Alcoholism and drug addiction were all-too-common maladies among Confederate veterans. (Some attribute that to untreated PTSD.) When Dr. J. A. D. Hite opened his sanitarium in Nashville in 1916,...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/09/treatment-for-veterans.html
Veteran journalist Chuck Mraz hosts a news and arts program on WMKY (90.3 FM), the public radio station serving much of Eastern Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. He was kind enough to interview ...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/08/radio-days.html
I wrote last week of the marriage of two inmates of the Oklahoma Confederate Home in 1912. Immediately after the wedding, the newlyweds received a special gift. A newspaperman from the Kansas ...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/07/100000-wedding-present.html
The Military Order of the Stars and Bars will announce this weekend that My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans has been awarded the 2010 Douglas Southall Freeman Hi...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/07/best-book-of-high-merit.html
John L. Galt, superintendent of the Confederate Home of Oklahoma, had a romance problem on his hands in November 1912. The Oklahoma soldiers home admitted Confederate veterans and widows of Con...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/07/love-at-first-sight.html
This visit prompted my recent rant about funding for the Dallas Public Library: During my trip to Kentucky to promote My Old Confederate Home earlier this month, I spoke to about 60 people at...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/they-should-be-proud.html
Usually, ex-Confederates were pleased to receive any donation that would help fund their state soldiers homes. Some, however, drew the line when the money was coming from their old foes. At a m...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/firmly-declined.html
A publisher approached me recently with the idea of doing a book on one of the national United Confederate Veteran reunions. Gaines Foster (Ghosts of the Confederacy ) and others have done a good...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/history-in-dark.html
I recently wrote about the percentage of married veterans who lived in Confederate soldiers’ homes while their wives lived elsewhere. I recall that while researching My Old Confederate Home,...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/over-hill-to-poorhouse.html
During my hiatus from this blog I had a chance to catch up on some reading. I read a lot of fiction, but I’d never read Harry Turtledove’s counterfactual Civil War series. I started with T...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/counterfactual-and-alternative.html
You better act now if you want to pick up this color postcard of the Tennessee Confederate Home. It's for sale on eBay , and the auction runs through June 20.
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/act-now.html
Accounts of life in the Confederate soldiers’ homes are all too often sprinkled with stories of suicide by some aged inmates. It’s understandable, I suppose. These were old men, often ill ...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/confederate-jumps-to-death.html
I’ll be in Kentucky this week, talking to two different groups about the Kentucky Confederate Home and the other Confederate soldiers’ homes. Both presentation are open to the public, and you...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/two-kentucky-confederate-events.html
Earlier this year I heard from Roy Moneyhun of Jacksonville FL, who took me to task for my description of the Florida Old Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Home. (You’ll see a thumbnail descript...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/home-overrun.html
My constant companion while researching My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans was R. B. Rosenburg’s Living Monuments: Confederate Soldiers’ Homes in the New Sou...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/inmates-single-and-married.html
One of my distractions during the last six months has been publication and sales of Historic Photos of Dallas in the 50s, 60s, and 70s (Turner Publishing, 2010). I grew up in Dallas during th...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/honorable-distraction.html
I allowed this blog to go silent six months ago, and it’s nagged at me every day since. I broke the cardinal rule of good blogging (and healthy digestion, for that matter): Stay Regular. Let�...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2011/06/as-i-was-saying-in-november.html
I often hear from family historians who are seeking information about an ancestor who lived in the Kentucky Confederate Home. Some are frustrated by their inability to search out information abou...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2010/11/peewee-pewee.html
Uriah Bell owned and operated a cigar and soft drink stand on the grounds of the Texas Confederate Home for Men and, apparently, saved a good share of his profits. In 1924 for his hundredth birth...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2010/11/centenarian-behind-wheel.html
After a too-long absence, I'll be back in Kentucky this weekend for the Kentucky Book Fair . They say it's the largest literary event in Kentucky, and people tell me they can't imagine missing ...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2010/11/great-weekend-event.html
Several of the Confederate soldiers' homes published their own newspaper, usually monthly, containing news of interest about the veterans, veterans events, obituaries, and reminders of home rules...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2010/09/confederate-home-newspaper.html
At thirteen years old, my daughter was stubborn enough to gnaw off her own arms if her mother or I asked her to pick up her room. Maybe that's why I appreciate the story of Laura Talbot Galt...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2010/09/stubborn-little-girl.html
The Confederate Soldiers homes were institutions; like hotels, cruise ships or prisons, they had to acquire the goods that allowed them to care for their residents. While researching My Old C...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2010/09/t-he-confederate-soldiers-homes-were.html
The reviews of My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans have been uniformly encouraging. I was particularly pleased by Richard Hatcher's review in the Charleston (...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2010/09/recent-review.html
People often ask me why residents of the Confederate soldiers' homes were required to obtain permission slips ("furloughs") to leave the home for a month-long absence to visit relatives or an ...
http://myoldconfederatehome.blogspot.com/2010/09/unidentified-veteran.html