Business consumes more and more of the Stone family as fundamental changes loom on the postwar horizon.
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)
Business consumes more and more of the Stone family as fundamental changes loom on the postwar horizon.
July 13, 1865
Tyler, Texas
Mamma started this morning on another visit to the farm on the prairie. She may not return but may send for us to join her there. A letter from Jimmy said Mr. Smith wished to leave her employ as soon as he returns from Shreveport, and of course she must go up to straighten out the accounts with him. It is a disagreeable trip for business, and she dreaded it so. We hated to have her go, but it is unavoidable. We shall miss her so. I have plenty of work on hand to keep me busy.
About all the gentlemen we know have gone. … We have been riding frequently on horseback and in the carriage. Jimmy’s horse, sent home on wounded furlough, is well at last, and I must try him now that the carriage and the loaned horses and owners are gone.
More katydids are vociferating their news than I ever heard.
Every week, the Library of America sends me their Story of the Week, usually a minor piece from the 19th or early 20th century included in their special reprinted editions. Recently, they sent me A Virginia Barbecue by John M. Duncan. Sometime in 1818, the Glasgow publisher was invited to a barbecue at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate, and he wrote a short and charming piece about what he saw.
However, what really caught my eye was the extra piece Library of America included in that week’s email: Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for ice cream. I’m not sure how they can assert that “Jefferson was the first American to write a recipe for ice cream.” Nevertheless, I’m inspired to cruise down to Amy’s Ice Cream at the Quarry Market for some Mexican Vanilla with strawberries. Thanks, Jefferson. I’m finally down to 171 lbs., and then you come along with…
Pave the Paseo raises money from UTSA alumni for scholarships and campus activities.
Photo credit: University Communications / University of Texas at San Antonio
Sombrilla, a magazine published by the University of Texas at San Antonio, recently highlighted a variety of ways alumni may contribute to Pave the Paseo, a fundraising initiative in which alumni pay to have their names engraved on bricks, which are then added to a popular campus walkway. I proudly participated.
Check out Michelle Mondo’s wonderful story, “Leave Your Mark,” which you may read here.
Stone reports an astonishing rumor: Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman has killed President Andrew Johnson.
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 reports an astonishing rumor: Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman has killed President Andrew Johnson.
July 2, 1865
Tyler, Texas
We all joined forces and quilted a silk comfort yesterday, and my fingers are sore from it today. Quilting is my pet aversion, though Mamma says I am a most rapid hand. I hurry up to get through a disagreeable job.
Capt. Smith is making himself very pleasant and we see him frequently. There are compensations in our lot as one goes, another comes. We have known him from our first residence, but he has not been a regular attache until recently. The Irvine girls brought their brother, Lt. Irvine, a handsome gentlemanly fellow but inclined to corpulancy much to his distaste, to call. Capt. Smith is shorn of half of his hirsute glories, and, while he looks more civilized, it is not an improvement. …
My Brother should be at Brokenburn today and Uncle Bo I suppose in Vicksburg. We heard from the boys. They will not get back for two weeks.
Andy Johnson, the detested, is reported killed by Sherman. Since his amnesty proclamation, what a mockery on a name — he deserves killing.
Stone’s brother heads back to Brokenburn to reclaim the ravaged plantation. Stone keeps a wary eye on the Union soldiers stationed nearby and on the former slaves for any change in their behavior.
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 brother heads back to Brokenburn to reclaim the ravaged plantation. Stone keeps a wary eye on the Union soldiers stationed nearby and on the former slaves for any change in their behavior.
June 25, 1865
Tyler, Texas
The house is very quiet now that the boys are all away again. The two weeks they were here, they kept us in a constant turmoil. Joe was here only a week. He succeeded in getting his mother off, and in her train Mrs. Savage’s and Mrs. Prentice’s families, just a week after he came. All have gone home. Willy and Jimmy Carson remained to help bring out the Negroes later. We saw them constantly and, as all four of the boys are wild about girls, they kept me busy introducing them around, looking over their notes, and making bouquets for them to present to anybody, just so it was a girl. Mamma did not get home from the prairie until Saturday night, and she was almost ill from distress and fatigue. But My Brother’s presence was her best restorative. He went some distance on the road to meet her.
My Brother left last Wednesday for Louisiana. He was going by way of Spring Bank and only gave himself time scant time to reach Brokenburn by the Fourth of July, when all abandoned places will be confiscated to the Government if the owners or agents are not on them. We hated so to see him go, but the business was imperative. He will probably not return before September. We gave him quite a list of articles to bring out, if he returns in the ambulance. Now that civilization commences again, we need so many things we have done without and hardly missed in the excitement of living.
My Brother is looking well, much more cheerful and happier than when he came. The last four years has changed him little in looks. He told me all about his love for Kate. They were engaged for several years and were devoted to each other yet let a trifle part them, a caprice they both bitterly repented but too late. But I suppose it was best for him, as he does not mourn for her dead in her young beauty, wife of another, as he would had she been his bride. But oh, my dear little friend, Kate, the suffering was hers. She suffered, suffered, and I know was glad to answer the call for rest. He says he cannot understand the fascination Eugenia exerted over him when in her presence, that he never loved her, and that he rejoiced when he heard of her marriage. But when with her, he could not resist her wiles. …
Jimmy and Johnny started Thursday for Lamar County on a grand beef-driving and sugar expedition. They will be absent some time. Willy and Jimmy Carson are living now out on the place and are only in occasionally.
The Yankee company are in town but keep so quiet we forget their presence. We have not seen them though they came a week ago. There was no demonstration of any kind, and the Negroes for the present are going on just as usual. No proclamation issued. Would not know there was an enemy in the Department. We all went to church today expecting to be outraged by a sight of the whole Yankee detachment but not a blue coat was in sight. There are only twenty men here, but the regiment is looked for this afternoon. Then I suppose we shall feel the heavy hand. Capt. St. Clair has completed his disgrace by being the only man in town who will entertain a Yankee and the first to take office under the new rulers. The general feeling of contempt for him is too deep for words.
We were overwhelmingly busy for some time making clothes for the boys. Now we have little to do, and I am at my old trade, plaiting straw for Mamma to make into hats. … Our friends among the townspeople are very sociable. Nearly all our refugee friends have gone.
The Civil War has been over for almost 150 years and still the Confederate flag ignites controversy. The latest conflagration is taking place at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Originally just Washington University, it added the Lee in 1870 after the death of Robert E. Lee, who had served as its president since 1865. Lee is buried in the school’s Lee Chapel.
Recently some of the school’s African American students demanded, among other things, the removal of Confederate battle flags in the Lee Chapel. These were not original flags from the Civil War; they were replicas placed there after the originals had been removed because they were deteriorating. The university agreed to take the replica flags down. (You can read university president Richard Ruscio’s reasoned statement about the controversy here.)
The decision led to an eruption from those who decry “political correctness” and protest that the flags…
This week: ‘Force Awakens’ trailer sets record / Obama and the Charleston shooting / What ‘Back to the Future II’ correctly anticipated / Rachel Dolezal’s hair / Drunk Nixon during a Mideast crisis
This week: ‘Force Awakens’ trailer sets record / Obama and the Charleston shooting / What ‘Back to the Future II’ correctly anticipated / Rachel Dolezal’s hair / Drunk Nixon during a Mideast crisis
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.After Charleston Shooting, a Sense at the White House of Horror, Loss and Resolve By Peter Baker | The New York Times | June 18
“After a series of police shootings, protests and riots, this latest eruption of violence reflected a country on edge and a president struggling to pull the American people together. Any hopes of what supporters once called a ‘postracial’ era now seem fanciful as Mr. Obama’s second term increasingly focuses on what he termed ‘a dark part of our history.’ ”
3.How ‘Back to the Future II’ Got 2015 Surprisingly Right By Caseen Gaines | Vanity Fair | June 18
“In Hill Valley’s future, cosmetic surgery has become easy and commonplace. Doc Brown’s face is made more youthful by visiting a ‘rejuvenation clinic,’ and careful observers will notice the presence of Bottoms Up, a breast-enhancement company, which advertises on the McFly television and can be seen in the background of some future scenes.”
4.Crash Course Astronomy: Comets By Phil Plait | Bad Astronomy :: Slate | June 19
“They used to be considered omens, but when you cast aside superstition what you find are endlessly amazing and fascinating examples of nature at its best.”
5.Engineering Map of America American Experience :: PBS | June 2015
“Dozens of museums, institutions and PBS stations have partnered with American Experience to bring you archival images, documents and videos related to America’s engineering history.”
7.That Time the Middle East Exploded — and Nixon Was Drunk By Tim Weiner | Politico Magazine | June 15
“All agreed that what the Soviets proposed in the Middle East was a potential disaster. If U.S. and Soviet soldiers started landing in the middle of the battle, each side standing with its allies, it could look like the opening day of World War III.”
8.Hillary’s Sixties Surge By Gail Sheehy | Politico Magazine | June 14
“It’s take a career in the spotlight, but Hillary Clinton finally seems to be comfortable with her age and her gender.”
9.Beyond Caitlyn Jenner Lies a Long Struggle by Transgender People By Clyde Haberman | Retro Report :: The New York Times | June 14
“A survey of 4,509 Americans adults conducted in late 2013 by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 65 percent had close friends or relatives who were gay or lesbian. Transgender? Only 9 percent. Even so, awareness of transgender people and their issues is clearly growing, and not just because of Ms. Jenner.”
10.After Pearl Harbor, F.D.R. Showed Confidence That U.S. Would Exist in 1956 By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | May 2014
“This letter was Roosevelt’s testament that 15 years hence, there would be a United States, and it would have a president, not some Japanese or Nazi viceroy.”
This week: Reviews of ‘True Detective’ and ‘OITNB’ / Tracking the Islamic State in the U.S. / Happy birthday to George H.W. Bush / Women try to understand ‘Goodfellas’ / New b/w photos of Paris
This week: Reviews of ‘True Detective’ and ‘OITNB’ / Tracking the Islamic State in the U.S. / Happy birthday to George H.W. Bush / Women try to understand ‘Goodfellas’ / New b/w photos of Paris
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.
2.‘Orange Is the New Black’ Is Somehow Funnier and Sadder Than It’s Ever Been By Richard Lawsom | Vanity Fair | June 11
“This season, bawdy pubic-hair gags bump up against jokes about economics and spiritualism, the grime of prison life allowing for visceral, intimate revulsion, but also serving as a kind of blank canvas for larger metaphor.”
3.‘George H.W. Bush’ American Experience :: PBS | 2008
“The life and career of our 41st president, from his service in World War II and his early career in Texas to his days in the Oval Office, first as vice president to Ronald Reagan, then as the leader who presided over the first Gulf War. Drawing upon Bush’s personal diaries and interviews with his closest advisors and most prominent critics, the film also explores Bush’s role as the patriarch of a political family whose influence is unequaled in modern American life.”
5.Two Women Try Their Hardest To Understand ‘Goodfellas’ By Lauren Duca and Eric Whitney | The Huffington Post | June 11
“I immediately threw my Godfather Blu-ray box set in the trash of overflowing tissues; I clearly just watched those to fuel the anti-violence protest rallies I go to after Wednesday book club. What do we do? Do you want to bring over a couple pints and consult Carrie Bradshaw for advice? My whole world is changing.”
6.Serge Ramelli captures Paris in black and white Architectural Digest | June 2015
“Serge Ramelli’s striking black-and-white photography of Paris is the subject of a forthcoming book from teNeues. Through Ramelli’s lens, the City of Light and its notable landmarks are rendered dark and moody.”
7.Visiting Presidential Libraries By Nina Kendall | On the Road with the Histocrats | February 2015
“Are you looking to connect more with history? Are you planning a trip with friends or family who isn’t as excited about history as you? Consider adding a Presidential Library visit to your calendar.”
8.Busted By Grace Na | Slate | June 11
“Why the women on Orange Is the New Black are serving time, one by one.”
9.Map: Is Islamic State in a neighborhood near you? By Adam Goldman | WorldViews :: The Washington Post | June 11
“U.S. authorities have charged more than three dozen men and women around the country in connection with the Islamic State. Men outnumber women in those cases by a margin of nearly 5 to 1. The average age of the individuals — some have merely been charged, others have been convicted — is 26. One is a minor.”
10.D-Day Wasn’t the First Time Eisenhower Felt as if He Had Lost a Son By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | Jun 2014
“Almost a half-century later, Eisenhower called this ‘the greatest disappointment and disaster in my life, the one I have never been able to forget completely.’ “
An era that began on May 15, 1861, ends in early June 1865 when William, Stone’s oldest brother, returns from his shattered army. He returns not only bearing wartime defeat but also more bad family news.
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)
An era that began on May 15, 1861, ends in early June 1865 when William, Stone’s oldest brother, returns from his shattered army. He returns not only bearing wartime defeat but also more bad family news.
June 12, 1865
Tyler, Texas
My Brother is with us at last, safe and well, and words are powerless to tell how thankful we are. He came last Thursday evening with Jimmy and Johnny, whom he met at Homer and turned back, as he had come by home and accomplished all that they could do.
He came by way of Cincinnati and was one month reaching Vicksburg from Lynchburg. He brings the sad news of Aunt Laura’s death in February. She died of grief at Beverly’s loss. She never left her bed after the little darling’s death. She just lost her interest in life and faded away. The doctors attending said she had no disease, only heartbreak and no desire to live, and they could not rouse her nor give her a hold on life. Hers was a sensitive, fine, high-strung soul that could not brave disaster.
Dr. Buckner is in Vicksburg utterly desolate. How kind he was to My Brother, giving him a horse, clothes, and all that he needed. Dr. Buckner is well-fixed financially as his clerk, Mr, Peters, kept his drugstore going on and made a lot of money. The first time Dr. Buckner came home on furlough, some friends told him Mr. Peters was robbing him right and left. Dr. Buckner went right on to his store, caught Mr. Peters by the collar, gave him a good shaking and cursing, and told him, “If, when I come back again, I find that you have cheated me, I shall kill you.” Ever since, they say, Mr. Peters has been scrupulously honest, straight as a siring, and has turned over a lot of money to Dr. Buckner. Mr. Peters is a Vermonter, six feet one, and Dr. Buckner is five feet five but a fighter all over.
Aunt Laura died while at Bladen Springs, Ala., with Aunt Sarah, and Dr. Buckner was with her at the last.
My Brother’s parole gave permission for him and his servant with two horses and his sidearms to return home free of charge, hut he arrived at Vicksburg without a thing. Wesley was forced away at the point of the bayonet when he insisted on following Marse William on the boat. Then My Brother was attacked by a mob and broke his sword over his knee and threw it in the Ohio River rather than give it up to the haughty Federal soldiers. They would not furnish transportation unless he would take the oath of allegiance, and so he sold his horses to get money to get to Vicksburg, where he fortunately met Dr. Buckner.
Mamma is up on the prairie and does not yet know of My Brother’s return. Johnny has gone for her, and we expect her on Thursday. What an immense relief it will be to her.
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