Stone and her brother still endured the hatred of Texas boys. She also despaired over the lack of news that reliably reported any Confederate victory.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
Stone and her brother still endured the hatred of Texas boys. She also despaired over the lack of news that reliably reported any Confederate victory.
Nov. 1, 1863
Tyler, Texas
We are just from church. Jimmy, Johnny, and I did not go con amore. There are more pleasant things than toiling a mile through heavy sand, up hill and down dale too dark to see the road beneath you or the sky above, sitting for an hour listening to an indifferent sermon, and being gazed at by a battery of hostile eyes. Jimmy was determined to go, and I would go too, though he did not want me. Last night he and Johnny went alone, and during the services someone cut his bridle all to pieces and stole his martingale and blanket. A crowd of boys followed them after church, talking at them all the time. They know now the boys are armed and so did not attack them. The rowdies followed us tonight, and I saw them for the first time. They are real nice-looking lads. What a pity they are not gentlemen. Jimmy Carson is deeply mortified that he is compelled to desert a friend in need.
Miss Sally Grissman called to see us a short time ago. She is quite pretty, a Creole, piquante and petite. They are from Assumption Parish and have been here nearly a year. Mrs. Prentice from Joe’s Bayou and Mrs. Hull from St. Louis called yesterday. Mrs. Hull is a delightful little lady with the prettiest face and sweetest manner. Her husband is a colonel. He has just returned from Missouri. He went in to raise a regiment, of course in disguise, and brought out four hundred men, a most dangerous undertaking since it meant the death of a spy if he had been captured. Mr. and Mrs. Prentice have a house near town and Mrs. Hull boards with them. Mrs. Prentice begged me to come and stay some with her. Perhaps I shall.
Spent a day with Mrs. Levy lately. She is from New Orleans and has a large family of little children. Her husband and oldest son are in the Virginia Army. She is a good talker, a woman of the world, and a Jewess, but I think does not practice her religion. She was a Miss Moise from Charleston. …
The exhilarating news of the capture of [Union Maj. Gen. William] Rosecrans and his army proves to have been a canard. He has been heavily reinforced and is again in the field. What credulous mortals we be, believing all the good reports and distrusting all the bad until the truth is forced upon us. …
Stone’s brothers began a new school in Tyler, Texas, but bullies tormented them, and they nearly came to blows. Students brought guns to school to deal with these Louisiana refugees.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
Stone’s brothers began a new school in Tyler, Texas, but bullies tormented them, and they nearly came to blows. Students brought guns to school to deal with these Louisiana refugees.
As Kate fretted, she and her mother sewed winter clothes and celebrated the construction of impressive new bonnets.
Oct. 29, 1863
“Refugee Ranch,” Tyler, Texas
We have been at Tyler scarcely long enough to feel settled, and the first thing is a grand disturbance that threatens all our plans.
It seems there is a great prejudice existing here against the unfortunate refugees, a feeling strong in Mr. Kaiser’s school that made Jimmy and Eddie Carson very unpopular. There was no open outbreak, however, until Jimmy and Johnny were entered as pupils. For several days the disaffected could find no open cause of offense, and our boys, perfectly unsuspecting, rode, walked, hunted, and marched together perfectly happy to renew their old friendships and not dreaming they were making enemies. But all this was the head and front of their offending. When they added to this “wearing gold watch chains and black broadcloth” a slender little strand of gold and a secondhand suit of clothes the Tyler boys could stand no more, and they rose in their wrath to put down those “refugee upstarts” most unaffected little fellows.
They opened hostilities by sticking pins in Jimmy and Johnny at church during the prayer. … Johnny was so enraged that he challenged the boy to come out of the church at once and fight, but the boy excused himself as he had a lady with him. They made an appointment to meet the next day and have a regular fisticuffs. The boy failed to keep the promise, and Jimmy denounced the act at school as ungentlemanly. The fuss blew over without coming to blows, the boys agreeing not to speak to each other, and they thought everything was settled. But the father of the boy came to school very angry and told Mr. Kaiser that unless Jimmy Stone was dismissed from school all the other boys would be taken away. Several boys wore pistols to school today, and they had formed a plan to mob Jimmy last night, but as I was with him they put it off.
We knew nothing of all this until Mr. Kaiser came over this evening to advise Mamma and Mrs. Carson to keep the boys inside the yard and to make Jimmy Carson take off the chain and put on rough clothes. Mr. Kaiser has acted a very cowardly part. The boys have been taken from school, and Mamma and Mrs. Carson are trying to get a private tutor for them. Jimmy Stone was studying hard since he knows his school days are short. …
Oct. 30
The Tyler boys are trying to force Jimmy Carson into a fight. Half a dozen of them are going armed for him, and we are very anxious. Mamma and Mrs. Carson have made our boys promise they will not be first to start a row. They restrain themselves but they are boiling with rage. Mamma will not let Jimmy go to church as she hears the Tyler boys intend mobbing him, and Jimmy is in a dreadful state of mind. He says they will all call him a coward. We do not care what these rowdy roughs call our boys, just so they do not all get into a free fight with pistols. If it was only fisticuff, we would let them fight it out. Mrs. Carson went to see Mr. Williams, the father of the ring-leader, and we hope her pacific representations to him will calm the excitement.
Jimmy Stone has behaved as well as a boy could, with firmness but moderation. I do not think he has even been angry until tonight, when Mamma forbid his going to church unless she or I went with him. And he has not put on a pistol until this morning, though he has known for several days that half a dozen boys are wearing pistols to “do him up,” as they say. The entire household is wrought up, and Jimmy is furious. He says he intends to shoot down the first boy tomorrow who says a harsh word to him.
Mrs. Carson is a strong member of the peace party and has forbidden either of her boys to go to Tyler on any pretext whatever. This restraint chafes the boys extremely but is a most necessary one, excited and angry as all the boys are. Johnny and Eddie had been wearing pistols days before we knew there was any trouble. How little we can know what is in the heart of a boy. Here we were, so pleased with their innocent sports, thinking them absorbed in their marbles and horses and marching around, when every boy was expecting a deadly encounter and burning with hatred for his enemies. We were praising Johnny for his devotion to study when lie insisted on going to school one day when Mamma thought him too unwell. We found out afterwards they were expecting a battle royal that day, and Johnny had an appointment to fight. I hope Mr. Kaiser, for his cowardly truckling in dismissing Jimmy without cause, will lose his school.
I am glad it is a general refugee quarrel instead of being confined to Jimmy. Edward Levy and George Grissman, refugee boys, have both had to leave school.
Mamma has been busy remodeling and making bonnets. She has excellent ideas on the subject, and we tell her a first-class milliner was spoiled when she turned to other pursuits. Her bonnet is quite a triumph, a regular “skyscraper” of straw and silk. She finished mine today, a pretty mixture of black velvet and cherry. It is the same I sported at Monroe in uniform with Julia Barr and Shirley Crith, but it is much improved by the addition of the bright color. I have been forced to take off black. None to be bought.
I am still on the weary treadmill of work, work, work that commenced at Monroe. Our sewing seems endless. We have been hard at it for nearly six months and the end is not yet. Mamma bought two calicoes for me, one at $55 and the other $66. One is made and I am sewing on the last one. We still have two drill dresses to make over. Jimmy is without winter underclothes, and we cannot buy a piece of woolen. We fear in such thin clothes he will take pneumonia again.
Kate Stone’s brother returned with news of a beloved Louisiana crawling with Federal troops and Unionists. Stone was enraged, disgusted, and insulted.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
Kate Stone’s brother returned with news of a beloved Louisiana crawling with Federal troops and Unionists. Stone was enraged, disgusted, and insulted.
Oct. 8, 1863
“Elysian Fields,” Lamar County, Texas
The last few days have been full of interest. First, Johnny returned only last night, and this opens the gates of release from this region of sin and woe. We think we can get off on Monday. Uncle Johnny has been awaiting only Johnny’s return to move on, and they will start on their long journey on Saturday over 300 miles. Thus Johnny’s arrival has been the signal trumpet calling us all to horse and away.
A letter from Julia in which she says My Brother was twice severely wounded in his right arm in the battle of Gettysburg. He has recovered and is with his command but has lost the use of his right hand. We are truly thankful it is no worse. If we could only hear all that has happened to him since seeing him last, but we know so little. Poor fellow, this is his fifth wound and the most severe of all. We so hope he can get a furlough this fall. It worries me to hear of Tom Manlove’s frolicking about, getting married and enjoying himself in every way, getting all the honor, while My Brother, who is worth ten of him, gets only the hard work of the camp and the wounds. … I can write and think myself into a fever about My Brother.
Julia is still at Camden. All wagons have been impressed to remove government stores, and so they cannot get away. She heard through Robert Norris, who wrote asking news of his aunt, that Uncle Bo is well and is now a 1st lieutenant. We are so glad of his promotion. Not a word of Brother Coley, and we are very anxious about him. Joe Carson is regimental colorbearer, a dangerous post. …
Johnny gives a dreadful account of affairs in and around Delhi and Monroe. Most of the citizens remaining boast of being Unionists and carry on a most profitable trade with Vicksburg. The Yankee cavalry came out to Monroe by invitation, and a number of citizens signed a petition asking them to come out and drive away our soldiers still there. This is too disgraceful to be true. Then, a great number of Louisianians have deserted. My cheek crimsons as I write this of our own beloved state, but I cannot believe that she has brought her name to be a disgrace and reproach to her loyal children. …
A simple carriage-ride day trip for Kate Stone and her friend Kate turned into a nightmare.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
A simple carriage-ride day trip for Kate Stone and her friend Kate turned into a nightmare.
Oct. 2, 1863
“Elysian Fields,” Lamar County, Texas
We got a late start [on our shopping trip] … with a tired horse and in a drizzling rain, and we had not gone two miles before our bad luck caught up with us.
Uncle Johnny took the wrong road, and we soon found it out and urged him to turn around. He avowed his horror of anything like a backward movement and kept on his chosen way, thinking it would lead into the right road. We traveled on for several miles, leaving home farther and farther away, until at last our united persuasions induced him to turn and cut across the country instead of heading straight for Arkansas, as we were doing. After a wearisome ride thorough stubborn thickets and hogwallow prairie, we at last reached the Paris road and went on rejoicing, but our troubles were just beginning.
A slow pattering rain set in and the buckshot prairie soil grew heavy and more heavy, and our gallant grey was visibly tired. We got out of the Jersey in the pouring rain to cross Sulphur Creek, the bridge like most Texas bridges being only a trap for the unwary. With wet heads and muddy feet, we climbed in again, congratulating ourselves that we would soon be at home. Vain hope. Night came on apace, wrapped in her sable mantle and unbrightened by a star, and we were still four miles from our own hearthstone with a horse only able to drag on in a slow walk. Again we took the wrong road and wandered off on what looked in the uncertain light like a boundless prairie with not a house or road in sight. Again as in the morning we begged Uncle Johnny to turn back to the right road, but true to his expressed principles he refused. We journeyed on, leaving the horse to find his way and straining our eyes to discern a light, but the only lights were those shining up through the tangled grass, the countless glowworms with their gleaming crests. At last plodding along in the Egyptian darkness, the horse gave out entirely, and … we were forced to camp out.
We picketed out the poor horse and wrapped ourselves in bolts of calico and woolen, for we had not a wrap of any kind and it had grown very chilly. Crouching in the Jersey, we resigned ourselves to sweet slumber, but nature’s kind restorer, balmy sleep, was safely sheltered in warm homesteads and was not to be coaxed out on the bleak cold prairie. Twisting and turning we wore the hours away until we discovered that the horse was off picket, and such a chase as Uncle Johnny had to catch him, while we had visions of wandering lost on the prairie for days.
As soon as the first tints of day crimsoned the east, Uncle Johnny set off for home to bring relief to two distressed damsels. The horse was too spent to take us all home. How we laughed at the figure Uncle Johnny presented when he started off with a cushion for a saddle. Kate and I at once went to sleep. Jimmy found us cuddled down in the bottom of the Jersey fast asleep when several hours later he came to our relief with a fresh horse. We reached home at last just before dinner, two forlorn-looking wights and very hungry.
Stone at last received news of the rest of her family and was left despondent. War scattered her relatives, destroyed their communities, and turned them into disgraced refugees.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
Stone at last received news of the rest of her family and was left despondent. War scattered her relatives, destroyed their communities, and turned them into disgraced refugees.
Note how Stone almost admired how she managed to get on with her life with “almost nothing but servants, and yet we are comfortable.”
Sept. 20, 1863
“Elysian Fields,” Lamar County, Texas
Uncle Johnny was at Richmond, Va., a month ago and heard from nearly every member of the family. How thankful we are to know that they are all alive, though perhaps in distress. My Brother was neither killed nor hurt in the Pennsylvania campaign. Uncle Bo is as usual in fine health and spirits and is under [Confederate commander Braxton] Bragg. Dr. Buckner and Brother Coley are also with Gen. Bragg, and Aunt Laura is at Chattanooga within reach of Dr. Buckner. How glad we are that she is comfortably settled and not suffering all the discomforts of life in Texas. …
Aunt Sarah is at Bladen Springs, Ala. Poor little Horace is dead, a most bitter blow to his mother. He was her favorite. She was keeping house at Cooper’s Well when the Yankees marched on Jackson. She just escaped on the last train with only their wearing clothes. Everything else was destroyed by the Yankees, house and furniture burned, piano hacked to pieces, and the portraits torn to shreds. … It looks like the whole family is to be ruined, root and branch. Every member of it is broken up and all the women and children fleeing from the Yankees, while all the men and half-grown boys are in the army.
We are thankful Mamma has saved most of Uncle Bo’s Negroes, and if we can keep what we have now we can help the others. But I have a strong presentment that we shall yet lose all that we have and be compelled to labor with our hands for our daily bread.
Mrs. Smith had moved up to Mr. Vaughn’s just in time to give room for Uncle Johnny. How glad we are to have a house to ourselves once more. Mrs. Smith was very kind in leaving everything we needed for housekeeping. It is surprising how little one can get on with. We seem to have almost nothing but servants, and yet we are comfortable, comparatively so.
I have finished knitting those tiresome gloves and can read with a clear conscience. Fingered and gauntlet gloves are a trouble to knit.
Sept. 22
The news today is discouraging. Charleston [S.C.] has fallen, Louisiana and Arkansas are to be entirely deserted by our troops, and all the available forces of the Trans-Mississippi Department are to be concentrated at Tyler, Texas. If Charleston has fallen, it is because it was not in the power of man to hold it. Everything possible had been done, and it had made a most gallant defense. No disgrace can sully the name of its Gen. Beauregard, as the name of Lovell and Pemberton have been darkened. …
How I long for a glimpse at Brokenburn these pleasant autumn days radiant in flowers and crowned with fruit, the grassy yard and tall oaks, the clump of sassafras changing now to bright crimson, and the fragrant sweet gum showering down its leaves of gold, the flower garden sparkling across the grass, its many kinds of fall flowers gay in the mellow September sun, and the wide fields stretching away, white with cotton and vocal with the songs of the busy pickers. Shall we ever see it so again?
The Stone family’s plans to move to Tyler, Texas, were shattered when their guide was taken away to serve in the militia.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
The Stone family’s plans to move to Tyler, Texas, were shattered when their guide was taken away to serve in the militia. Kate Stone’s mother demanded his return.
Sept. 14, 1863
“Elysian Fields,” Lamar County, Texas
Our affairs are in a state of confusion worse confounded. All our plans were nipped in the bud by Mr. Smith’s being taken to camp to serve in the militia in spite of Gen. Smith’s detail. Everything is at a standstill with us. Mrs. Smith insulted the men who came for Mr. Smith, and so they waylaid him and took him off to camp, not allowing him even to come by home and get a change of clothes. Mrs. Smith was deadly angry, and an ironical message from one of Mr. Smith’s captors has made her rabid. Her abuse of everything and everybody in Texas is eloquent. We were to have started to Tyler. Mr. Smith was going to Shreveport on important business for Mamma, Mrs. Smith and Miss Mary were going to live at Mr. Vaughn’s and take charge of his children, but all our plans have come to naught.
I hear the crickets and see the stars so the storm must have passed us by, and we will not sleep under a dripping roof.
Sept. 19
A most pleasant surprise this morning. Uncle Johnny, his wife, and baby arrived at our Retreat. They are fleeing from the Yankees in Arkansas and are on their way to Austin, where Uncle Johnny hopes to edit a newspaper. They came 150 miles out of their route to see us. His wife, Kate, is a sweet, innocent-looking woman. She looks about sixteen, though she is twenty-one. The baby, Sally, is the tiniest mite of a creature. Texas air will have to do much for her before she gets a strong hold on life. We will be here several weeks longer, and this new family will be a great pleasure. We can at least talk to the newcomers, and Mamma and I have about exhausted all our well-worn topics.
Mamma thinks now affairs are entrain to get Mr. Smith again detailed by paying $500 and swearing she is in need of his services. Mamma went Thursday all the way to Charleston, the militia camp, to get Mr. Smith released. She met there her Paris friend, Gen. Smith, who was very polite and who really seemed to wish to do her a kindness. He will do all in his power to get Mr. Smith off. He is the second man we have met in Texas who seemed to have goodwill for refugees and sympathy for their troubles. If the officers had any sense, they could see that Mamma is forced to have someone to manage for her. Mamma and Miss Mary saw a funny set at Charleston.
We have had a succession of callers recently. The unadulterated natives are all eager to hire Negroes. There is a furor for them. All the old ladies in the county are falling sick just to get their “Old Men” to hire a servant. Who can blame them after their years of grinding toil for seeking a little rest?
In the absence of hard facts or updated news from the battlefields, rumors of all kinds were rampant.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
In the absence of hard facts or updated news from the battlefields, rumors of all kinds were rampant.
Sept. 1, 1863
“Elysian Fields,” Lamar County, Texas
A letter from Jimmy at Jefferson [Texas] on the thirty-first of July, just as he was leaving for Navasota. It is almost time for his return, and Mamma is anxious for him to get back. She wants the wagons to move the Negroes before they hear that the Yankees are coming in from the North, as it is rumored, and before they have a chance to make a break for the Federal lines again.
There are quite a number of Yankee prisoners at Tyler, captured while in command of black troops. It does seem like they ought to be hanged, and they are so impudent too. The detestable creatures!
There is a rumor that Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee have applied for admission into the Union again. Of course, we know it is a base fabrication, but many of the natives believe it firmly. They will believe anything against Louisiana. They seem to hate that state, and we would not give one Louisiana parish for half of Texas.
Our pet rumor is again in the air that France, Spain, and England have recognized the Confederacy. Oh, that it were true. …
We hear that Mrs. White, from whom we rented books and also bought one or two, has leprosy. It makes us shiver to think of it, and our handling her things and Patsy nursing her. We can only hope it is another big story, as it is too late to take precautions.
Sept. 11
Jimmy is back after an absence of seven weeks, and now as soon as we can collect up our scattered goods and chattels we will be off to fresh fields and pastures new. …
The Federals made only a short stay at Monroe, but were busy at the work of destruction. Would like to know how our friends have fared.
Our high hopes of recognition by the European powers are again dashed to the ground. If they just would not start such rumors, raising expectations only to be disappointed.
We paid a three-day visit to Mrs. Slaughter up in the famous Union neighborhood, Honey Grove, where they say there is only one Confederate family. There, everyone you talk to says of course we will be conquered. In Louisiana one rarely heard such an idea expressed.
We attended a large Baptist meeting in the vicinity several times. The interest and excitement were intense. There were often fifty mourners crowded around the altar and the church crowded to suffocation. Never saw so many men in church before, and we have not seen so many men at one time since the war commenced, unless they were soldiers in uniform. The scene at night was most striking: the anxious, excited faces, crowding and surging around the altar; the exalted, earnest mien of the minister; the groans and shrieks and wild prayers of the mourners, mingling with the shouts and hallelujahs of the newly professed; while high over all rises the thunder of a triumphant hymn, borne on many voices. In the background gleam the eager, curious faces of the lookers-on, row on row.
A scene to thrill and interest anyone, but I must take my religion more quietly. It was a country-looking congregation with a sprinkling of nice people. Short dresses, large hoops, and top-knotted sun-bonnets, the style.
Two carriage accidents, a large rattlesnake, and a dirty house all inspire Stone to call Texas “the dark corner of the Confederacy.”
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
Two carriage accidents, a large rattlesnake, and a dirty house all inspire Stone to call Texas “the dark corner of the Confederacy.”
Aug. 30, 1863
“Elysian Fields,” Lamar County, Texas
I must record the first instance of liberality that has come under our notice since entering the state. The first night after leaving Tyler we stayed at a Mr. Fowler’s, a very nice place, and they did not charge us a cent. But we were picked up the next night. We lost our way and traveled until 8 o’clock when we asked to stay at a pretty, large, white house, white only on the outside. I despair of giving any idea of the dirt. We tried to eat without seeing or tasting and to sleep without touching the bed. They gave us coffee, a horrid decoction of burnt wheat and milk without sugar, in saucers and water in the halves of broken bottles. The table was set in the dirtiest of kitchens with a dirt floor and half a dozen half-naked little Negroes and numberless cats and dogs scampering through the room and under the table. The rafters were festooned with old hoop skirts and worn-out, rough boots. It surpassed any place we have been in yet. We certainly had found the dark corner of the Confederacy.
We lost our way again one evening and traveled until way in the night, through a wild woods road dotted with stumps. But it was cool and bright moonlight and really more pleasant than a stuffy dirty room, but the mules and Hoccles did not enjoy it.
Our next adventure was not so pleasant. The mules were rushing down a long, rocky, red hill. Hoccles is a wretched driver and lets them do pretty much as they please when crash! over went the Jersey, and we rolled out on the ground, along with a confused medley of baskets, bundles, palmetto, corn, bonnets, and boxes. Fortunately no serious damage was done, and after a few repairs to the Jersey we journeyed on. Hoccles is a right good tinker for wagons.
But our troubles were not yet over. The mules were trotting briskly along through the white sand, Mamma was asleep sitting in the foot of the Jersey, and I was knitting away, when there was a sudden cluck and tearing sound. I looked up to see the whole top of our devoted Jersey folding back like a fan. While Hoccles was nodding in the sultry heat, we had run into a tree and broken the top nearly entirely off. Mamma gave a groan and exclaimed, “Now Hoccles, just run us over a stump and break the wheels and maybe you will be satisfied. You have broken the bottom racing down the hill. But that would not do you. You had to go and break the top. Now run over a rock and break the wheels and you will be fixed!”
I could not help laughing. It was funny in spite of our bad plight, and poor Hoccles looked so humble and apologetic. We thought he would be forced to take the entire top off, but he was equal to the emergency. With hammer, nail, and strings, he patched it up so it lasted until we reached home. But it is a most forlorn, lopsided affair. If we just had our own good carriage, but we hear it is a smallpox ambulance now.
Our last day we just missed driving over the largest rattlesnake, stretched across the road basking in the sun. It was larger than my arm and had twelve rattles. That frightened us most of all. It might have glided into the carriage as we drove over it. …
A long letter from Julia Street was awaiting me. … She says she hates Arkansas and wants to come to Texas. I am sure she will hate this state ten times more. If she is a wise girl, she will stay where she is as long as possible. The more we see of the people, the less we like them, and every refugee we have seen feels the same way. They call us all renegades in Tyler. It is strange the prejudice that exists all through the state against refugees. We think it is envy, just pure envy. The refugees are a nicer and more refined people than most of those they meet, and they see and resent the difference. That is the way we flatter ourselves. …
Tracking whale sharks / How Nixon chased women / Dead vice presidents / Man-made eggs, woman-made sperm / Chronicling Syria’s bloodshed / Friday’s blues
For this week:
Tracking whale sharks / How Nixon chased women / Dead vice presidents / Man-made eggs, woman-made sperm / Chronicling Syria’s bloodshed / Friday’s blues
Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.
1.Where the Whale Sharks Go By Christopher Joyce | Morning Edition :: NPR | Aug. 22
“After tagging more than 800 whale sharks over nine years, the team discovered that after feeding, the sharks head off in seemingly random directions. Some travel thousands of miles, and they can dive a mile deep.”
2.How the Nixon Administration Tried to Woo Women By Emma Green | The Atlantic | Aug. 22
“It turns out that the Republican strategy on women in the 1970s was about as nimble as ‘binders full of women’ ”
3.Have any vice presidents died in office? By Anthony Bergen | Dead Presidents | August 2013
“Yes, quite a few of our Vice Presidents have died in office, actually — SEVEN out of 47 total, so about 15% of the VPs didn’t survive their term.”
4.Lab-Made Egg and Sperm Precursors Raise Prospect for Infertility Treatment By David Cyranoski | Nature / Scientific American | Aug. 21
“A technical tour de force, which involved creating primordial germ cells from mouse skin cells, is prompting scientists to consider attempting this experiment with human cells”
5.Syria’s civil war: A chronicle of bloodshed By Emily Lodish | GlobalPost | Aug. 21
“News of a possible chemical weapons attack in Syria follows a chain of deadly events. Here’s a look at the worst of the worst.”
6.The Latinos turning to Islam By Katy Watson | Newshour :: BBC World News | August 2013
“With more than 50 million Hispanics living in the US, the Latino community is now the country’s biggest minority. ”
7.Covering Nixon The New York Review of Books | Aug. 9
“The sheer number, variety, and viciousness of David Levine’s drawings of Nixon provide some sense of his place in The New York Review’s pages during the five and a half years of his presidency.”
8.Bezos, Heraclitus and the Hybrid Future of Journalism By Arianna Huffington | LinkedIn | Aug. 14
“The future will definitely be a hybrid one, combining the best practices of traditional journalism — fairness, accuracy, storytelling, deep investigations — with the best tools available to the digital world — speed, transparency, and, above all, engagement.”
9.The Man Who Knew Too Much By Marie Brenner | Vanity Fair | May 1996
“Angrily, painfully, Jeffrey Wigand emerged from the sealed world of Big Tobacco to confront the nation’s third-largest cigarette company, Brown & Williamson. Hailed as a hero by anti-smoking forces and vilified by the tobacco industry, Wigand is at the center of an epic multibillion-dollar struggle that reaches from Capitol Hill to the hallowed journalistic halls of CBS’s 60 Minutes.”
Tonight I’m spending some time with the blues, specifically with the Texas Blues Café. Check out the line-up and then listen here.
1. Gary Moore — Texas Strut 2. Paul Rodgers & Gary Moore — She Moves Me 3. Dr. Wu — Storm Watch Warning 4. Needtobreathe — Prisoner 5. Rick Huckaby — Can’t Miss Kid 6. The Mark Knoll Band — High Time 7. Preacherstone — Old Fashioned Ass Whoopin’ 8. Brian Burns & Ray Wylie Hubbard — Little Angel Comes A-Walkin 9. Cody Gill Band — Crazy 10. Ramblin Dawgs — Worse Without You 11. Pat Green & Cory Morrow — Stuck In The Middle With You 12. Bobby Manriquez — How We Started 13. WSNB — True Love 14. Shane Dwight — Boogie King
Stone had little respect for anyone who lacked her sense of style and bearing. She hardly sympathized with the people of East Texas.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
(Photo edited by Bob Rowen)
Stone had little respect for anyone who lacked her sense of style and bearing. She hardly sympathized with the people of East Texas.
Aug. 16, 1863
“Elysian Fields,” Lamar County, Texas
We went to church this morning at a tumbledown schoolhouse called Liberty expecting to hear the funeral sermon of Mrs. Alexander, who was a near neighbor. The poor woman has been dead four months, and her husband married again six weeks after her death. But he says he is determined to pay proper respect to dear Mary and so will have her funeral preached, with the new wife sitting decorously near to hear it.
It was the oddest-looking crowd one could imagine, and the very funniest dressing we ever saw. My pen is powerless to describe it: one girl airy in pink tarleton and another sweltering in red woolen; high horn combs with long ribbon streamers waving from the top; immense hoops; and strand after strand of beads, all colors, wound around their necks.
Many of the men were barefooted, and nearly all of their slouched wool hats were decorated with ribbons or an artificial flower. There were few coats but many vests and a display of homemade knit galluses. It was a most unusual-looking crowd, all sitting on puncheons laid on supports, some of them constantly slipping down. …
Observations on the Hudson River as it passes through New York City. The section of the Hudson which passes through New York is historically known as the North River, called this by the Dutch to distinguish it from the Delaware River, which they knew as the South River. This stretch of the Hudson is still often referred to as the North River by local mariners today. All photos copyright Daniel Katzive unless otherwise attributed. For more frequent updates, please follow northriverblog on Facebook or Instagram.
Stillness of Heart 
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