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
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.
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.
Darkest of all Decembers ever has my life known, Sitting here by the embers, stunned, helpless, alone.
We are scattered, stunned; the remnant of heart left alive is filled with brotherly hate... Whose fault? Everybody blamed somebody else. Only the dead heroes left stiff and stark on the battlefield escape.
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!