Hey everyone, thanks for downloading episode 35 of our Civil War podcast.

My name is Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Welcome to the podcast.

Mary Boykin Chesna was the wife of James Chesna. In 1858, James had been elected a US

senator from South Carolina, but he resigned in December 1860 when South Carolina seceded

from the Union. In April of 1861, he was serving as an aide to Confederate Brigadier General

Borigard. In February 1861, Mary Chesna began chronicling her thoughts in a series of

diaries that she kept throughout most of the Civil War. The Chesna's moved in the very

highest circles of Southern society, so the diaries provide an inside look at the political

and social life of the South during the Civil War.

In April 1861, Mary witnessed the bombardment of Fort Sumter. In her Charleston hotel room,

she heard the opening shot. Her entry for April 12 reads in part, quote,

�I do not pretend to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept terms at four, the

orders are he shall be fired upon. I count four, St. Michael's bells chime out and I begin

to hope. At half past four, the heavy booming of a cannon. I spring out of bed and on my

knees prostrate, I prayed as I never prayed before."

Mary then went to the roof of her hotel, joining other excited Charleston residents who rushed

out into the pre-don darkness to watch the Confederate battery shell Fort Sumter.

Out at Fort Sumter, after Mary Chesna's husband James and another of Borigard's aides,

Stephen Lee, had informed Major Robert Anderson that the Confederate batteries would open

fire shortly, Anderson had told his officers and men that the fort would not begin to return

fire until after sunrise. Sumter's defenders could accomplish little until then anyway,

...