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About Mary Boykin Chesnut
Mary Boykin Chesnut was an American writer 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 James Chesnut Jr., a lawyer who served as a United States senator and officer in the Confederate States Army.
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Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers, free texts from Project Gutenberg. Last updated September 2026.