War

War reports--both fact and fiction--have fascinated people since the first warriors and bards that sat around campfires. Not all war literature is based on firsthand experiences, so some comes out of peoples? imaginations. One of America?s most prominent war novelists, Stephen Crane, wrote about war before he ever saw battle. Crane?s short novel The Red Badge of Courage, about a young soldier?s reactions to fear during a major Civil War battle, was …

…also include diaries, though not always the personal writing of soldiers. Mary Chesnut, wife of Confederate general James Chesnut, kept a diary about how war affected the daily life of people in the South: from ordinary people to generals and political figures, like Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Her diary was first published as Diary from Dixie, and her words and observations were used extensively in Ken Rurns?s documentary The Civil War.