Mary Boykin Chesnut diaries collection

The Mary Boykin Chesnut Diaries Collection consists primarily of materials collected by C. Vann Woodward, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University, for the preparation of his book, Mary Chesnut's Civil War. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1981). The majority of the collection is photoduplicates of original Mary Chesnut manuscripts, from the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina and from private owners. These photoduplicates were deposited at Yale University Library by Woodward with the permission of both the South Caroliniana Library and the owners of the manuscripts. However, no photoduplication of the materials in the collection may be made without the express permission of the South Caroliniana Library and of the owners of the original manuscripts. The same restrictions apply to the typed transcripts of the 1860s JOURNAL and the 1880s VERSION.

For biographical information on Mary Boykin Chesnut, see pages xxx-xlv of Mary Chesnut's Civil War, Elisabeth Muhlenfeld's Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biography. (Louisiana State University Press, 1981) and pages 4-7 of this register. Woodward was awarded the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for History for Mary Chesnut's Civil War. Woodward and Muhlenfeld are currently editing Chesnut's 1860s diaries.

The collection is arranged in four series: The collection is arranged in four series: I. MATERIALS RELATING TO DIARIES, II. 1860s JOURNAL, III. 1870s VERSION, IV. 1880s VERSION.

Series I, MATERIALS RELATING TO DIARIES, contains Correspondence, Writings by Others, Articles, Genealogical Material, Writings by Mary Chesnut, Legal Documents and Accounts and Photographs. Virtually all of this is photoduplicates of Mary Chesnut material held in the South Caroliniana Library. A small amount is photoduplicates of Mary Chesnut material held by individuals, and there are a few original letters (Box 1 folders 29-32) from the 1970s pertaining to research on Mary Chesnut.

Series II, 1860s JOURNALS, consists of photoduplicates of the journals which Mary Chesnut wrote during the Civil War years or shortly thereafter and a typed transcript of those journals prepared by Elisabeth Muhlenfeld and Thomas E. Dasher. Series III, 1870s VERSION, consists of photoduplicates of an edition of the journals which Mary Chesnut prepared during the 1870s. Both the 1860s and 1870s materials have large chronological gaps. See Woodward, Mary Chesnut's Civil War, pages xv-xxix for a discussion of each version.

Series IV, 1880s VERSION, contains Various Openings for the 1880s Version, all of which are incomplete, a Rough Draft of 1880s Version, the Manuscript of 1880s Version and a Typed Transcript of 1880s Version. The originals of the photoduplicates in Series II, III and IV are held in the South Caroliniana Library.

The materials within each series are arranged in chronological order.