (31 Mar 1823–22 Nov 1886), Find A Grave: Memorial #8574, citing Knights Hill Cemetery, Camden, Kershaw County, South Carolina, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave .
4. ↑ Chesnut Mary Boykin Miller and Comer Vann Woodward. 1981. Mary Chesnut’s Civil War. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.

See also:

• FS Profile for Mary Boykin Miller
• Wikidata: Item Q440043, en:Wikipedia
• South Carolina Marriage Index, 1641-1965, Ancestry.com Operations Inc. (2005), South Carolina Marriage Index
• 1850 United States Federal Census, Year: 1850; Census Place: Kershaw, Kershaw, South Carolina; Roll: M432_854; Page: 97A; Image: 196 , Ancestry.com Operations Inc. (2009), 1850 Census
• C-Span Video (11 Jun 2001): Writings of Mary Chesnut -- https://www.c-span.org/video/?164438-1/writings-mary-chesnut (Accessed 20 Nov 2022)
• "Miscellany: Worth a Move,” Civil War Times Illustrated, Vol. 62, no. 2, (Spring 2023): 12.