Outside Atlanta, as Rhett and Scarlett see the decimated Southern army in retreat, he feels ashamed and resolves to join them for their last stand. Though he thinks that Scarlett is crazy when she insists upon returning to Tara, he risks his life to drive the women and the infant through the now-burning city. After the baby is born, Scarlett sends her maid Prissy for Rhett, who reluctantly arrives with a frightened horse and a wagon. Because Melanie's labor is difficult and the doctor is too busy attending wounded soldiers to come to her aid, Scarlett must attend her alone.

When Aunt Pitty leaves for Charleston, Scarlett desperately wants to go with her, but remembers her promise to Ashley, and remains with Melanie. Melanie goes into labor as Atlantans leave the city before Northern troops arrive. Before he returns to the front, Ashley tells Scarlett that the South is losing the war and asks her to stay by the pregnant Melanie.

Atlanta is now suffering the privation of a long siege, but the women manage to give Ashley a small Christmas feast. As the war rages, Melanie and Scarlett receive word that Ashley will be returning home on a Christmas leave.

Rhett, who has become a successful blockade runner, continues to see Scarlett over the next few months and brings her presents from his European trips. At an Atlanta fundraising bazaar, Scarlett is so bored watching other girls dance, that when Rhett bids for her in a dance auction, she enthusiastically leads the Virginia Reel with him, oblivious to the outrage of the shocked local matrons. Her understanding mother Ellen decides to let her go to Atlanta to stay with Melanie and her Aunt Pittypat, hoping that Scarlett will feel less restless there. Some time later, Scarlett receives word that Charles has died of the measles, and she is forced to don widow's black clothing and refrain from going to the parties she loves. Just after Ashley and Melanie marry, Scarlett and Charles marry as well, delighting Melanie, who tells Scarlett that now they will truly be sisters. Later, when news arrives that war has broken out between the North and the South, Scarlett is stunned to see Ashley kiss Melanie goodbye as he leaves to enlist, and in a daze accepts the impulsive proposal of Melanie's brother Charles. She is angry at his seeming indifference to the seriousness of her feelings for Ashley and annoyed by his frank appreciation of her physical beauty. When he leaves, Scarlett angrily throws a vase and is startled to discover Rhett Butler, a notorious rogue from Charleston, who has been lying unnoticed on a couch the entire time. He says that he will marry Melanie because they are alike, but leads Scarlett to believe that he loves her instead of Melanie. Her father later confirms the news when he returns home to Tara, the O'Hara plantation, and advises Scarlett to forget about the serious-minded Ashley, because “like should marry like.” At the barbeque, Scarlett acts coquettish with all of the young men, hoping to make Ashley jealous, then, during an afternoon rest, sneaks into the library to see him.

When the twins reveal the “secret” that Ashley Wilkes is planning to marry his cousin Melanie Hamilton from Atlanta, Scarlett refuses to believe it because she is in love with Ashley herself. She much prefers to have beaux like Brent and Stuart Tarleton talk about the next day's barbecue at Twelve Oaks, the neighboring Wilkes plantation. In 1861, Scarlett O'Hara, the headstrong sixteen-year-old daughter of wealthy Georgia plantation-owner Gerald O'Hara, is sick of hearing talk about going to war with the North.

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