New Home in Columbia, SC

The South Carolina Confederate Soldiers’ Home in Columbia opened in 1909, one of the later homes to be built.

The Rock Hill (SC) Herald describes the new home this way on June 2, 1909:

“The home is situated on a beautiful knoll, formerly Belleville, the homestead of Col. William Wallace’s ancestors. The land is now part of the farm of the State Hospital. It is situated about half a mile beyond Elmwood Avenue on the car line to Colonial Heights. The front of the building is a colonnade, Southern style, and the immense old trees surrounding the place give it an air of restfulness and peace and homelikeness. Twenty-one old veterans are already at home in their comfortable quarters.”

They Lost Their Flags

In addition to the veterans residing there, the Confederate soldiers’ homes housed inanimate relics of the Civil War, as well.

Thirteen flags of Maryland’s Confederate regiments were on display at the home in Pikesville, and they were precious to the inmates who had fought under them. In 1906, however, the state decreed that the flags would be returned to the capitol building in Annapolis for display in a specially-built flag room alongside Union banners.

“The old Confederates at the Home are loathe to part with their collection,” one newspaper reported, and other Confederate veterans were absolutely livid that their banners would be displayed adjacent to Union flags.

After almost a year of negotiations---during which time some veterans threatened to shoot anyone who tried to remove their flags---an arrangement was reached for a special ceremony to transport the flags to Annapolis.

An honor guard of old veterans from the Confederate Soldiers’ Home at Pikesville, accompanied by several hundred members of the Society of the Army and Navy of the Confederate States in Maryland and another hundred women of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, carried the flags aboard a steamship in Baltimore for the trip to the capital. They landed at the U. S. Naval Academy, welcomed by the Naval Academy Band playing “Dixie”.

“Officers in the United States uniform doffed their caps in silent respect, and as the old tattered flags passed the main gate of the academy the sentry there presented arms, while the sergeant of the guard stood at attention with bared head.”

At the capitol, Governor Warfield welcomed the crowd to the chamber of the House of Delegates and formally accepted the flags on behalf of the Commonwealth of Maryland.

(See Washington Herald, December 6, 1906, and Richmond Times Dispatch, November 13, 1907.)

Confederate Memorial Service---Pewee Valley, KY

I’ve recently returned from a 17-day trip through Kentucky and the Southeast promoting “My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans”. Out of all the bookstore visits, speeches, signings and interviews, the most touching event for me was the Confederate Memorial Day celebration at the Confederate Cemetery in Pewee Valley. Several hundred spectators attended the event in a beautiful little cemetery where more than 300 former residents of the Kentucky Confederate Home found their final resting place.

For more than five years I’ve read and written about the Lost Cause cemetery ceremonies and memorial services from a century ago. The rural setting, the quiet cemetery, the men and women in period costume, the floral wreaths, the slow march of the reenactors---all combined to give life to what I’d read and written.

Traditionally, these ceremonies surrounded a lengthy Lost Cause oration, a passionate and animated stem-winder that spoke of the valor of the Confederate soldiers, the constancy of their devotion to the Lost Cause, their patriotism, and their desire for reconciliation. A first-rate orator had lungs like saddlebags, a diaphragm as solid as a manhole cover, and vocal cords more resilient than piano wire. When he chose to turn on the charm, it flowed in irresistible waves; when he intended pathos, women sobbed and men reached for handkerchiefs.

Instead, all they got was me.

I was the keynote speaker for the memorial ceremony, and there was a noticeable lack of oratorical flourish or expertise. (About the only audience response was when a lady keeled over from heatstroke and had to be carried away by paramedics. My father-in-law said he wished he’d thought of it first.)

My twenty minutes in front of the crowd focused on the lives of some of the men in the cemetery, men I’d “met” while researching “My Old Confederate Home”. Unlike the old-style orators, I wasn’t trying to glorify the military careers of the men buried there. Instead, I described men of long lives who had a need for care in their later years. They were men who had taken up arms in their nation’s behalf and, whatever we think of their cause, were entitled to a respectable place in their countrymen’s hearts.

It was a sweet and touching affair.

Refuses Charity of the Home

Many of the residents of Columbia, Missouri, knew 81-year-old “Uncle” Jess Baker as the scary old man who lived in a rickety cabin outside of town. Others had heard the story of how Uncle Jess had “saved” General John B. Gordon when he fell from his horse wounded in the battle of Gettysburg.

A newspaper reporter described Uncle Jess’s visit to town in January 1911:

“Gray and bent, an old man climbed the stairs at the city, hall yesterday and went to the headquarters' of the Charity Organization Society. He didn't have to ask where it was; he had been there before. This time it was a pair of trousers and some coal to heat the little house where he lives with his son-in-law Dave Roberts, that he wanted. His oldest son, Ben Baker, and wife are visiting there now and they have a little baby less than a month old, so the house has to be kept warm.”

Uncle Jess frustrated the Columbia townspeople and his family because he wouldn’t move into the Missouri Confederate Home in Higginsville. He insisted on continuing to live in his cabin in the woods.

“The Charity Organization society has tried to get him to go to the Confederate soldier's home, but he refuses. He was there once about a year but fell and broke his leg and came home and refuses to go back.”

Uncle Jess survived another winter, but died alone in his cabin a year later.

(See University Missourian, January 25, 1911)

A Box From Rome

I was struck while researching My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans by the abiding support given the men of the Kentucky Confederate Home by the women of the United Daughters of the Confederacy chapters. And it wasn’t just in Kentucky.

The UDC women seemed never to forget the veterans of the Confederate soldiers’ homes, whether it was lobbying for increased funding, raising money for new cookware, or sending a package of simple treats for the men.

I quote this thank-you note from the superintendent of the Georgia Confederate Home to the Rome, Georgia, chapter of the UDC not because it’s unique, but because it’s typical of the thousands of little kindnesses the women performed.

“Many thanks from my comrades at this home to you ladies for the contents of the box received on yesterday. Could you have been present at out dinner today, when before each plate was a box of candy, several slices of cake and pitchers of lemonade being handed around. When it was announced from whom sent, the Confederate yell which was given, resounding through our halls and into the forest, it would have made your hearts happy to know the sunshine which was thrown into our life when we realize we are not forgotten.”

(See Rome (Ga.) Tribune-Herald, September 3, 1910.)

Children, Send Your Dimes

Ex-Confederate fundraisers were willing to put the bite on anyone who could contribute to construction of their Confederate soldiers’ home…even children. Alabama’s J. M. Faulkner, chairman of the fundraising effort for the Alabama Confederate Home, asked newspapers to publish his open letter to the children of Alabama at Christmastime 1902:

In the midst of the pleasures of the holiday, he wrote, “I want to remind you that there are a large number of old Confederate soldiers in Alabama who are sadly in need of help.”

Faulkner paints a grim holiday picture:

“The time has passed when it is possible for them to be surrounded by groups of happy children and the comforts of life. Unless those who are charitably inclined shall come to their relief, the inevitable result will be that their last days will be spent in poverty and misery.”

Then he makes his pitch:

“It has occurred to me that there is not a child in this state who would not esteem it a great privilege to contribute as much as one dime to the building of this beautiful home. This, I believe, you can do without prejudice to your own wants.”

But, let’s not stop there:

“While you are providing your own dime, you might suggest to your older brothers and sisters, and your mothers, that a contribution of a quarter of a dollar, or a half a dollar, would be very acceptable. If every one of your fathers should take it into his head to send a dollar, the success of the home would be assured.”

I couldn’t locate any information describing the number of dimes, quarters, half-dollars and dollars collected by Faulkner’s appeal, but the Jefferson Manley Faulkner Soldiers’ Home opened at Mountain Creek later than year.

(See The Florence (Ala.) Times, January 2, 1903.)

No Confederate Allowed

The U.S. government paid to build and operate two dozen soldiers’ homes for Union veterans, and some of those homes were erected in Southern states. Although Southerners were paying the taxes that financed the homes, no Confederate veterans were allowed to live there.

(This clip is from the New York Times, November 20, 1901.)

The Forgotten Supervisor

A mild-mannered Owensboro, Kentucky, druggist was the first superintendent of the Kentucky Confederate Home, but his role has been largely forgotten due to a quirk of semantics.

Salem H. Ford was a Daviess County native who grew up in Owensboro, but at the outbreak of the Civil War, he crossed into Missouri to enlist as a private in the Confederate state guard there. After the war, Ford sent most of his career in the drug trade (at a time when the local druggist was as much a personal health care provider as was the country doctor). Ford maintained an impressive pharmacological library, and he was a regular speaker at annual meetings of the Kentucky Pharmaceutical Association.

But it was his activity on behalf of Confederate veterans groups in western Kentucky that led to Ford’s hiring in 1902 as superintendent of the Kentucky Confederate Home. A month prior to the opening of the Home, Ford went to Pewee Valley to recondition the vacant resort hotel and make it habitable for the veterans who would live there. That the Kentucky Confederate Home was presentable on the day it was dedicated and suitable for occupancy by arriving veterans was due to weeks of personal oversight and dawn-to-dusk physical labor by a sixty-eight-year-old druggist from Owensboro.

Ford resigned in 1903 to return to Daviess County, and the Home’s board hired Trimble County politician W. O. Coleman to replace him. Coleman was announced as the new “Commandant” of the Home, a title that had been bestowed unofficially on Ford.

In later years, Coleman would describe himself as “the first Commandant of the Confederate Home,” and Salem Ford’s legitimate claim to being the first manager of the Home would be largely overlooked.

Confederate Soldiers' Home Book Tour

I'm currently spending several weeks in Kentucky, meeting with people to talk about My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans. If you're anywhere near any of the locations below, won't you stop in and say hello? I'd love to visit with you about the Confederate soldiers' homes.

Also, if you're aware of any events (in the south, Southeast, Midwest and/or Texas) that might want me as a speaker or book signer, please let me know.

Lexington KY
Thursday, June 3---2pm to 4pm
Civil War Preservation Trust Annual Conference
Hilton Lexington Downtown Hotel
369 West Vine Street
Book signing

Lexington KYThursday, June 3---7pm to 9pm
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
161 Lexington Green Circle
Book signing

Pewee Valley KY
Saturday, June 5---11am
Confederate Cemetery
Keynote speaker

Pewee Valley KY
Saturday, June 5---Noon to 5pm
Adjacent to Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church
119 Central Ave.
Book signing

Bowling Green KY
Sunday, June 6---2pm to 4pm
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
1680 Campbell Lane
Book signing

Louisville KY
Thursday, June 10---7pm to 9pm
Carmichael's Bookstore
2720 Frankfort Avenue
Book signing

Louisville KY
Friday, June 11---Noon to 1:30pm
The Filson Historical Society
1310 South 3rd Street
Filson Friday speaker

Northern Kentucky
Saturday, June 12---11am to Noon
Kentucky Haus,
411 East 10th Street (Newport)
Book signing

Northern Kentucky
Saturday, June 12: 1:00 pm,
Borders Books and Music
2785 Dixie Highway (Crestview Hills)
Book signing

Jackson County, KY (near Annville)
Sunday, June 13---All Day
Civil War Reenactment, “The Battle of Big Hill”
Storyteller, speaker and book signing