He states that the South cannot win a protracted war purely through the exhibition of pride and notes how the North is better equipped, industrially superior, has a larger population, and able to produce weapons of war quickly having learned this from his own personal visits to the northern states. Most of them boast of how the South will surely win the war but one gentleman, Rhett Butler ( Clark Gable), a visitor from Charleston, South Carolina, disagrees. All the young women go inside for an afternoon nap while the men meet in the parlor for cigars and brandy. At the picnic Scarlett flirts shamelessly with other beaux despite her willful obsession for Ashley. Mammy is more willful than Scarlett and finally gets her to comply, though Scarlett wins the fight over what dress she will wear. Scarlett refuses to eat and also insists on wearing her favorite dress with a plunging neckline, hoping to attract attention from the single men (beaux) at the party. While she prepares for the party her servant, Mammy ( Hattie McDaniel), walks in with a large tray of food meant for Scarlett to eat so she won't eat at the picnic. Scarlett pines for Wilkes' son, Ashley ( Leslie Howard), a lanky, soft-spoken young man of refined bearing, though he doesn't reciprocate her feelings. Neighbor John Wilkes ( Howard Hickman) hosts a barbecue party at his Twelve Oaks plantation. She runs off to meet her father who is riding home through the fields. Scarlett finds the latter topic boring and is certain that there will be no war. The Tarletons speculate the impending war between the North and the South due to the recent attack on Fort Sumter. The brothers anticipate the next ball and hope Scarlett will choose one of them to attend the ball. Scarlett spends her days having fun, tormenting the household servants, and flirting, especially with twins Brent and Stuart Tarleton ( Fred Crane, George Reeves). He and his wife, Ellen ( Barbara O'Neil), have three beautiful daughters Suellen ( Evelyn Keyes), Carreen ( Ann Rutherford), and the headstrong 16-year-old Scarlett ( Vivien Leigh). The film opens in Tara, a cotton plantation owned by the proud Gerald O'Hara ( Thomas Mitchell), a self-made man of Irish descent, in the Confederate state of Georgia near Atlanta.The synopsis below may give away important plot points. After becoming a widow for the second time, she finally marries the dashing Rhett but they soon find themselves working at cross-purposes, their relationship seemingly doomed from the outset.

She has becomes hardened and bitter and will do anything, including marrying her sister's beau, to ensure she will never again be poor and hungry. With the war lost however, she returns to Tara and faces the hardship of keeping her family together and Tara from being sold at auction to collect the taxes. Now a widow, she still pines for the married Ashley and dreams of his return. She also becomes re-acquainted with Rhett Butler, whom she had first met at the Wilkes barbecue. Now living in Atlanta, Scarlett sees the ravages that war brings. War is soon declared and as always seems to be the case, men march off to battle thinking that it will only last a few weeks.

She is more than a little dismayed when she hears that he is to marry his cousin Melanie Hamilton and in a fit of anger, she decides to marry Melanie's brother. She is very much looking forward to a barbecue at the nearby Wilkes plantation as she will get to see the man she loves, Ashley Wilkes. As for the young Scarlett, she is without doubt the most beautiful girl in the area and is always the belle of the ball.

Before the start of the war life at the O'Hara plantation, Tara, could only be described as genteel. This tale of the Old South from the start of the Civil War through to the period of reconstruction focuses on the beautiful Scarlett O'Hara.

Leaf on the wind shirt