My Old Confederate Home

by Rusty Williams

  That evening, Commandant William O. Coleman wrote up charges and specifications against the old railroad man, recommending that he be expelled from the Home “as his continual bad behavior is intolerable.” Gray was confined to his room, and a seventy-four-year-old “guard” was posted at the door until a courtmartial could be called.

  The rhetoric of respect for Gray, Patterson, Mocabee, Peyton, Slemmons, and other veterans of the Lost Cause too often exceeded the reality of their lives. The old men of the Kentucky Confederate Home were old men living elbow to elbow with one another, some still suffering from wounds of a war long past. The Home was a respectable place, providing shelter, clothing, food, and care, but it required that the men live up to standards never required of them in civilian life.

  Some thrived in the environment, while others resisted to the point of expulsion.

  Chapter 10

  The Socialite and the Editor

  According to the story told later, Confederate veteran Charles W. Russell contacted Bennett Young sometime during the summer of 1905 about a New York socialite who was visiting Louisville. The visitor was Mrs. L. Z. Duke, a wealthy widow and native Kentuckian, who desired to pay a call on the Kentucky Confederate Home. Russell was careful to explain that she was not directly related to General Basil and Henrietta Morgan Duke of Kentucky; it was rumored that her late husband was one of the Carolina tobacco Dukes. The New York woman had money, and it was thought she might be persuaded to donate some of it to the Home.

  By the time Young arranged to call on Mrs. Duke at the Galt House, however, she had departed for New York. Young wooed her with a series of flattering letters, inviting her to return soon for a tour of the Home.

  Mrs. Duke was unable to schedule a return trip to Kentucky until June 1906. Young asked Florence Barlow, former editor of The Lost Cause and newly elected president of the Confederate Home chapter of the UDC, to meet Mrs. Duke in Louisville and escort her to Pewee Valley.

  Mrs. L. Z. Duke was a small woman, standing barely over five feet tall, and she dressed for the short trip in a shirtwaist and skirt that made her look younger than her sixty-five years. She was quick with a firm handshake that spoke of her free and generous nature and a sprightliness that promised excitement and adventure. Nature stopped short of making Mrs. Duke beautiful: her blue-gray eyes were set too far apart, and a flattened nose looked as though it might be more at home on a retired prizefighter. But she had a warm, open smile that beckoned men and women to her.

  If Mrs. L. Z. Duke was not the reserved and aloof New York socialite that Florence Barlow was expecting to meet that day, then Florence Barlow was certainly not the shallow small-town clubwoman that Mrs. Duke may have expected.

  Miss Barlow—she was an unapologetic spinster—had recently celebrated her fifty-first birthday with the sale of her interest in The Lost Cause, and she radiated a competence and an enthusiasm that earned the trust of businessmen and moneyed women used to hiring social secretaries and planners. Even at middle age she retained a youthful prettiness, and she styled her hair and wore her dresses in the latest styles, but without a hint of flashiness or brass. (She avoided haute couture, however, not wanting to give the impression of competing in any way with corporate wives or potential patronesses.) She could converse knowledgeably on almost any subject, but always with a subtle respect for the social status of her conversational partner.

  By the time the editor and the socialite arrived in Pewee Valley on that June morning in 1906, the two women were on their way to becoming fast friends.1

  Clocks moved slowly at the Kentucky Confederate Home; the days were long, and there was little to fill them.

  A day at the Home began for inmates at 6:00 A.M. with a cannon shot, a blank charge fired from a field artillery piece that had been donated to the Home and placed on the front lawn. Eighty-year-old Lorenzo D. Holloway, the first inmate to arrive at the Home and the first to sign the register, was the self-appointed color guard. At sunrise on dry days Holloway climbed to an access hatch on the fourth floor and raised the U.S. flag—forty-six white stars united on a blue field—over the Home.

  By six-thirty, the men would fall in for morning roll call. Rules required that all inmates wear a standard uniform—pants, vest, coat during winter, and hat outdoors—and present themselves for inspection each day. After all the inmates were accounted for, the men were dismissed for breakfast mess.

  A typical breakfast might consist of sliced ham, fried potatoes, coffee, biscuits, oleomargarine, and perhaps fruit preserves. (There weren't enough hens in the area to provide eggs for 250 men every day. Most of the eggs purchased by the Home were used for cakes or other desserts.)2

  Weather permitting, inmates might stroll the grounds after breakfast or find a chair on one of the galleries, but the rules prohibited them from leaving the Home's grounds without the commandant's permission.

  Dinner, served at midday, was the heaviest meal of the day, better suited to an active farmer than a sedentary seventy-year-old. Sliced roasts of beef or mutton, seasonal vegetables, potatoes, and bread would be served family style from big platters, brought to the tables by dining stewards. Friday was usually a day for fish—filets of bullhead cat, drum, or some other river fish poached in milk.

  Afternoons stretched out as empty as the mornings. Some inmates returned to their rooms for naps; others loitered in the library or one of the parlors. This was the time to break out the checkerboards or deal a game of Seven-Up.

  Dinner, served at 5:00 P.M., was a light meal: stewed fruit, rice pudding, or some cold corned beef.

  After an evening roll call inmates might once again linger in the downstairs common rooms. A few would retire to their sleeping rooms, but there was no smoking or chewing allowed in bed, no loud noises, no reading in bed by lamp or candle. The day ended at 9:00 P.M. with all lights extinguished and a night guard posted at the front door.

  Amusement was in short supply during the earliest years of the Home. There was a well-stocked library, and a piano with box after box of sheet music. But the inmates were not, in the main, books and music men. Instead, they created their own diversions.

  Whittling was a common hobby, and a cedar telephone pole left on the roadside near the Home provided a bonanza for inmates Elbert Smith and J. J. Hurly. Smith and Hurley dragged the pole back to the Home and chopped it into manageable pieces. The men carved hundreds of souvenirs: whittled figurines, balls-in-cages, and other cedarwood knickknacks that they marked with their names and sold to visitors. (“I'm selling these to raise money to have my teeth filled,” Hurly told one visitor, who observed that Hurly's purse was filled by the end of the day.) Inmate T. J. Haynes of Fulton County was another penknife entrepreneur. He carved custom walking sticks out of found hardwood and sold them, sometimes clearing as much as $20 a day.3

  Gardening was another popular leisure activity for the ablebodied. It was common in springtime for inmates to stake out a patch of ground for their own gardens, and their fresh vegetables usually ended up on the Home's dining tables. The Louisville Parks Commission (chaired by ex-Confederate John B. Castleman) donated bulbs, shrubs, and trees to the Home. “[Lexington inmate P. A.] Davidson takes charge of the planting and arrangement of them,” a visitor noted.4

  Lorenzo Holloway scoured donated magazines for puzzle contests and subscription sales offers. He often donated his prizes—a set of glassware or a monogrammed, hand-painted china service—to the Home. His cataract surgery a success, Charles E. Bellican, the former printer from Louisville, created a sort of free-form art using thousands of stamps, paper bows, and cutout pictures. He decorated the walls of his room with his fantastical creations and gave them to children who visited the Home.5

  Overall, however, there was little activity to fill the hours. Visitors broke the tiresome sameness of the days, but visiting hours were limited to six hours a day, three days a week, and many inmates had no friends or relatives to visit them.

  There was no large public room in the Hom
e for entertainment events. Funerals and religious services—always well-attended breaks in the daily routine—were held in the main lobby. (Due to lack of space, inmates were forced to stand, and the presiding clergyman conducted the service from a perch on the stairway.)6

  “These old men need entertainments,” Young wrote in his 1905 annual report. “Some kind of amusement is essential to the happiness of the inmates.” He envisioned “free lectures and concerts, which could be arranged, if only there was a place in which they could meet.”

  Even as he wrote this, Young had an idea of what was needed and how to go about getting it.

  At its first meeting of 1906, the board of trustees authorized Bennett Young to draft a bill for the legislature—a bill requesting still another special appropriation for improvements at the Home. Topping the list of improvements was a chapel for worship.

  “Many ministers of the Gospel have offered to come and preach every Sabbath, if the proper place could be assured,” Young noted. “There is no place where there could be an assembly in the Home, and, if half the inmates should attend the church in Pewee Valley, it would be crowded.”

  What self-respecting legislator could vote against a chapel for Christian worship?

  Bundled with the request for chapel money was a request for monies to improve the Home's sewage and water systems. These had been built with funds appropriated just two years before, but neither was working up to spec, and the Home was again dealing with the conjoined problems of too little water and too much sewage.

  Young found it necessary to remind legislators that “improvements which are made on the property only enhance its value to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.” Because the deeds to all the properties were in the name of the Commonwealth, the state “will then have property largely increased in value” once the last ex-Confederates died off.

  The request for a house of worship died in the Senate, however, and Young was forced to bide his time on the chapel plans while he and the board dealt with other administrative matters.

  The Kentucky Confederate Home's regular income was growing due to a swelling inmate population and the increased per capita allowance, but the board of trustees was fielding more demands—some proper, some petty—on its budget. No one was trying to steal the bacon, but too many people were trying to cut off a slice for breakfast.

  When money was tight, Commandant William O. Coleman had detailed inmates to perform tasks around the Home, but with the Home on a better financial footing, the inmates wanted to be paid for their services. Inmate Henry Fry presented a bill to Fayette Hewitt for $5.00, his monthly charge for picking up mail at the Pewee Valley post office and carrying it back to the Home. The bill was returned to Fry unpaid, with the advice that Fry should continue carrying the mail if he expected to enjoy free bed and board at the Home. Likewise refused was the bill from Levi Prewitt, who wanted to be paid for his “volunteer” services in the Infirmary Building. Finis Renshaw petitioned the board of trustees for $5.00 a month to buy a patent medicine he had seen advertised, a concoction he felt sure would cure him of all ills. Bennett Young none too gently bounced the request to Dr. Pryor, and though Renshaw would live another fifteen years, nothing more was heard of his miracle cure.7

  But the biggest claim on the budget came on March 2, 1906, from Commandant Coleman himself.

  In a letter handed to Bennett Young moments before the executive committee meeting convened, Coleman threatened to resign immediately “unless my salary is increased to $1,200 per annum.” Like Coleman himself, the letter was curt and undiplomatic: “The salary I have been receiving, of $900 per year, is wholly inadequate for the very arduous services required of me.”8

  Young was inclined to accept Coleman's resignation on the spot, but the executive committee voted to delay the matter until the entire board of trustees held its quarterly meeting two weeks later.

  Coleman felt justified asking for a raise. He had taken over management of the financially strapped Home from Salem Ford three years earlier and had instituted the draconian measures necessary to keep its doors open. He had followed the board's instructions to the letter while dealing with the disrespect of an increasingly unruly and surly population of old men. With the new infirmary and a larger staff to manage, the former sheriff of Trimble County felt his current annual salary of $900 was no longer commensurate with the work and responsibilities.

  Young, for his part, may have been justified in thinking that Coleman was at the root of the problems that had plagued the Home throughout 1905. The commandant had been too rigid, perhaps, with no sense of empathy or compassion. (“Many of these complaints might be obviated by a little tact on the part of our superintendent,” according to the committee that had investigated the problems.) His dealings with other employees were often rocky (“In view of the friction existing in the management …”), and there were unresolved complaints about his personal integrity (“stealing everything they could lay their hands on”). Young had considered replacing Coleman the previous year, but backed off when one of the candidates for the job went public with the employment offer.9

  In the end, Coleman shot himself in the foot when he provided a copy of his ultimatum to the Louisville Courier-Journal. When a story about Coleman's salary and demands appeared in the newspaper, a half-dozen qualified applicants presented themselves to the board for consideration.10

  On March 14, 1906, the Confederate Home board of trustees voted unanimously to accept Coleman's resignation and to offer the position of commandant to state senator Henry George at an annual salary of $1,200 (and free lodging in the Home).11

  Henry George's appointment may have been an expression of gratitude for legislative work performed on behalf of the Home; but George was a boyishly good-natured man in his fifties and a welcome replacement for the ill-humored Coleman. “His selection will prove a popular one throughout the state,” a newspaper editor predicted.12 Henry George, equipped with a natural enthusiasm and politician's gregariousness, shared Bennett Young's belief that “some kind of amusement is essential to the happiness of the inmates” at the Kentucky Confederate Home.

  Florence Barlow and Mrs. L. Z. Duke would help Henry George provide those amusements.

  Florence Barlow was a career businesswoman at a time when few women had professional occupations outside the home; she was a socially active single woman at a time when most spinsters felt themselves lucky to be keeping house for a brother's family. But above all, she was a true Daughter of the Confederacy.13

  Born in Lexington in 1854, Florence Dudley Barlow was the daughter and granddaughter of inventors, a father-son team of creative and gifted craftsmen. The elder Barlow is said to have invented the first steam locomotive and demonstrated it (with passenger car attached) in Lexington in 1826. By the 1840s father and son had created and patented a mechanical planetarium, a massive clockworks contraption that demonstrated relative movements of the planets of the solar system and all the known moons. The inventors built a foundry in Lexington, and their families lived well off the proceeds of planetariums sold to universities and collectors.

  In the years before the Civil War, Florence's father, Milton, turned his attention to weaponry. In 1855 Milton patented a forty-foot-long breech-loading rifled cannon designed to lob an explosive shell further, and with greater accuracy, than any cannon in existence. Using a Federal grant as seed money, he was well on his way to constructing the prototype when Union troops arrived in Lexington in 1861 to confiscate the weapon.

  Concerned that Milton Barlow's designs might be used by the Confederacy, Federal soldiers entered his shop to seize the drawings, molds, castings, tools, and every piece of machinery. When Barlow resisted, he was imprisoned. Seven-year-old Florence Barlow's first memory of war was watching her father led away in manacles by armed men in blue uniforms. Her memory of that event, she told an acquaintance fifty years later, was “as vivid as if it happened yesterday.”14

  Milton Barlow eventually escaped from the Federal j
ail and, with no opportunity to tell his family good-bye, rode southward to join General Abraham Buford. Commissioned a captain in the Confederate army, he spent the war in a staff position as Chief of Ordnance.

  Impoverished after the war, the family moved to Madison, Kentucky, where the former inventor and foundry owner found work as a miller. As a child, Florence Barlow had enjoyed pretty dresses and needlepoint and art lessons; in Madison she earned money teaching wealthy women how to paint decorative china.

  “I determined to cultivate gumption,” she said later, “and bring into use all the intelligence I could command.”

  Gumption led Florence in 1890 to Middlesborough, then a southeastern Kentucky coal mining boomtown. She had heard of fortunes being made in land speculation and, with no experience, traveled there alone to open a real estate office. She was the only woman in the business; within a week every banker, attorney, surveyor, and insurance man in town was sending referrals to her.

  Her gumption had given Barlow her start, but she was a quick study, and her natural intelligence allowed her to capitalize on her sales successes. An officer of a large building and loan association arrived in Middlesborough, looking to establish an agency there. Barlow wanted to represent the company, but had to admit she knew little about how the business worked. She asked for a stack of company literature and an appointment for later that day.

  “After I had read the matter put into my hands and heard him talk ‘building loan’ for an hour,” she said, “I was able to talk ‘building loan’ intelligently.”

  The company appointed her its agent, and she papered the town with posters reading “$200,000 to Loan by Miss Barlow!” Business boomed.

  The real estate and building loan boom stalled when a fire leveled the town. As soon as the telegraph station reopened, Florence Barlow was wiring building materials firms all over the country, seeking to be appointed their commissioned sales agent in Middlesborough.