I would love to have everyones feedback on this. I thought it might be nice if we as devoted GWTW fans got together and settled upon a timeline for main events in GWTW. this is what I have come up with so far. If you see anything that you know is wrong, please tell me and I will happily correct it. This might not be the right place to post this, but I thought it was the only place that I knew of that I could get feedback from people who know what they are talking about. This is adapted from another website, I found discrepancies between it and the text, so those errors have been corrected. I have read both Scarlett and Rhett Butler's People, and although they are authorized, at very least I know that some of Rhett's parts do not line up with Gone With the Wind. Such as it says that Charles died 6 months after being married when MM clearly says that Scarlett was married and Widowed within 2 months. of the barbeque at Twelve Oaks. I've included some points of question at the bottom. And I love the thought of this being a place where we can all share details and facts(Tam. such as your floor plan)
1801 Gearld O'Hara is born in Ireland
1802 Sarah Jane Hamilton (Aunt Pittypat) is born
1828 Rhett is born 3
1829 Ellen Robillard are born
1836 April 16th- Ashley Wilkes is born 4.
1844 Ellen married Gerald
Melanie Wilkes is born
1845 Katie Scarlett O' Hara is born 5.
1860
November 6 - Lincoln wins Presidential Election.
December 20 - South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1861
January 19 - Georgia secedes.
February 4 - Georgia and five other Southern states form the Confederate States of America. Five others join later.
February 18 - Jefferson Davis inaugurated as President of the Confederate States.
March 4 - Lincoln inaugurated.
April 12 - The Southern forces in Charleston fire on Fort Sumter. The War Between the States has begun.
April 16 Barbecue at Twelve Oaks
April 30th Scarlett and Charles marry
May 1st Melanie and Ashley's wedding
May 6th Charles goes to war
May 20th Clayton County regiment goes to war
June 15th Charles Dies of pneumonia
July 21 - Union Army routed at Bull Run.
1862
Early February Wade Hampton Hamilton is born
Winter - The Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac are in a face-off in Virginia. The hardships of life in the field take a toll
April 6th and 7th- Grant narrowly wins at Shiloh (the bloodiest day thus far in the war).
June 24th (approx) -The Northern blockade is forcing a shortage of everything in the South. At a fundraiser for the troops, Rhett bids a fortune to dance with Scarlett. 5.
September 17 - McClellan 'wins' at Antietam. (the heaviest combat loss of American life in any single day ever)
September 23 - Lincoln announces the Emancipation Proclamation effective January 1st 1863.
October
1863
July 1, 2 and 3 - Meade beats Lee at Gettysburg. Scarlett searches the casualty lists for Ashley's name.
July 4 - Vicksburg falls to Grant.
November 23 to 25 - Grant and Sherman clear Chattanooga of Confederates
December 21st, 1863 (4 days before Christmas) - Ashley (along with Cade Calvert and the Fontaine boys) returns home on leave weary and disillusioned.
1864
May 3 - Grant begins his advance toward Richmond. A day later Yankees under Sherman are attacking into Georgia.
September 2 - Atlanta falls to Sherman. The departing Confederates torch the supplies in the city as part of a "scorched earth" policy, intending to leave nothing but cinders for the occupying Union troops. Beauregard Wilkes is born. Ellen Robillard O'Hara dies.
Scarlett returns to Tara. Rhett joins the Confederate Army.
November 16 - Sherman begins his 'march to the sea'. Atlanta is left a smoldering ruin.
November - Rhett fights in the Battle of Franklin (TN).
November - A Union deserter arrives at Tara intent on loot. He then menaces Scarlett, who shoots and kills him.
December 22 - Sherman takes Savannah, cables Lincoln that he presents the city to the North "as a Christmas present".
Dec 24th, Frank Kennedy and the commissary spend the night at Tara
1865
February 17 - Sherman advances into South Carolina. Columbia is burned.
April - 8th -Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox, VA.; 18th - Johnston surrenders to Sherman in Durham, NC. War ends. More than 600,000 Americans lost their lives in the war - ten times the number that would die in Vietnam a century later.
April 14 - Lincoln assassinated
Ashley returns to Tara and to Melanie.
1866
January Jonas Wilkerson, the sleazy former overseer who has prospered under the carpetbaggers, offers to buy Tara so Scarlett can pay the 300 in taxes she owes.
February or late January Scarlett marries Frank Kennedy, a successful merchant, for his money.
June 1866 Gerald O'Hara dies after breaking his neck falling from a horse after Suellen tries to coerce him into signing the ironclad oath.
Mid October 1866- Ella Lorena is born 7.
December Rhett visits Scarlett and sees Ella for the first time.
1867
Radicals in Congress impose a punitive reconstruction on the South. Yankee troops occupy Georgia.
March Ashley, Frank and others stage a vigilante raid on the shantytown. Ashley is wounded and Frank is killed.
1868
The South is making a painful economic recovery.
September Scarlett and Rhett are married. He offers to spend a fortune to restore Tara, in addition the build an ostentacious mansion in Atlanta. 2.
1869
June 1869 Bonnie is born
1870s
April 1871 Atlanta is scandalized by India catching Scarlett and Ashley in an embrace.
The same night Rhett makes love to Scarlett 1.
July 1871 Scarlett falls down the stairs and miscarries
August 1871 Scarlett returns to Tara
September 1871 Scarlett returns to Atlanta. 6.
1873
July or August1873 Bonnie is killed in a riding accident.
September (really no specific times given) Melanie dies.
Scarlett realizes that she really doesn't love Ashley—it's been Rhett all along—and rushes home to tell him so. It's too late.
September 18: The panic of 1873 begins with the failure of a Wall Street banking firm, spreads to the stock exchange, and eventually leads to widespread unemployment.
1874
Fall: The political tide has finally turned in the Democrats' favor; they win control of Congress as stories of black political corruption, continued Southern violence, and a terrible economic depression occupy public attention.
1875
March 1: As one of its last acts, the Republican-led Congress passes the Civil Rights Bill of 1875, prohibiting segregation in public facilities. The law will stand only until 1883, when the U.S. Supreme Court will strike it down.
1877
March 4: Following a bitterly disputed presidential contest between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, in which both candidates claim victory, Hayes is declared president. In a back-room political deal, the Republicans agree to abandon Reconstruction policies in exchange for the presidency.
Reconstruction policies officially end. The South codifies and enforces segregation. Violations of black civil rights will not command national attention again until after World War II.
"Tomorrow is another day"
1877
Reconstruction ends.
1. The book mentions that until she was two that Bonnie slept in the nursery. But then sometimes when she was two she became afraid of the dark. So although I had originally dated the events of April(Ashely's party) to be in 1871, and then I moved it to 1872, I now feel that is more accurate to place them in 1871
Marrying barely a year after Frank's death and she had killed him! so I am probably too early. But they announced their engagemant on the week after
A line from the book to back up 1871: "As she looked about her, that Christmas of 1871..., she was disquieted." from end ch58. Nothing happens in 1872, and in Ch59 Bonnie is four and running wild.
2.
A week before Scarlett and Rhett announced their engagement, an election for governor had been held. The Southern Democrats had General John B. Gordon, one of Georgia's best loved and most honored citizens, as their candidate. Opposing him was a Republican named Bullock. The election had lasted three days instead of one. Trainloads of negroes had been rushed from town to town, voting at every precinct along the way. Of course, Bullock had won.
This actually can be dated to September of 1869, so really it probably isn't quite accurate, but its as much as I can gather from the story
3. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five.
or He was in his mid-thirties, older than any beau she had ever had, and she was as helpless as a child to control and handle him as she had handled beaux nearer her own age. two years later
It all depends upon whether you go by the supposition of his age at Scarlett's first glance or also where you range for mid thirties...
But I am more likely to lean to the fact that he was 33 at the start, making the year of his birth as 1828 but thats just my imho
4. Ashley's age is never disclosed. But here is what I detemined and posted at Wikipedia
He is obviously older than Scarlett and Melanie who are 16 and 17 respectively at the beginning of the story which from what I can tell begins onf April 15th, 1861.
His sister India is 20 at the beginning and Ashley has already spent three years on his Grand tour in Europe, and he has already been home for 2 years. Most likely he had spent 4 years at a university, which he most likely started at, at the age of 16. So that would probably put him at 24 or 25 at the beginning.
I just went back through the novel to see if there were any other indicators of Ashley's age and I could find none. But I fairly certain that the age of 24 or 25 is a safe guess. TO be fair at the beinning he was in his mid twenties.
By the end of the novel, which by my research end somewhere in the latter hald of 1873, he would have been about 37 or 38.
His birthday coincides with the Barbeque at Twelve Oaks right before they hear that they are going to war on April 16th.
5. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in three counties, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years. 1861 - 16 1845.
However as Cornorama points out
In the book Scarlett is initially attracted to Atlanta because they share the "same" birth year,
The story Gerald had told her was based on the fact that she and Atlanta were christened in the same year. In the nine years before Scarlett was born, the town had been called, first, Terminus and then Marthasville, and not until the year of Scarlett's birth had it become Atlanta.
The town was incorporated on December 29th, 1847 before that Terminus was 1837 Marthasville was 1843 Finally becoming the City of Atlanta in 1847 which would put her at fourteen in the beginning of the book or else MM's dates for Atlanta were off.
5. last one, for the bazaar, Scarlett is watching everyone go off to gather woodland declarations for the bazaar Mitchell says "Scarlett sat in the window of her bedroom that midsummer morning and disconsolately watched the wagons and carriages full of girls, soldiers and chaperons ride gaily out Peachtree road in search of woodland decorations for the bazaar which was to be held that evening for the benefit of the hospitals."
If Mitchell means Midsummer literally, then the date is somewhere on or close to June 24th.
Further evidence that that could be the date comes in why the melly and Scarlett are present at the bazaar.
Scarlett and Melly are there because Dallas Mclure was injured in VA and his sisters went to fetch him home. There were two battles GA troops were present for in VA during that period, June 8th and 9th, 1862. True Dallas could have just randomly been shot, but if it was during battle that would be it till later in the month.
6. there are mentions of the Governor Bullouck scandal, and he resigned in 1871 -thanks to CaptScarlett.
7. Archie appeared when Ella was three weeks old. And then later in discussing that same day: Yes, thought Scarlett, sitting on the side porch in the pale November sunshine with the baby on her lap, he is one of Melanie's lame dogs. And he's really lame, at that!
