American Historical Ephemera & Early Photography Online

Reply of Hon. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, To the Speech of Senator Douglas, In the U. S. Senate, May 16 and 17, 1860. Baltimore, MD: Murphy & Co. Booksellers Publishers Printers and Stationers.

16pp, on bifolium, approx. 6 1/4 x 9 1/2 in. Accompanied by free-franked cover signed "James Chesnut Jr., U.S.S." and addressed to John Wilson, Chester, SC.

James Chestnut Jr. (1815-1885) represented South Carolina in the US Senate from 1858-1860, when he resigned to participate in his state's secession convention. He served in the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States as well as in the Confederate States Army as a brigadier general. Notably, he was married to Mary Boykin Chesnut (1823-1886), who is famous for the publication of her diary spanning the years of the Civil War. The diary is her account of the events of the war from the perspective of a member of the upper crust of southern society, and as the wife of an important political leader involved in some of the poignant moments of the conflict.