My Old Confederate Home Read online

  Governor Beckham pronounced the home “beautiful,” a splendid place where noble old veterans could weather the storms of winter while receiving the necessities of life.

  Bath County stockman A. W. Bascom and his wife, Mary, were among those who bypassed the tour. “Do you remember the band coming in from Louisville about one o'clock and the veterans marching behind?” Mary Bascom asked a friend later. “A. W. and I fell in just behind the standard bearers and wove on through the crowd and out to the tables for dinner. We then came back and stood twenty feet left from the speakers stand.”8

  Having been fed and entertained, the crowd was ready for the speechifying to begin.

  At two o'clock, to the strains of “My Old Kentucky Home,” the governor, the chairmen of the various dedication committees, and the invited orators filed onto a temporary platform erected on the driveway in front of the Home. Bennett Young, John Leathers, Leland Hathaway, and other officers of the state veterans’ organization wore their gray UCV uniforms. (Major General J. M. Poyntz, commander of the Kentucky division, the man who had presided over the statewide meeting that sparked creation of the Home and who appointed the Committee of Twenty-Five, was absent. His only son had been shot and killed in a duel several days earlier, and Poyntz couldn't bear to leave his family.)

  Six feet tall, ramrod straight, his hair and mustache shining white in the bright sunshine, Bennett Young stepped to the podium to begin a ceremony that would celebrate the ex-Confederates and honor their gift, while hitting all the notes of the Lost Cause ritual.

  Young first introduced the state UCV chaplain, the Reverend E. M. Green, who invoked God's blessing on the veterans, the Home, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and the United States of America.

  Next, Young called H. M. Woodruff, mayor of Pewee Valley, to the podium. Obsequious as a hotel desk clerk, Woodruff began with a clumsy apology for the town's earlier opposition to the Kentucky Confederate Home. “We feel somewhat like the old folks did when the daughter ran off and married the man of her choice: after the knot was tied, the best thing was to receive the young couple back into the bosom of the family.” After a few more halfhearted words of welcome, the perspiring mayor returned to his seat on the platform.

  But these were just the warm-up acts. As the band struck up “Dixie” once again, Colonel Leland Hathaway, vice president of the Home's board, strode to the podium.

  “It is my duty and pleasure to introduce to you … a man who needs no introduction to Confederate soldiers,” Hathaway began, “and a man who in days gone by needed none to our friends, the enemy.”

  Cheers broke out before Hathaway could finish. “I have the honor of presenting to you General Joseph H. Lewis of the Confederate army.”

  Whoops and yawps and Rebel yells exploded from the crowd, a thunderous ovation lasting a minute or more as Lewis rose from his seat on the platform and made his way to the podium.

  Lewis needed no introduction. Every Confederate infantryman in Kentucky knew him.

  Forty years earlier, Joseph H. Lewis had shuttered his law practice to recruit an armed regiment when Kentucky's rump convention seceded from the Union. Lewis's regiment joined with others to become the First Kentucky Brigade, under the command of Brigadier General John C. Breckinridge, former vice-president of the United States. This Kentucky brigade, organized and trained outside its home state, fought across the South, but would never return to fight in Kentucky. By the end of the war—following the deaths of Roger Hanson and Ben Hardin Helm—Kentucky's Orphan Brigade was under the command of General Joseph Lewis.9

  Most of the ex-infantrymen in Pewee Valley that day were veterans of the Orphan Brigade, Kentuckians who were never able to return as a unit during wartime to their home state. For those years they were “orphans,” their only home the Confederate army.

  General Lewis was brief in his remarks, and in less than five minutes touched all the Lost Cause bases. He praised the valor of his Confederate veterans (“the fight we made was a manly and upright one”), the constancy of their beliefs (“steadfast and true to our convictions”), ultimate reconciliation (“our ill will against the Union of States ceased”), and unremitting patriotism (“despite political ostracism attempted by mad men and bad men”).

  These men of the Lost Cause had proven themselves worthy, the general pronounced.

  “The foundation [of the Home] teaches a lesson which should not be lost on our young men,” the old warhorse concluded to more cheering. “It shows that men who do their duty honestly and fearlessly are not forgotten in their old age.”

  Bennett Young wanted to be sure the financial needs of the Home weren't forgotten, either. When applause for General Lewis subsided, Young stepped to the podium to receive a donation of $110 in gold from two Union veterans. In a few words, Young expressed his appreciation for the gift and the spirit of brotherly love in which it was rendered.

  Veteran J. L. Haines, backed by the Confederate Quartet, brought the crowd to its feet once again with “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground” and a medley of old camp songs before Young returned to the podium to introduce Captain William T. Ellis.

  Like Young, Ellis was one of those Civil War boy wonders whose fuse was lit by the war and whose career rose like a rocket. He enlisted in the First Kentucky Confederate Cavalry at age sixteen, returned home to Daviess County relatively unscathed after four years, then graduated from Harvard Law School by the time he was twenty-five. Ellis opened a law practice in Owensboro in 1870, and the same year won election as county attorney. In 1886 he mounted a campaign for U.S. Congress and served two terms in Washington. He was an active organizer of Confederate veteran camps in western Kentucky and a powerhouse in Democratic politics.10

  An experienced stump speaker, Ellis knew how to grab an audience, even one made drowsy by a warm day and a heavy lunch. Grinning down from the podium at the hundreds of gray-clad veterans in his audience, Ellis broke the elegiac spell cast by earlier speakers.

  “It is evident that all the young Kentuckians who, some forty years ago, served in the Confederate Army are not yet dead,” he began, gaining an appreciative chuckle. “And if we're to judge from present indications, they have no intentions of voluntarily capitulating as long as their rations hold out.”

  From his years in politics, Ellis could deliver a respectable stemwinder. He quoted the Bible, cited scholars, and recited poetry, all in oratorical service to the Lost Cause touchstones of valor, constancy, reconciliation, and patriotism.

  The crowd interrupted Ellis time after time with thunderous applause during his hour-long oration, but he earned the greatest roars of approval when he spoke of the debt his audience owed the men of the Confederate generation:

  “The young men Kentucky gave to the Confederate army rendered their state some service,” he bellowed from the podium, “and are, as they and their friends believe, entitled to a respectable place in its history.”

  As the congressman concluded his speech and the audience cheered, Bennett Young led a schoolgirl with a large box of flowers to the podium. She presented the flowers to Ellis, and Young introduced Miss Laura Talbot Galt to the audience, who recognized her name immediately. Little Laura had been turned out of her Louisville public school for refusing to sing “Marching through Georgia” in a school assembly. Indignant newspaper editorials throughout the South brought about Laura's reinstatement and the removal of the despicable Yankee song from schools throughout the Southland.11

  For a full two minutes Laura stood at the front of the platform with Ellis's arm on her shoulder, the Lost Cause heroine and the Lost Cause orator enveloped by adoring cheers from the crowd.

  To be a first-rate orator at the beginning of the twentieth century required lungs like leather saddlebags, a diaphragm as solid as a manhole cover, and vocal cords more resilient than piano wire. In those days before electronic amplification, a man—there were few top-tier women orators—had to address a group of people large enough to fill a minor league ballpark and make his eve
ry word heard and understood. Moreover, he had to modulate his voice sufficiently to convey emotion and maintain interest. And, to make things even more difficult, he often had to do this in an outdoor setting, his voice competing with crying babies, the natural rustle of a crowd, a whistling breeze, or even passing trains.12

  Captain Ellis was an excellent stump speaker; but, by all accounts, Bennett H. Young was an inspired orator.

  His eulogy for Winnie Davis in 1899 and his high-spirited invitation to Louisville for the 1900 UCV reunion earned Bennett Young a seat (literally) on the national Confederate veterans’ stage. He had learned all the movements of the Lost Cause symphony, and it was a tune he could play by heart. Behind a lectern Young was scholar, storyteller, teacher, and poet. When he chose to turn on the charm, it flowed in irresistible waves; when he intended pathos, women sobbed and men reached for handkerchiefs. By 1902 there was hardly a monument ceremony, battlefield dedication, or Confederate reunion where Bennett Young wasn't invited to be the featured speaker.

  Shortly before three o'clock he returned to the podium before the 10,000 men, women, children, and babies awaiting formal dedication of the Kentucky Confederate Home.

  “Comrades, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “[Today] witnesses the speedy consummation of the most important enterprise ever inaugurated by the Confederate soldiers of this Commonwealth.”

  Young went into a brief (and prideful) recap of the founding of the Home. “It is less than a year since the state reunion of the UCV … declared its purpose and formulated plans to establish on a liberal scale and secure foundation a Kentucky Confederate Home.”

  Kentucky's Confederates have, in this and other ventures, Young reminded his audience, “reflected on the state nothing but credit and renown.”

  Turning to look at the building behind him, he mused on the nature of the men who would come to live there.

  “There will be men here in this Home who, with their comrades, marched with unblanched cheeks into the fires which belched from Federal guns up and down the slopes of Chickamauga's hills.”

  A cheer arose from the veterans who remembered Chickamauga all too well.

  “There will be men here to pass the closing years of their lives who charged down along the valley of Stones River on that dreadful afternoon of January 2, 1863.”

  More cheers from the men who survived that bloodbath.

  “The men who will come here will be those who walked without fear amid the awful carnage of Shiloh.”

  Rebel yells now, and more cheers from a crowd that had been primed to respond to these legendary names.

  “There will be men here to live out the closing days of their lives who rode with … the valiant Forrest.”

  The audience erupted over mention of Tennessee's brilliant cavalryman.

  “ … the peerless Breckinridge …”

  The roar from the crowd was almost constant, but Young continued with the names of battles and leaders dear to Kentuckians’ hearts.

  “ … the Federal lines at Harrisburg, Mississippi …”

  The roar increased in volume.

  “ … that memorable campaign from Dalton …”

  Louder still.

  “ … to Atlanta …”

  By this point the call-and-response between speaker and audience was at a sonic volume sufficient to blow the windows out of any Baptist church. At the absolute crescendo of excitation, however, at the precise moment when this roaring mob of 10,000 seemed ready to strip bark from the trees in their frenzy, Young went silent.

  The crowd was confused, and its sound spluttered away to nothing.

  For a long moment Young simply stared at his audience, letting their attention focus on him alone. He spread his arms wide and finally, in a low, steely voice that was almost sepulchral, continued.

  “Today we swing wide these hospitable doors and bid these heroes come in.” Young slowly closed his arms to his chest, as if embracing the whole of the crowd.

  “Here with sheltering love no want shall go unsupplied… . Here they can abide in peace, plenty, quiet and comfort until they shall answer the divine roll call and cross over to the unknown shore to keep company with the immortals.”

  As the audience cheered these words Young reached into the lectern to produce a set of golden keys. He displayed them to the crowd, then turned to Governor Beckham's seat on the platform.

  “And to you, governor of our beloved Commonwealth … I tender these keys with unfaltering faith that Kentucky will never forget her brave and chivalrous sons, who at Shiloh …”

  Again, the audience exploded at mention of that fateful name.

  “ … Hartsville …”

  The call-and-response began once more, louder even than the first time.

  “ … Kennesaw Mountain …”

  “ … Jonesboro …”

  “ … Resaca …”

  “ … Murfreesboro …”

  Men who had yelled themselves hoarse threw hats in the air and waved handkerchiefs; women swooned and kissed their hands to him; children stood paralyzed by the incredible explosion of noise surrounding them. Few heard (or needed to hear) the final few words of Young's dedicatory address.

  When the audience finally regained its composure, they saw that Governor Beckham was standing at the podium, golden keys in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

  “There is a certain lady in this crowd who has me very much intimidated,” the Boy Governor began. “During the war her work of sending supplies to the Confederate soldiers in the South was carried on to such an extent that it attracted the attention of Federal authorities, and she concluded that the climate of Canada would be more congenial to her than the prospect of a Northern prison. That lady was my mother.”

  The audience chuckled; most knew of Julia Tevis Wickliffe Beckham's wartime activities. She was the adventuresome daughter of Kentucky's beloved governor Charles A. Wickliffe and the sister of Louisiana's Governor R. C. Wickliffe. Now an attractive dowager, she enjoyed the rare distinction of being the daughter, sister, and mother of governors of states.13

  Julia Beckham, former Confederate spy, acknowledged the polite applause without leaving her seat.

  “She said that if I dared say anything that was not complimentary to the Southern soldiers or the cause they espoused, she would get right up and disown me,” Beckham said with a shy grin. “So to avoid running the risk of anything of the kind, I have committed to paper what I have to say.”

  Beckham formally accepted the Home on behalf of the State of Kentucky. His speech was unremarkable, but it was well received by the ex-Confederates, lauding as it did their wartime patriotism and assuring them that the people of Kentucky would care for them in their old age. The governor's voice was confident and clear, and he did not attempt the oratorical flourishes or bombast that might have been more appropriate for an older man. Beckham read his speech rather than deliver it from memory. The youthful governor basked in the warmth, if not adulation, of the crowd, and he gave his mother no reason to disown him.

  As the festivities wound to a close, Bennett Young motioned for a fragile old man to join him at the podium. Slowly, almost painfully, the man rose from his seat on the speaker's stand, his eyes sunken and lusterless. Assisted by his matronly daughter, a black manservant, and an ebony walking stick, he wobbled toward Young, looking not unlike a giant mantis in a black wool suit.

  Captain Daniel G. Parr, whose gift of a house and lot sparked the final push for a Confederate veterans home eighteen months before, leaned close to Young in utter confusion as he was introduced to the crowd. On behalf of their family, Parr's daughter, Virginia Sale, presented a silk streamer—a red, white, and blue guidon inscribed “The Confederate Home”—and it was hoist on the flagstaff.

  A final benediction sent the crowd on its way.

  The ceremonies in Pewee Valley on October 23, 1902, marked a clear dividing line for Kentucky's ex-Confederates. In less than two years they had completed the tasks nec
essary to build a veterans’ home. From that day forward they would have to provide for its management.

  Governor Beckham and his mother departed Pewee Valley that afternoon on the governor's special train. He carried with him the golden keys, symbolic of his proprietorship of the Kentucky Confederate Home. Beckham would sleep that night in his Frankfort apartment, comfortable that he had done nothing to embarrass himself in front of the veterans. A year later he would win reelection, his victory ensured by the near unanimous support of Kentucky's ex-Confederates.

  Lorenzo Holloway would sleep that night at what was now officially the Kentucky Confederate Home. As a young man he had spent three ugly years in a Federal institution, and he had chosen to spend the final years of his life in another type of institution. Under the management of the board of trustees and the eyes of other interested parties, the Kentucky Confederate Home promised to be a more benevolent institution than the one that imprisoned Holloway during the war years.

  The Kentucky Confederate Home would be a respectable place, but an institution nonetheless.

  Chapter 6

  The Druggist and the Sheriff

  Three inmates approached the door of the superintendent's office on the ground floor of the Kentucky Confederate Home and knocked politely. The man who answered was dressed in work pants and an old shirt, his spectacles coated with the same dust that seemed to cover every horizontal surface in the Home, a result of ongoing carpentry, scraping, sanding, and minor renovation projects.

  The inmates handed the superintendent a formal resolution, the wording of which had been debated the evening before, then written on a crisp sheet of Home letterhead stationery. A second sheet, this one with the signatures of eighty-four veterans and Home employees, was affixed to the first.

  The superintendent removed his spectacles, wiped them clean with his shirttail, and began to read the formal language.