First Day of Issue Civil War Stamp Cache Envelope and Enclosure Mary Chestnut C

Description: First Day of Issue Civil War Stamp Cache Envelope and Enclosure Mary Chestnut Civil War Classic Collection 32¢ Gettysburg PA June 29 1995 Mary Boykin Miller Chestnut Mary Boykin Miller (1823-18861 was the daughter of a former governor of South Carolina and was born into the tightly interwoven and insular social circle that produced most of the South's prominent military and civil leaders of her lifetime. She was married at the age of only 17 to James Chestnut, a wealthy Princeton-educated lawyer and son of one of the state's largest landowners With her aristocratic husband at her side, the couple conceived of little that was not within their political, social and/or economic realm of possibility He was elected to the United States Senate in 1858, but abruptly resigned his seat upon Lincoln's election two years later. The former congressman went on to serve the Confederacy as a congressman, Army staff officer, and alle to President Jefferson Davis. At the side of her husband in . Washington, Richmond, Charleston and Montgomery, Mary Chestnut, a perennial hostess who entertained constantly despite wartime privations, was at the vortex of Southern politics and society. "It was a way I had, always, to stumble in on the real show," she reflected some two decades after the conflict between the states was ended. She was in a perfect position to become the Civil War's most famous diarist, which she began in February of 1861. She embarked on the detailed undertaking the very month that South Carolina seceded from the Union. A talented writer who had received a rigorous classical education, Chestnut approached her task with the scrupulous eye of a historian. conscious that her unique perspective as a witness might "at some future day afford facts about these times and prove useful to more important people." Over the course of the war, she filled 50 copybooks with compelling accounts of domestic and public events as well as ingenious sketches of such Southern heroes as Stonewall Jackson (a one idea man" and Robert E. Lee ("so cold and quiet and grand" ) Although she and her husband were staunchly loyal to the South, she refused to romanticize her homeland, deploring above all institution of slavery, which she depicted in brutally candid terms and proclaimed the concept as "monstrous." During the entire ordeal of the war between the states she kept her lap desk handy. With its exterior of inlaid mother-of- and interior of gold embossed leather, she detailed the daily events of pearl and the confrontations and the powerful people she knew only too well. She closed the diary on August 2, 1865, and from then until her death in 1886, worked to edit the 400,000-word manuscript into publishable form A much shortened version was brought out by her literary heirs in 1905, as A Diary from Dixie. Today, historians regard the subsequent, more complete edition originally published in 1949, as one of the finest literary works of its time, and treasure its vivid picture of the South in wartime as a rich source of detail and insight into not only the events, but more particularly the personalities of the South. The design of the stamp (Scott 29750) pictures Chestnut at a residential desk as she writes in a bound volume, much like the ones she utilized to record the daily events and the resulting moods, she covered so adroitly. Our cachet design is our original art and is more like a sitting portrait than an action shot, and comes from a photograph that we believe to have been taken after she had completed the diary. Here she sits in an open window, with window drapes off her right shoulder and trees and landscaping in the background, hinting only slightly of her financial and social standing. You will note that Sharon has painted all the covers in this set of 17, with me adding only airbrush highlights to some of them, I think she did an outstanding job and we're very pleased with the end result. Features: • First Day of Issue Stamp Cache Envelope and Enclosure • Made in USA Condition: Pre-Owned Good

Price: 14.95 USD

Location: Humble, Texas

End Time: 2024-12-20T15:15:21.000Z

Shipping Cost: 4.25 USD