The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-20
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

Ri6tidGOH Ol WOihohs ASA diary and of a type of life that made the south famous throughout the country as the home of hospitality.
 have always loved letters, memoriors and biography, for in them you find the stuff from which true history is made. have read much about war between the north and south written by the dry as-dust school of historians, and got very little idea of the awful conflict which ragged for four years save stories of battle.
 The thing I wanted and missed was the daily life of those who remained at home-what they thought, what they said, what they did. At last l got It out of "A Diary From Dixie" written by Mary Boykin Chestnut.
 The French have always excelled in giving the life intimate, but this vi- vacious, talented and beautiful woman set down her daily thoughts and actions in a way so charming and readable that it would be easy to believe that French blood flowed in her veins.
 
 I am busy man and have little time for professional reading, and such read ing is anything but pleasurable, and only prevents me from taking up con- genial books, but the other day care lessly picked up the above volume. and dipping here and there in it found it so fascinating that I just ate 1t up. It was published over score of years ago by Appleton.
 Its value comes from the fact that in it are vivid pictures of the social life that went on in the old south unin- terruptedly in the midst of war. It tells of the economic conditions that resulted from blockaded ports, and shows just how Germany and the neutral nations will be affected by this country's de- termination to see that no goods from our shores reach them.
 After more than ya half century it's interesting to look back and get the manner in which thes pirits of southern CTS rose and fell with each victory and defeat, from one who was in touch with the leaders who were pulling strings She began to write in Char.Ns n when the convention was passing the ordinance of secession Thence she went to Montgomery, where the Confederacy was organized and Jefferson Davis was in- augurated as it's President.
 But this is not all She was at Charles ia s,c hnat conveyed to Major Anderson the ulti- matum of the governor of South Caro- lima, and she actually saw from a house. top the first act of war committed in the bombardment of Fort sumter.
 During the ensuing your years Mrs Chestnut's time was mainly passed pe- tween Columbia and Richmond, For shorter periods shewas at the Fauqu1el White Sulphur Springs in Virginia, F'la1 Rock in North Carolina, Portland in Ala hama (the home of her motheo, Camden and Chester in South Carolina, and Lln- colnton in North Carolina. She tells as an eyewitness the tremendous things that were being staged at Charleston ! behind the scenes.
 1 The wife of James Chestnut, Jr.' | 1rnited States senator from South Caro- ! Iipa. 1s59-1S61, and afterwards an aide to I Jefferson Davis and a brigadier general lin the Confederate army. daughter o1 1 Stephen Decatur Miller, congressman governor and senator from South Caro- lima. she was in close touch with men and woraen who were in the forefront o1 l the social, military and political life oi the south. Marrying at the age of IT. I she was close to 40 years of age wher the wa, began, and thus had Hvec through the most stirring scenes in the ! controversies that led to it, thereby giy- ing to her narrative an added worth The preface to her wonderful revela' tions, for that is what they are, state' that those who live in her pages make up indeed a catalog of the Confeder acy-President Jefferson Davis, Vic' President Alexander Stephens, Gen. Rob I ert E. Lee. Gen. "Stonewalr' Jackson Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Gen. Pierre lG. T. Beauregard. Gen. Wade Hampton Gen. John E. Hood, Gen. Robert Toonlb ] and a whole raft of cabinet officers judges and preachers until one is read!
 to believe that she was central. for thu
 whole Confederacy. And she knew inti
 mately tho wives of the great men.
 
 As I read page after page envied he
 the opportunity she had at receptions
 or in her own home sitting on sofas witt
 Davis, Stephens, Lee Jackson an
 scores of others and listening to thei successes and defeats as they poure | them into her sympathetic ear. I knoy of no other woman who was the recip tent of so many secrets and stirrin incidents. I only met MT. Davis, jus once, and that for short while, on tn , streets of Jackson, Miss, with m brother, and I have treasured it eve since. I only met Mrs. Davis for lit | tie while in her own home, but thi
 woman was almost constantly with ther } during the four trying years and go ! glimpses of them truer than the outsid
 world could ever divine.
 The. diary is valuable. as has bee { pointed out. for perhaps nowhere els in the literature of the war will be foun tho southern spirit of that time es ? pressed in words which are not alon charming as literature. but genuinel ,, human in their spontaneousness. She o~so Tyoc :