Man Who Started the Civil War

Man Who Started the Civil War

James Chesnut, Honor, and Emotion in the American South

  • Auteur: Koivusalo, Anna
  • Éditeur: University of South Carolina Press
  • ISBN: 9781643363059
  • eISBN Pdf: 9781643363066
  • Lieu de publication:  South Carolina , United States
  • Année de publication: 2022
  • Année de publication électronique: 2022
  • Mois : Juin
  • Pages: 303
  • DDC: 973.7/457092 B
  • Langue: Anglais

A fresh biography of a neglected figure in Southern history who played a pivotal role in the Civil War.

In the predawn hours of April 12, 1861, James Chesnut Jr. piloted a small skiff across the Charleston Harbor and delivered the fateful order to open fire on Fort Sumter—the first shots of the Civil War. In The Man Who Started the Civil War, Anna Koivusalo offers the first comprehensive biography of Chesnut and through him a history of honor and emotion in elite white southern culture. Koivusalo reveals the dynamic, and at times fragile, nature of these concepts as they were tested and transformed from the era of slavery through Reconstruction.

Best remembered as the husband of Mary Boykin Chesnut, author of A Diary from Dixie, James Chesnut served in the South Carolina legislature and as a US senator before becoming a leading figure in the South's secession from the Union. Koivusalo recounts how honor and emotion shaped Chesnut's life events and the decisions that culminated in the cataclysm of civil war. Challenging the traditional view of honor as a code, Koivusalo illuminates honor's vital but fickle role as a source for summoning, channeling, and expressing emotion in the nineteenth-century South.

  • Cover
  • THE MAN WHO STARTED THE CIVIL WAR
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • List of Illustrations
  • Acknowledgments
  • List of Abbreviations
  • Introduction: “The Many-Sided Jewel”
  • Part I: 1815–1858 Adopting Honorable Emotion and Learning to Express It
    • Chapter 1 “Good Habits and Honourable Sentiments”: Parental Advice for the Chesnut Sons, 1815–1836
    • Chapter 2 “A World Completely Ideal”: Love and Honor, 1836–1858
    • Chapter 3 “We Must Try to Steer Our Little Ship with Honor and Safety”: Honor, Emotion, and Politics, 1836–1858
  • Part II: 1859–1861 Raw and Noble Emotion
    • Chapter 4 “He Ordered the First Gun Fired & He Resigned First”: Beginning the Civil War, 1859–1861
  • Part III: 1861–1885 Honor and Emotion in Time of Crisis
    • Chapter 5 “Like a Patriot and a Gentleman”: The Civil War and the Transformation of Antebellum Honor, 1861–1865
    • Chapter 6 “The Old Legion of Honor”: Outdated Honor, Violent Emotions, and Reconstruction, 1865–1885
  • Conclusion: “Clean and White Record,” 1885
  • Appendix: Genealogical Table
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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