Marry Chesnut
(1823-1886) Mary was a South Carolinian high-society wife, and while she
had nothing to do with this trial, she did leave some comments about
southern life in her published diary that shed light on the lifestyle to
which Jane would have been subjected. Mary began her diary on February 18, 1861,
and ended it on June 26,
1865. She was an eyewitness to many historic events as she
accompanied her husband to significant sites of the Civil War. Although
she edited the diary during the 1870s and 1880s for publication, she
retained the sense of events unfolding without foreknowledge. She was
forthright about complex and fraught situations related to slavery,
particularly the abuses of sexuality and power. For instance, Chesnut
confronted the problem of white men fathering children with enslaved
women in their own extended households. Literary scholars have called
the Chesnut diary the most important work by a Confederate author. (From
Wikipidia)