A plantation mistress on the eve of the Civil War : the diary of Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins Brevard, 1860-1861 /

Keziah Brevard, a childless widow in her late 50s, had her hands full running two large South Carolina plantations, a smaller farm, and a house in nearby Columbia. Nevertheless, she was a successful businesswoman and planter who managed to increase her land, slave holdings, and agricultural production during the 1850s. Her daily involvement with her overseer, slaves, and crops necessarily occupied her thoughts and many pages of her diary, but she did comment occasionally on the political rumblings in South Carolina (especially in early 1861), usually expressing foreboding about the coming storm. More comfortable on her farms than in the social whirl of Columbia, Brevard looked at the secession crisis from the periphery rather than from the center (unlike two more famous women diarists, Mary Chesnut and Emma Holmes). A genealogical chart identifying the many people mentioned in the diary, a map, photographs, and two appendixes complement the editor's excellent introduction, explanatory footnotes, and epilogue. Advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty. R. G. Lowe; University of North Texas

This diary by a 57-year-old widowed South Carolina plantation owner vividly evokes the mundane concerns of the antebellum plantation period as well as events leading up to the fall of Fort Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War. Skillfully edited by Moore, a chronicler of South Carolina's history and society, the book is the sixth in the publisher's series of diaries and letters by 19th-century Southern women. Keziah's account of her stewardship of a large plantation and her reports on crops, wine-making and weather reflect a keen mind and a capable, independent though spiritually tormented character. Significant, also, are her observations about many of her 200 slaves whose hostility, with the exception of a few favorites, she deplores and whom she considers for the most part a ``multitude of half barbarians . . . not prepared for the freedom'' advocated by ``the rabble of the North.'' Photos not seen by PW. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved