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bought land near Jacksonville and would soon have ready for the state veterans “a home…they may be proud of.” Some of the donations came from unexpected quarters. Ulysses Grant
donated funds for one of the cottag at the Missouri home. The Georgia home received a donation from the state’s Reconstruction governor, Ru fus Bullock. In 1902 the commander of the Grand Army of the Republic issued an appeal to Union veterans to donate to Confederate soldiers’ homes. (The editor of the Confederate Veteran published a letter th mentioned this appeal but said he was confident that Confederates were “too proud to accept alms…in the manner proposed.”) It was time to let bygones be bygones, even if the editor of the Veteran thought otherwise. A relatively small number of men (perhaps a total of 18,000) would rely on these homes, but even so, the costs proved too onerous for private resources. The veterans and the women soon called on the states for support. Eventually all the sta did so; however, the expenditure of public funds for soldiers’ homes wa often controversial. One would think that state governments would not hesitate to render aid to the poor and aging veterans. However, in the opinion of many, such expenditures violated state constitutions. Some legislato and their constituents opposed this kind of welfare in principle, believing that it encouraged sloth among those who could and should support themselves. States faced numerous fiscal challenges and were reluctant to assume another burden. Some Unionists from East Tennessee opposed using their tax money to support the men they fought. As the states already provided pensions, some legislators believed that distributing the aid in money was a superior method than providing support in homes. In Georgia, numerous contentious issues took a decade to resolve, a decade in whic the home stood vacant. The state of Texas took over the home in Austin in 1891 after the
state constitution was amended to authorize the appropriation. States sometimes insisted on title to the real estate in return for their supp and agreement to use the property as soldiers’ homes as long as they were needed. Supporters in Kentucky and Virginia considered the terms harsh and expressed some resentment, but agreed. It is noteworthy that the state of Maryland provided support for that state’s home earlier than its neighbors to the south opened their coffers. The political difficulties were overcome and eventually all the homes were operated as government institutions. As time passed the sta legislatures of necessity became more generous. By the 1920s the inmates were very old indeed, and required more expensive care than did the inmates in the 1890s. Several of the homes were designed with residential cottages surrounding a central building with offices and rooms for common use. Others were built as hotel-like stru tures which contained living quarter as well as other facilities. The Ken tucky home was, in fact, a converted hotel. Some homes were working farms. In Kentucky, the land was planted in corn, wheat, oats, alfalfa, red clov and Irish potatoes. In Oklahoma, the inmates had an orchard and a dairy and grew corn and melons. The descriptions of the facilitie could make them seem like a nice summer camp. A summary of the plans for the Florida home contains this appealing image: “The tract con tains ten acres of land, with orange and other fruit trees. On the riverfront will be placed a commodious bath house, and boats…for fishing.” The reports in the Confederate Veteran often emphasize the homes’ modern amenities – libraries, steam heat, laundry, dining halls, electri chapels, hot water, infirmaries and hospitals. These articles invariably praise the efficiency, dedication and kindness of the homes’ superintendents and staff. While the advocates for the homes stressed the duty owed by the states to the indigent and disabled, whose plight was often directly related to their service to the Confederacy, no all the inmates were destitute. The large Texas institution was home to “all classes of men – farmers, mechanics, lawyers, judges, doctors, teachers, preachers and a few hobos.” The hobos were there because by necessity; the judges must have preferred to live out their lives in company of old comrades-in-arms. A 1923 article on the history of the Alabama home tells us that the vet-
erans “come from all walks of life; some have occupied high positions is Church, State, society and business. The homes were more than facilities to care for old soldiers: they
were living links to the Confederate past. The opening of a home could
be a grand occasion. Some 10,000 people attended the dedication of
the Kentucky home in Pewee Valley. The Missouri Division of the U.D.C.
would call it living history. Marble statues stood at county courthouses, but at the soldiers’ homes schoolchildren could see and hear fleshand-blood memorials in Confederate gray. The many articles on soldiers’ homes published in the Confederate Veteran from the 1880s to the 1920s are invariably positive in tone stressing the comfortable accommodations, the ample food, and the tender care provided by the staff. We read of regular visits by members of the U.D.C.; of musical entertainment and theatrical performances; of contented old men playing cards and checkers on the veranda; of orchards and gardens; of well-stocked libraries and Sabbath services. There are occasional hints of trouble, but these reports are largel dismissed. A member of the Board of Lady Visitors to the Maryland home wrote that “An occasional complaint from some malcontent comes to the ears of the Visitors, who inquire int the matter, and nearly always find that there is no foundation.” A repor from the Texas U.C.V.’s inspector expresses a similar sentiment: “A few complaints come from those who would doubtless be dissatisfied under any conditions of restraint by which they could be surrounded.” Other items in the Veteran referred t arguments over games of checkers or differing recollections of the battle fought decades before. The reader gets a rather comic impression of good-natured quarrels among harmless old men. However, the only comprehensive study of soldiers’ homes indicates that the quarrels could be more serious, even violent; that more than a few inmates had serious and well-founded gripes; and that discipline was often a major issue. By necessity, these homes had rules governing the behavior of the inmates. The soldiers may have been old and infirm, but often they were high-spir ited, disruptive, and resentful of quasi-military regulations. Drunkenness; fighting; refusal to work; drug use (opioids, really!); insubordination; flirting with, harassing an propositioning the female staff; and (in one case) “cohabiting with negro wenches.” Boys will be boys, even if they are in their 70s. Inmates wer subject to various kinds of disciplin up to and including expulsion with a dishonorable discharge. Some of the flirting and consortin were not dishonorable in character. Some of the homes also housed Confederate women and were sometimes the scene of December-December romances and weddings. Perhaps the presence of women and the toll of advancing years had a civilizing
influence on the veterans. A Confederate soldiers’ home would typically house between 50 and 150 veterans at a given time. The Texas home at one point held 400.
When the soldiers’ home movement began, the younger Confed-
erates were in their late 40s and the older men in their 60s. Since the
homes were built to provide for the veterans of a single conflict, their
were ancient men. The end was rapidly approaching for these living rel ics. As the old soldiers faded away s did their communal homes. All were closed in the 1930s and early 1940s. The properties were sold or put to other uses by the states. The sites o most soldiers’ homes now contain little evidence that the facilities w ever there. They are the locations of police stations, parking lots and gov ernment or commercial buildings. In three cases, however, the homes were preserved after the last inmates died. In Mississippi, the site of the soldiers’ home at Jefferson Davis’ Beauvoir has been preserved by the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans as a shrine to the Confederacy’s president. Two state governments have preserved their homes as Confederate memorials. Missouri’s Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsvill displays historic buildings, a restor chapel, and – of course – a cemetery. Alabama’s home in Mountain Creek is now Confederate Memorial Park, a beautiful site with historic structures, a research facility and two cemeteries. In the larger of the two Mountain Creek cemeteries is buried Jefferson Manly Falkner, the founder of the Alabama home. The burial ground’s oldest and newest graves are nearby. A 1906 grave contains the remains of Pvt. Ezekiel A. Wimberly of the Third Alabama Infantry Regiment, which fought in the Eastern Theater from Seven Pines to Appomattox. In a 1928 grave rests Pvt. James Dallas Rudd of the Fifty-seventh Alabama, which fought in the Atlanta Campaign, suffered heavy losses at Franklin and Nashville, and surrendered at Bentonville. Visit the cemetery and stand at these tombs. You may hear faint voices coming from the ground, those of Zeke and Jim, telling you, as they told other visitors long ago, of Gordon’s counterattack at Spotsylvania and of the mammoth explosion at the Crater, of the night atta at Pickett’s Mill and of the desperat struggle at the Carter House. Gould Hagler is the author is Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation (Mercer University Press, 2014), available from Mercer University Press, retail outlets, online sellers, and direct-
Sources and further reading: Much information here is taken from issues of the Confederate Veteran magazine ranging from 1893 to 1929. The author will provide a list of article on request. Another source, Living Monuments: Confederate Soldiers’
Homes in the New South by R.B. Rosenburg (University of North Carolina Press, 1995) is the only comprehensive book published on the subject.
