Scarlett O’Hara, sixteen, was the most popular belle in Clayton County, Georgia, where her family’s plantation, Tara, was
located. The daughter of fiery Gerald O’Hara and Ellen Robillard O’Hara, Scarlett had her father’s courage and temper, which her genteel mother and her slave Mammy tried to "refine."
The best families in the county were invited to nearby Twelve Oaks plantation for Ashley Wilkes’s birthday party in April, 1861, when talk concerned whether the South would secede from the Union. Ashley announced his engagement to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. When Scarlett told Ashley she loved him, he said that Wilkeses always married cousins. Scarlett later realized that Rhett Butler, a scoundrel from Charleston, had been eavesdropping.
Upset by Ashley’s rejection, Scarlett accepted the proposal of Melanie’s brother, Charles. The party dissolved in chaos at the announcement that Union troops had fired on Fort Sumter. Both weddings occurred immediately, so that the men could go fight for the Confederacy. Charles became ill and died in the army leaving Scarlett pregnant with their son, Wade Hampton. Scarlett then
went to stay with Melanie at her Aunt Pittypat’s in Atlanta, where the two young women nursed sick and wounded soldiers, a task Scarlett hated. Rhett Butler, now a blockade runner, frequently visited the women.
As Union soldiers shelled Atlanta, Melanie went into labor, and Scarlett had to deliver the baby. Then she, Melanie, the baby, and their slave Prissy escaped the burning city, aided by Rhett Butler, who left them to join the Confederate army. Scarlett went to Tara, where she found her mother dead, her sisters sick, her father insane (he was later killed in a fall from his horse), most of the slaves
gone, and the food and money stolen by Union soldiers. Most of the neighboring plantations had been burned.
Scarlett’s family, with the help of Mammy, Pork, and Dilcey, their former slaves, scrounged for food and farmed. When a Yankee soldier came into the house to pillage, Scarlett killed him. Other Union soldiers tried to burn Tara, but Scarlett and Melanie extinguished the fire.
The war ended, and Ashley returned from a Northern prison camp. He helped farm, as did a wounded soldier the O’Haras had nursed back to health. The Yankees had burned their cotton, however, and their work did not yield enough to pay the high taxes.
Scarlett learned that Rhett Butler was in jail because the Yankees thought he had illicit money from blockade running. She had Mammy make her a dress from the drapes and went to Atlanta to try to persuade him to give her the money. He said he could not get to it. She ran into Frank Kennedy, her sister Suellen’s fiancé. Realizing that if Suellen married him she would send none of his money to Tara, Scarlett got him to marry her instead by lying about Suellen’s engagement to someone else. Frank and Scarlett had a daughter, Ella.
Scarlett bought a sawmill with money secretly borrowed from Rhett Butler, and managed her own affairs. Frank and other citizens of Atlanta were appalled that a lady would transact business. Scarlett had even picked cotton to save Tara, however, and was determined never to be poor again. She also brought Ashley to Atlanta to run a second mill.
One night as Scarlett drove her buggy to check on her mills, she was attacked by freed slaves. One of her family’s former slaves saved her, but that night, Frank and his friends went to avenge her. Frank was killed and Ashley injured. The Union occupation troops came to find Frank and the others, but Rhett Butler lied, saying they had been with him at a brothel and that Frank had been killed in a duel. Belle Watling, the madam, vouched for the men, saving them from hanging.
Rhett Butler proposed to Scarlett; they married, honeymooned in New Orleans, and built an enormous house. Rhett treated Scarlett like a spoiled child. When she became pregnant and contemplated an abortion, however, he was furious. So Scarlett had the baby. Rhett adored his daughter, Bonnie Blue, and began to behave more respectably so that she would later be received into society.
One day, as Melanie planned a birthday party for Ashley, Scarlett went to the sawmill to discuss business. They began reminiscing about the way things were before the war. As they commiserated, Ashley’s sister and two other people came in and saw them embracing. Melanie refused to believe the gossip and asked Scarlett to receive guests with her at the party.
Scarlett and Rhett had a miserable marriage. Scarlett used a separate bedroom because she did not want more children. Rhett often visited Belle Watling. The night after Scarlett was caught in Ashley’s arms, Rhett forced her to have sex with him, although she was ready to reconcile with him the following morning. Scarlett became pregnant again, but miscarried during a fight with Rhett. She almost died, and Rhett was overcome with guilt and worry.
After Scarlett recovered, she and Rhett returned to their bickering. They argued over the raising of Bonnie, whom Rhett indulged. When the pony he bought the child threw her and killed her, Scarlett blamed Rhett, and he blamed himself. His grief almost destroyed him, and their marriage lost its only tie.
Melanie, who had never been healthy, died after a miscarriage. On her deathbed, she asked Scarlett to take care of Ashley and their son, Beau. She also said, "Captain Butler—be kind to him. He—loves you so." Finally, Scarlett realized that her love for Ashley was just an old habit, and that she loved her own husband. When she got home, however, Rhett was leaving her. As he left, she repeated her response to almost every crisis: "I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara."