Read My Old Confederate Home Online
Authors: Rusty Williams
My Old Confederate Home (37 page)
2.
Minutes, May 7, 1919.
3.
For a more detailed description of the 1908 fire (including extant equipment and procedures), see
Messenger
2, no. 1 (October 1908). See also
Stanford (Ky.) Interior Journal
, October 13, 1908, and
Hartford (Ky.) Herald
, October 14, 1908.
4.
Minutes, August 29, 1917.
5.
San Francisco:
New York Times
, September 5, 1915. Chicago:
New York Times
, December 28, 1923. Quebec:
New York Times
, October 27, 1916.
6.
Ripley,
Unthinkable
, helped me make sense of the confusing (and dangerous) behavior of people in the Home that evening.
7.
Interview by author with Bill Herdt Jr., July 11, 2006.
8.
The story of Ida Ochsner is from
Hartford (Ky.) Herald
, July 10, 1912.
9.
Biographical information on Jones is from Susan Reedy and Jones's application to the Home, KDLA.
10.
Coincidentally, the
Courier-Journal
Sunday rotogravure section had already gone to press with a lengthy article about the history of the Louisville Fire Department, accompanied by a great photo of the department's massive new American LaFrance motor-driven, motor-pumping fire engine. See it at
C-J
, March 28, 1920.
11.
Some Pewee Valley locals say that the American LaFrance pumper was mounted on a railcar for the trip to Pewee Valley. I find no evidence of that being the case. Instead, it's more likely that the disabled behemoth was
returned
to Louisville on a flatbed railcar for repairs.
12.
C-J
, March 27, 1920.
13.
C-J
, March 28, 1920.
14.
Louisville Herald
, March 29, 1920.
15.
C-J
, March 27, 1920.
16.
C-J
, April 8, 1920, and Minutes, April 9, 1920.
17.
Letter from Commandant Daughtry to Executive Committee, Board of Trustees, July 31, 1920.
18.
Plans described in
C-J
, June 22, 1920. See also Minutes, April 9, 1920, and Minutes of the Twenty-fourth Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1920, KyHS.
14. The Reverend and the Rector
1.
Minutes, May 7, 1919.
2.
The nurse story is in the letter from Commandant C. L. Daughtry to Board of Trustees, September 5, 1920. In the same letter he writes that inmates are conspiring with employees to disregard his orders. His letter to Board of Trustees, July 31, 1920, expresses annoyance at Woodbury's oversight. The letters are appended to Minutes.
3.
Minutes, April 9, 1920.
4.
C-J
, March 28, 1920.
5.
A direct transcript of Leathers's hearing is in Minutes, April 9, 1920.
6.
Minutes of the Twenty-fourth Annual Convention, Kentucky UDC, Winter 1920, KyHS.
7.
The Woodbury, Stone, and Crowe information (including direct quotes) are recorded in Minutes, April 9, 1920.
8.
White had a habit of writing lengthy “apologies” when charged with some infraction at the Home. (Most other inmates offered a verbal apology to the commandant or board.) One of White's apologies is a ten-page justification, including a detailed autobiography, from which the quotes in this section are taken. The apology is undated, but it appears White had been charged with having spoken in a cross manner to a matron. Only on the final page does he apologize for having “had the temerity to ask a very simple question.” KyHS.
9.
A. N. White, obituary for H. H. Hockersmith,
ConVet
20, no. 7 (July 1912): 334.
10.
Minutes, May 7, 1919.
11.
Louisville Times
, August 5, 1921.
12.
Contents of the dossier are described in an article in the
Louisville Herald
, June 7, 1921.
13.
Louisville Times
, June 7, 1921.
14.
Louisville Times
, August 10, 1921. According to Federal Census records, Imogene Nall was born to William E. and Emma Nall of Meade County in 1898. She was still living with both parents in 1910. In 1920 her mother was unemployed and living as a boarder in a house off Frankfort Avenue in Louisville.
15.
The inspector's means of gathering evidence, along with the text of the report, is described in
Louisville Times
, July 22, 1921.
16.
Dow's response is printed as a letter to the editor in
Louisville Times
, August 5, 1921.
17.
Louisville Times
, August 10, 1921.
18.
The story of this Memorial Day observance earned headlines across the country. I used accounts in
C-J
, the
New York Times
, and the
Dallas News
, all appearing on May 31, 1923.
19.
Though the Louisville newspaper reporter says the veterans were carrying the “Stars and Bars,” a photo of their furled flag taken that day shows what very well could be the Confederate Battle Flag. I defer, however, to the reporter's description.
20.
Louisville Times
, February 13, 1922.
21.
C-J
, June 29, 1923.
22.
Louisville Herald
, July 31, 1923. After Daughtry died, Florence Barlow, who remained embittered by her treatment, and that of Home veterans, lived on in a rented carriage house in Pewee Valley, churning out letters to veterans and legislators. She died, alone, in 1925.
23.
C-J
, August 4, 1923.
24.
C-J
, March 18, 1917.
25.
New York Times
, January 25, 1920, and
Atlanta Daily World
(reprinting a story published by the Confederate Soldier's Home of Georgia), June 6, 1936.
26.
Letter from Inez Caudel, Bourbon County Chapter, American Red Cross, to A. S. McFarlan, August 18, 1924.
27.
William Pete (sometimes spelled “Peet” or “Peat”) didn't leave many paper footprints, and it's hard to determine the veracity of his claim. The Morgan's Men Association often listed his attendance at its reunions; see, for example,
C-J
, October 15, 1929.
28.
Letter from L. D. Young to Commandant McFarlan, September 17, 1924.
29.
Minutes, September 3, 1924.
30.
Letter from Commandant McFarlan to L. D. Young, September 4, 1924.
31.
Letter from L. D. Young to Commandant McFarlan, November 21, 1924.
32.
Dow resettled in Maryland, where he continued to speak up for the underdog. In 1928 he called on President Calvin Coolidge to plead for clemency for a teenager involved in the murder of a D.C. policeman. See
Washington Post
, June 10, 1928.
15. The Engineer and the Little Girl
1.
On July 11, 2007, I met siblings Virginia Herdt Chaudoin, Louise Herdt Marker, and Bill A. Herdt Jr. in Pewee Valley to discussâand recordâtheir memories of the Kentucky Confederate Home. We met at the Herdts' place of business, an auto parts store located a few hundred yards from where the Home once stood. (Their father and grandfather operated wagon repair and blacksmithing businesses from the same location for most of a century, and I had noted the Herdt business name on the Home's chart of accounts payable.) During the four hours I spent there, a dozen of the Herdts' friends and contemporaries dropped in to add their recollections of Pewee Valley and the Home. At different times, with different words, they described the inmates as ghostlike, evanescent, walking wisps of memory from a past time and a distant place. These childhood impressions come from the last generation to have walked the paths of the Home and met the men who lived there, and their memories inform this chapter.
2.
Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Evie Temple, April 14, 1924, KyHS.
3.
C-J
, October 18, 1924.
4.
Noble,
New Age
, 18. Jerri Conrad, a descendant of George Noble, shared a copy of his self-published book with me. During Noble's three years and eight months in the Home, he developed and put to paper a complicated theosophy. He asked for an honorable discharge from the Home in 1926, paid to have his
New Age
printed, then lived the rest of his life as an itinerant on the proceeds of his book sales.
5.
Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Evie Temple, April 14, 1924, KyHS.
6.
Louisville Post
, June 20, 1925.
7.
This Christmas celebration, including photographs of veterans admiring the tree, comes from the
Louisville Times
, December 31, 1925.
8.
Noble,
New Age
, 18.
9.
Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Board of Trustees, August 31, 1928, KyHS.
10.
Louisville Herald-Post
, December 1, 1929.
11.
Louisville Herald-Post
, February 11, 1929.
12.
Noble,
New Age
, 18.
13.
Information about Inmates Requests and Kinfolks, KyHS.
14.
Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Alice Hall, August 18, 1925, KyHS.
15.
From a loose typewritten sheet in the death book, lists of “What Home furnishes in case an inmate desires to be buried in the Home cemetery” and “What friends or relatives must furnish if they desire body to be buried away from Home.” The page includes itemized prices for each. KyHS.
16.
“U.D.C. Notes,”
ConVet
37, no. 7 (July 1929): 271.
17.
Louisville Times
, October 14, 1929, and
Louisville Herald-Post
, December 1, 1929.
18.
Louisville Herald-Post
, February 11, 1929.
19.
See, for example,
C-J
, March 3, 1929, and May 18, 1930.
20.
Lexington Leader
, March 21, 1930.
21.
Monthly Payroll of Officers and Employees, April 30, 1930, KyHS.
22.
C-J
, February 15, 1932.
23.
Lexington Herald
, October 21, 1931.
24.
Letter from Board of Trustees to Commandant McFarlan, marked as received February 1, 1932, KyHS.
25.
Louisville Times
, October 21, 1931.
26.
C-J
, February 12, 1932.
27.
C-J
, February 15, 1932, and
Louisville Times
, November 17, 1933.
28.
“Chapter Reports,”
ConVet
40, no. 5 (May 1932): 192.
29.
Louisville Herald-Post
and
Louisville Times
, July 6, 1932.
30.
Letter from Commandant McFarlan to Board of Trustees, September 6, 1933, KyHS.
31.
C-J
, July 17, 1932.
32.
Monthly Payroll of Officers and Employees, April 30, 1933, KyHS.
33.
C-J
, December 27, 1933.
34.
Minutes, April 4, 1934.
35.
Pewee Valley's reaction to the possibility that the grounds might be used for juvenile orthopedic patients is described in
C-J
, February 18, 1934.
36.
C-J
, April 18, 1934.
37.
C-J
, April 17-18, 1934.
38.
C-J
, April 18, 1934.
39.
Minutes, May 2, 1934.
40.
Letter from Attorney General Wooton to Board of Trustees, May 24, 1934, KyHS.
41.
Final entry in payroll ledger book, signed by Commandant McFarlan.
Epilogue
1.
Kentucky birth, marriage, and death records.
2.
For letting bids, see
C-J
, August 21 and November 15, 1934. For disrepair, see
Louisville Times
, April 29, 1937.
3.
Legislative Research Commission, “The Executive Branch of Kentucky State Government,”
www.e-archives.ky.gov
.
4.
Louisville Herald-Post
, August 29, 1936.
5.
Louisville Times
, April 28, 1937.
6.
Oldham (County, Ky.) Era
, October 7, 1938.
7.
C-J
, June 2, 1957.
8.
Rosenburg,
Living Monuments
, and author's visits.
9.
Dedication of Confederate Cemetery at Pewee Valley, June 3, 1957, KyHS.
10.
Hay and Appleton,
Roadside History
, 14-15.
Bibliography
Manuscripts
Official Home Records
When the Kentucky Confederate Home closed in July 1934, Commandant Alexander McFarlan shipped more than fifty crates of library books, paintings, lithographs, flags, firearms, and furniture to the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort. Many of the items remain there today (including Florence Barlow's framed military button collection). Browse through the open stacks of the Schmidt Research Library of the Kentucky Historical Society and you're likely to find a book with an inscription or stamp indicating that it came from the Home.
McFarlan and the board of trustees turned over most of the Home's operational documents to the Department of Public Property, but most made their way to the Kentucky Historical Society as well. Many of the operational documentsâthose not destroyed by the 1920 fireâwere microfilmed in 1950, then destroyed. Various canceled checks, bills, and inventories were destroyed without microfilming. Several boxes of original materials have been cataloged (2007M07) and are available for study in Special Collections, Kentucky History Center, Kentucky Historical Society.
The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives in Frankfort maintains some original and microform materials relating to the Home.
The brief biographies of inmates included in this book are most often derived from information included on their applications for admission, their Kentucky death certificates, and the Federal census rolls. Where I have supplemented this basic information with other Home records, newspaper accounts, family correspondence, or other miscellaneous records, I've cited those sources in the notes.
Listed below are the Home documents I made greatest use of when researching this book and the institutions in which they can be found.
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort
Annual Report of the Kentucky Confederate Home
Applications for admission
Discipline reports
Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort
Board of Trustees, Minutes
Miscellaneous correspondence
Register of Inmates Received
Report of Inmates in the Home
Report of Occupation and Use of Rooms in Home
Statement of Resources in Sight for Confederate Home
Subscription Ledger
Other Manuscript Sources
Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort
Confederate Veteran Association of Kentucky.
Constitution, By-Laws and Membership.
[Lexington, Ky.:] Transylvania Printing Co., 1890.
Kentucky United Daughters of the Confederacy. Annual Meeting Minutes.
United Daughters of the Confederacy Records, 1855-1999.
Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky
Charter, Confederate Home Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy, May 7, 1904.
Ford, Emmett B. “Reminiscences of S. H. Ford, Captain of Company âF,' 2nd Reg.âGeneral Jos. O. Shelby's Brigade of Missouri Confederate Cavalryâ1861-1865.” Typewritten manuscript dated April 2, 1956, from handwritten original dated March 8, 1909.
Letter from Florence Barlow to Henry L. Martin, May 8, 1917.
Letter from Mrs. A. W. (Mary) Bascom to “Cousin Anna,” October 27, 1902.
Letter from Commandant Coleman to the Tom Barrett Chapter, UDC, Ghent, August 18, 1903.
Letter from Florent D. Jaudon to Mrs. George L. Danforth, September 26, 1916.
Petition to Capt. S. H. Ford, signed by inmates and employees, February 4, 1903.
St. James Episcopal Church, Rev. E. C. McAllister's Journal, 1911-1929.
State Records
Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery. Civil War Service Database.
Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts History, Frankfort.
Kentucky birth, marriage, and death records.
Kentucky
Journal of the Regular Session of the House of Representatives.
Kentucky
Journal of the Regular Session of the Senate.
Kentucky Vital Statistics. Original death certificates.
Published Works
Two books are especially useful on the days of the Lost Cause and the Confederate soldiers' home movement. R. B. Rosenburg's
Living Monuments: Confederate Soldiers' Homes in the New South
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993) is the definitive study of Confederate veterans' homes: why they were created, who built them, who lived there, and how they were operated. Rosenburg laments that “the Confederate soldiers' home movement, which began in the 1880s, has received scant attention” (5). He provides a partial remedy, offering concise institutional histories of the homes and statistical analyses of inmates, but from the states of the original Confederacy only. The challenges of Kentucky, a state that was never officially part of the Confederacy, in establishing, financing, and operating a Confederate veterans' home earn just a few paragraphs in Rosenburg's volume.
Gaines M. Foster's
Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) describes the attraction of the Confederate celebration during the half-century following Gettysburg. The work is scholarly, the writing sprightly.
Abel, E. Lawrence.
Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy, 1861-1865.
Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1999.
Ainsworth, Fred C., and Joseph W. Kirkley, eds.
The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
Series 2, Vol. 6. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1899.
Allen, Frederick Lewis.
The Big Change: America Transforms Itself, 1900â1950.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1993.
Barry, John M.
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.
New York: Viking, 2004.
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005. (Online at
http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp
.)
Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living Men of the Nineteenth Century.
Cincinnati: J. M. Armstrong & Co., 1878.
Blair, William A.
Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South, 1865-1914.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Blanck, Peter David, and Michael Millender. “Before Civil Rights: Civil War Pensions and the Politics of Disability in America.”
Alabama Law Review
52, no. 1 (Fall 2000): 1-50.
Boswell, Harry James.
Representative Kentuckians: City Builders.
Louisville, Ky: [self-published,] 1913.
Brady, William.
Personal Health: A Doctor Book for Discriminating People.
Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1916.
Cannon, Devereaux D., Jr.
The Flags of the Confederacy: An Illustrated History.
Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing Co., 1994.
Caron's Louisville Directory.
Vol. 32. N.p., 1902.
City of Louisville and a Glimpse of Kentucky.
Louisville: Committee on Industrial and Commercial Improvement of the Louisville Board of Trade, 1887.
Clift, G. Glenn.
Governors of Kentucky, 1792-1942.
Cynthiana, Ky.: The Hobson Press, 1943.
Cobb, Irwin S.
Exit Laughing.
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1941.
Cox, Karen.
Dixie's Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003.
Crichton, Judy.
America 1900: The Turning Point.
New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1998.
Davis, William C.
The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983.
Dean, Eric T.
Shook over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.
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United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine
15, no. 1 (January 1952): 7.
Dennett, John Richard.
The South as It Is: 1865-1866.
New York: Viking Press, 1965.
Duke, Basil W.
History of Morgan's Cavalry.
Cincinnati: Miami Printing & Pub. Co., 1867.
âââ.
Reminiscences of General Basil W. Duke.
Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911.
Eagle, Mary Kavanaugh Oldham, ed.
The Congress of Women: Held in the Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893.
Chicago: Monarch Book Co., 1894.
Edwards, John N.
Shelby and His Men; or, The War in the West.
Kansas City, Mo.: Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co., 1897.
Emerson, Mrs. B. A. C., ed.
Historic Southern Monuments.
New York: The Neale Publishing Co., 1911.
Evans, Clement A., ed.
Confederate Military History: A Library of Confederate States History.
Extended ed. Atlanta, Ga.: Confederate Publishing Company, 1899 (reprinted, Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1988).
The Executive Branch of Kentucky State Government.
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Faust, Drew Gilpin.
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.
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Foster, Gaines M.
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George, Henry.
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The Gray Book.
N.p.: Gray Book Committee, Sons of Confederate Veterans, 1920.
Halberstam, David.
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War.
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Harris, T. M.
Assassination of Lincoln: A History of the Great Conspiracy.
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Roadside History: A Guide to Kentucky Highway Markers.
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Confederate Operations in Canada and New York.
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Horan, James D.
Confederate Agent, a Discovery in History.
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A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians.
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American Guide Series. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1939.
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History of Kentucky.
5 vols. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1922.
Kinchen, Oscar A.
Daredevils of the Confederate Army: The Story of the St. Albans Raiders.
Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1959.
âââ.
General Bennett H. Young, Confederate Raider and a Man of Many Adventures.
Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1981.
Kinkead, Elizabeth Shelby.
A History of Kentucky.
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Johnny Green of the Orphan Brigade: The Journal of a Confederate Soldier.
[Lexington:] University of Kentucky Press, 1956.
Kleber, John E., ed.
The Encyclopedia of Louisville.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Kleber, John E., ed.
The Kentucky Encyclopedia.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992.
Klotter, Freda C.
A Concise History of Kentucky.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008.
Kolb, Richard K. “Thin Gray Line: Confederate Veterans in the New South.”
VFW Magazine
46, no. 6 (June 1997).
Krock, Arthur.
Myself When Young: Growing Up in the 1890s.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.
La Bree, Ben, ed.
Camp Fires of the Confederacy.
Louisville, Ky.: CourierâJournal Job Printing Co., 1898.
âââ, ed.
The Confederate Soldier in the Civil War, 1861â1865.
Louisville, Ky.: Courier-Journal Job Printing Co., 1895.
âââ, ed.
Notable Men of Kentucky at the Beginning of the 20th Century.
Louisville, Ky.: Geo. G. Fetter Printing Co., 1902.
âââ, ed.
Press Reference Book of Prominent Kentuckians.
Louisville, Ky.: Standard Printing Co., 1916.
Levin, Aaron. “Civil War Trauma Led to Combination of Nervous and Physical Disease.”
Psychiatric News
41, no. 8 (April 21, 2006): 2.
Levin, H., ed.
The Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky.
Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1897.
Lewis, Samuel E.
The Treatment of Prisoners-of-War, 1861-1865.
Richmond, Va.: W. E. Jones, Printer, 1910.
Lexington Cemetery, Meeting of the Lot Owners Held March 11th, 1895.
Lexington, Ky.: Transylvania Printing Co., 1895.
Lexington City Directory.
Lexington, Ky.: R. L. Polk & Co., 1909.
Livermore, Thomas L.
Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-65.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1900.
Longacre, Edward G. “July 2-26, 1863: John Hunt Morgan's Ohio Raid.”
Civil War Times
42, no. 3 (August 2003).
“Louisville of To-Day: A Souvenir of the City for Distribution during the G.A.R. Encampment.” Louisville, Ky.: Consolidated Illustrating Co., 1895.
Matthews, Gary Robert.
Basil Wilson Duke, CSA: The Right Man in the Right Place.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005.