Mary Chesnut’s Account of the Road to Ft. Sumter
Chris Weatherhead as Mary Boykin Chesnut
MARY BOYKIN CHESNUT’s A Diary from Dixie, edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary in 1905, is arguably the most historically significant diary by an American woman. Her keen insights regarding the events leading up to the War Between the States and through Reconstruction are invaluable.
On the eve of South Carolina’s secession from the Union, Chesnut began recording the coming of war through her exclusive access to the most influential figures in the South as the wife of a U.S. Senator, James A. Chesnut, Jr., who resigned upon secession to become an aide de camp to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Mary Boykin Chesnut was a rare woman for her time, making her an intriguing subject for our time.
Chesnut’s “incomparable book,” as preeminent historian and Chesnut biographer C. Vann Woodward wrote, reveals a “complex and paradoxical personality.” Woodward knows Mrs. Chesnut about as well as could be expected a century later. His Mary Chesnut’s Civil War won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. Raised in the traditional, religious, patriarchal, planter class, Chesnut grew to become a secular-minded intellectual and salon hostess in the unladylike world of politics, lamented women’s lack of rights, criticized the oppression of slavery, and loved city life.
Biographer Elisabeth Muhlenfeld became intrigued with Chesnut while serving on the faculty at the University of South Carolina, and as a result wrote “Mary Boykin Chestnut: A Biography,” which includes a foreward by C. Vann Woodward. Muhlenfeld explored the more private side of Chesnut by researching her private diaries and letters that were not included in her famous Civil War diary, which the author deliberately intended for publication.
On April 9–10, in recognition of the Sesquicentennial observances, Chris Weatherhead of Actors’ Theatre of South Carolina, sponsored by The South Carolina Historical Society, presented “Mary Chesnut’s Road to Fort Sumter” at Footlight Players Theatre. Directed by her husband, Clarence Felder, and costumed by Jean Hutchinson, Weatherhead adapted the famous diary and traced Chesnut’s reaction to the events of 1860-61. In her one-woman show, she personifies Chesnut through her reminiscences and her diary, which includes letters and newspapers as well as her personal accounts.
A veteran actress accustomed to period pieces, Weatherhead is graceful and charming moving among the nineteenth-century furnishings dressed in her antebellum costume of emerald taffeta and white lace. Weatherhead captures Chesnut’s spirit. The two women share passion and intelligence. “Trying to capture her is like playing fifty women. I believe her to be a genius and unfathomable,” Weatherhead says, explaining why she was attracted to Chesnut and her diary. Weatherhead’s interpretation of Chesnut is akin to Catherine Clinton’s, who recently published the paperback edition of Mary Chesnut’s Diary. Both accentuate Chesnut’s bluntness, but also recognize her astute social skills. Mrs. Chesnut could charmingly take a general down a peg, and be admired for it. A paradox she was, indeed.
Wonderful article and review! Enjoyed reading this and finding out as well about the one-woman show relating to it—thanks.