"A Diary From Dixie" is a Civil War diary which paints a "vivid picture of a society in the throes of its life-and-death struggle." The author described the war from within her upper-class circles of Southern planter society, but encompassed all classes in her book. Literary critics have praised Chesnut's diary. The influential writer Edmund Wilson termed it "a work of art", "masterpiece" of the genre and the most important work by a Confederate author.