Mary Boykin Chesnut
Mary Boykin Chesnut
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." 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth31 March 1823
CountryUnited States of America
I think this journal will be disadvantageous for me, for I spend my time now like a spider spinning my own entrails.
Women--wives and mothers--are the same everywhere.
Brutal men with unlimited power are the same all over the world
I will laugh at the laughable while I breathe
Forgiveness is indifference. Forgiveness is impossible while love lasts.
She died praying that she might die.
I do not write often now - not for want of something to say, but from a loathing of all I see and hear. Why dwell upon it?
I am always on the women's side.
The weight that hangs upon our eyelids - is of lead.
Oh, if I could put some of my reckless spirit into these discreet cautious lazy men!
Richmond has fallen - and I have no heart to write about it... They are too many for us. Everythign lost in Richmond, even our archives. Blue-black is our horizon.
Is the sea drying up? It is going up into mist and coming down on us in this water spout, the rain. It raineth every day, and the weather represents our tearful despair on a large scale.
We are divorced, North from South, because we have hated each other so. If we could only separate politely, and not have a horrid fight for divorce.
Peace, comfort, quiet, happiness, I have found away from home. Only your own family, those nearest and dearest, can hurt you.