The Man Who Started the Civil War: James Chesnut, Honor, and Emotion in the American South

by Anna Koivusalo

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643363066
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	06/20/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Anna Koivusalo is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki and a former visiting Fulbright scholar both at the University of South Carolina and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

List of Abbreviations xiii

Introduction: "The Many-Sided Jewel" 1

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 17

Chapter 2 "A World Completely Ideal": Love and Honor, 1836-1858 43

Chapter 3 "We Must Try to Steer Our Little Ship with Honor and Safety": Honor, Emotion, and Politics, 1836-1858 68

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 99

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 135

Chapter 6 "The Old Legion of Honor": Outdated Honor, Violent Emotions, and Reconstruction, 1865-1885 182

Conclusion: "Clean and White Record," 1885 209

Appendix: Genealogical Table 215

Notes 219

Bibliography 261

Index 281

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

It is simultaneously a fine narrative of Chesnut's political journey from unionist to secessionist; a nuanced look at the cultural expectations Southern honor played in mapping that journey; and a deeply intimate study of the ways Chesnut tailored his emotions to navigate between 'raw' and 'honorable' expressions of Southern manhood. A fresh perspective long overdue.

— John Mayfield, author of Counterfeit Gentlemen: Manhood and Honor in the Old South

In this compelling study, Anna Koivusalo takes James Chesnut—South Carolina politician, secessionist, and Confederate officer—as a subject in his own right. No longer a lurker in the diary made famous by his wife Mary, James emerges as an actor whose efforts to manage his emotions by appealing to honor's dictates tells us a great deal about how mid-nineteenth century Americans experienced and understood their feelings. In so doing, The Man Who Started the Civil War offers new ways of thinking about questions that have long animated the field

— Sarah Gardner, Distinguished University Professor of History, Mercer University

Anna Koivusalo has made a wholly original contribution to South Carolina history with the first full-length biography of James Chesnut, one of the state's most surprisingly neglected nineteenth-century luminaries. Moreover, by braiding the analysis of honor and emotion she has reinvigorated the study of southern honor and demonstrated the enduring value of emotions as a lens for historical analysis.

— Michael E. Woods, Author of Arguing until Doomsday: Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and the Struggle for American Democracy

Anna Koivusalo's book fairly bristles with exciting ideas about the intersection of honor and emotion across multiple planes in the Old South. Impressive research and innovative analysis yield a close understanding of the vexing, important South Carolina politician James Chesnut Jr. and the world that shaped him. This is a valuable, judicious biography and much more. The Man Who Started the Civil War advances the scholarly conversation on important problems with clarity and insight.

— Lawrence McDonnell, Author of Performing Disunion: The Coming of the Civil War in Charleston, South Carolina

Editorial Reviews

Koivusalo brings Chesnut's lost world to life. Her work is academic in the best sense of the word: analytic, revelatory, and innovative... The Man Who Started the Civil War is, like its subject, a complex work that demands serious attention. Readers picking up the book with this frame of mind will be well rewarded.

— Civil War Book Review

Koivusalo's biography and analysis of James Chesnut in the context of the wider South is a valuable addition to the study of southern culture.

— Journal of Southern History

From the Publisher