The Man Who Started the Civil War – James Chesnut, Honor, and Emotion in the Am…

The Man Who Started the Civil WarJames Chesnut, Honor, and Emotion in the American South\nAuthor(s): Anna Koivusalo\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: University of South Carolina Press, United States\nImprint: University of South Carolina Press\nISBN-13: 9781643363042, 978-1643363042\nSynopsis\nA 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 Sumterthe 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.