Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Confederate Home Newspaper

Several of the Confederate soldiers' homes published their own newspaper, usually monthly, containing news of interest about the veterans, veterans events, obituaries, and reminders of home rules. The Kentucky Confederate Home published Confederate Home Messenger from October 1907 to December 1911.

I relied heavily on The Messenger when I was writing about that particular period of the Home's history. Copies of the tabloid-size newspaper were available at the Kentucky Historical Society, but for convenience I used Jim Hicks's book.

Hicks is an enthusiastic long-time SCV member (and a former schoolteacher, I think) who collected all issues from all four years of The Messenger, indexed them, then reprinted them in a convenient 204-page bookshelf volume. The book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in Confederate veteran activities and the lives of soldiers' home residents during the period. (I'll describe some articles from The Messenger on this blog in the futuure.)

You can order the book for $25 (plus $3 shipping) directly from Jim Hicks at 3715 Stratford Lane, Apt. #1, Louisville, KY 40207. (And tell him I said "Howdy".)

Are you familiar with any other inmate newspapers from the Confederate soldiers' homes?   Do you have copies? Know where they're collected?

1 comment:

Robert said...

What a great reference. Thanks for sharing.