Mary boykin chesnut a biography

  • Mary boykin chesnut a biography

    • Mary boykin chestnut biography...

    Chesnut, Mary Boykin (1823–1886)

    Southern intellectual, socialite, and candid diarist of the American Civil War. Born Mary Boykin Miller on March 31, 1823, in Statesburg, South Carolina; died of a heart attack on November 22, 1886, in Camden, South Carolina; eldest child of Stephen Decatur Miller (a governor, U.S.

    senator, and U.S. congressional representative) and Mary (Boykin) Miller; attended private schools in Camden and at Madame Talvande's School in Charleston, South Carolina, excelling in French, literature and history; married James Chesnut, Jr.

    (a U.S. senator from Camden, South Carolina), on June 23, 1840 (died 1885); no children.

    Moved to Washington, D.C., when James Chesnut elected to U.S. Senate (1858); moved to Charleston after James resigned his office and departed to assist in the draft of South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession (1860); briefly resided in Montgomery, Alabama, for the Confederate Provisional Congress; began and kept a private diary, later to b