Booknotes III (June '10)

New arrivals:

1. My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans by Rusty Williams (Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2010).

I don't know how many of these places operated throughout the southern and border states, but I remember a pleasant visit to the Confederate Soldiers Home of Missouri in Higginsville back in the mid-1990s. Here, Rusty Williams tells the story of the Kentucky Confederate Home (1902-1934) for poor and disabled vets. From the photos, it looked like a nice place to spend one's final years.

2. Faith, Valor, and Devotion: The Civil War Letters of William Porcher DuBose edited by W. Eric Emerson and Karen Stokes (Univ. of S. Carolina Press, 2010).

DuBose was a seminary student at the outset of the war, and became an oft wounded officer in the Holcolme Legion before being appointed chaplain to Kershaw's brigade. His 150 letters cover service in Virginia and the Carolinas, as well as more personal correspondence with his wife to be.