That, he said, was based on a Mrs.
Hanes, who delivered a baby during
the Battle of Jonesboro. She was
driven away in a wagon, just as
Melanie had been.
“So much of Mitchell’s story was
true,” Bonner said, “that after the
novel came out, the local people
went around asking each other:
‘Who are you in the book?’”
I love bits of historical gossip, so I
was pleased to learn that the famous
“Doc” Holliday of OK Corral was a
cousin of Mitchell’s – and very likely
the model for Ashley Wilkes. Like
Ashley, “Doc” was in love with his
cousin Melanie, but the Catholic
church forbade the marriage. So
Melanie became a nun and “Doc”
headed West, never to marry.
Perhaps that’s why Mitchell allowed
Ashley to marry his Melanie – and to
continue loving her after death.
I learned that while there is no Tara
in Georgia (the “real” Tara was in
Ireland), the old Fitzgerald
plantation did exist, where, as
Mitchell wrote, “the earth is so red,
it could be scarlet.”
The tumbledown Southern-style
wooden mansion was owned by
Mitchell’s grandparents, the county’s
largest landowners and slave owners.
After my time in Jonesboro, I visited
the Atlanta Cyclorama, where the
battle of Atlanta plays out at
regular intervals throughout the day.
Viewed from a revolving platform,
the panoramic painting that’s 42
feet high and 358 feet in
circumference is a dramatic
representation of the fierce struggle
between the troops of General John
Hood and General Sherman.
With music and narration, as well as
a diorama of 128 figures, a cannon,
trees and railroad tracks, the battle
vividly comes to life. (Some
historians say that, for the most
part, Mitchell’s account of the
battle may be the most accurate one
on record.)
My pilgrimage ended with a visit to the
Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta.
The centerpiece of this complex is
the tiny apartment – Mitchell called
it “The Dump” – where she lived with
her second husband, John Marsh.
Here, while laid up with arthritis in
her ankles and feet, she began what
her friends jokingly called “the great
American novel,” using stories of the
war (Southerners called it “the war
of the Northern Aggression”) that
her elders had told while she was
growing up.
The original manuscript of Mitchell’s
1,037-page novel was five feet tall.
Though the Remington typewriter
she used is in the Atlanta Library,
along with the Pulitzer Prize she
received for the novel, the corner
146
where she worked is re-created here,
even to the towel she used to cover
her work because she was too
insecure to let anyone see it.
The book sold one million copies in
the four months after publication,
no small feat with a cover price of
$3, a substantial sum in Depressionera America.
Producer David O. Selznick paid
$50,000 for the movie rights, top
dollar at the time. He gave Mitchell
ALL PHOTOS BY LEAH WALKER.
Vivian Leigh
as Scarlett
O’Hara in
Gone