Category: Terrible War (1861-65) Page 1 of 2

Kate Stone (Louisiana State University)

Narrative
Kate Stone was twenty-years-old when Fort Sumter fell to Confederate forces. She was thrilled. Stone was an ardent southern nationalist from Louisiana who lived on a large plantation (Brokenburn) with many slaves and an extended family, including at least two brother who would die in the Confederate army. Within a month after Sumter, Stone began a diary the she kept for seven years. The material was full of biting insights and wise comments. Stone lived through Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign in 1863 and feared the arrival of black troops into the region. She and her family fled to Texas in 1863 and lived there until the end of the war. The young plantation mistress was suitably unimpressed by Texans and frontier life. “There must be something in the air of Texas fatal to beauty,” she wrote. Stone sardonic tone appeared frequently in her journal and sometimes appeared especially hardened. Following Lincoln’s assassination, she remarked on her satisfaction at his fate. Stone returned to Brokenburn –which had been devastated by the war—helped rebuild the place, married in 1869 and lived until 1907. When her diary was published in 1955, it was to wide acclaim, hailed by critics such as Edmund Wilson and by crowds –an estimated 10,000 folks in Louisiana including her 77-year-old daughter (who lived until 1972) and has since become regarded as a Civil War classic, though it is not as well known and familiar as Mary Chesnut’s diary.

Sources
John Q. Anderson edited Kate Stone’s diary and published it as Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868 in 1955. House Divided has several of Stone’s diary entries online, including July 4, 1861, June 30, 1862, March 22, 1863, September 5, 1864, and April 28, 1865.  In addition, Anderson discusses one of the soldiers who appeared in Stone’s diary in “Joseph Carson, Louisiana Confederate Soldier,” Louisiana History (1960). Other scholars have also examined Stone’s diary, including Drew Gilpin Faust’s “Altars of Sacrifice: Confederate Women and the Narratives of War,” Journal of American History (1990) and Clara Juncker’s “Confederate Languagescapes: Kate Stone’s Brokenburn,” Southern Quarterly (1996).  Other primary sources, such as photocopies of letters about Coleman Stone’s death and papers on the Carson family that appear in Stone’s diary, are in the John Q. Anderson Papers at Louisiana State University. The collection also has the  correspondence of Stone’s daughter. Amy discussed a number of different topics, such as Civil Rights issues, James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi, and President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.  In addition, the collection has a map from March 1955 that indicates the location of Brokenburn Plantation. This finding aid has more information on this collection.

Places to Visit
No structures or sites related to Kate Stone exist. Stone was born in X, Mississippi, but she grew up on a plantation in Louisiana. While her family moved to Texas during the later half of the Civil War, they returned to Louisiana after Confederates surrendered in 1865.

Images
The John Q. Anderson Papers at Louisiana State University has images of the Stone family and the Carson family. (See this finding aid for more details). In addition, a photograph of a float in the Kate Stone Day Parade held on March 17, 1955 is online at the LSU Digital Collections.

Narrative
Winchester, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley was arguably the most contested town of the Civil War. Depending on how you count, the community changed hands over seventy times during four years. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson became a hero at Winchester at a major battle in 1862. The town was also part of the Gettysburg Campaign in 1863. And in the fall of 1864, Union General Philip Sheridan won a bloody but brutally effective victory there that contributed to Lincoln’s reelection effort. Winchester offers a dramatic window into the sacrifices of southern families during the war. Secretary of State William Seward visited in 1862 during a period of Union occupation and reportedly said: “”the men are all in the army, & the women are the devils.” Several women kept diaries, wrote remarkable letters or crafted post-war reminiscences. One of the best hybrid collections (part-diary/ part-recollection) comes from Cornelia Peake McDonald who wrote with great talent and behaved with outrageous defiance. In 1863, McDonald sent a sarcastic Valentine’s Day card to Union General Robert H. Milroy during the period when he was heading the occupation. He never discovered the culprit. She later fled Winchester following the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg and became widowed in 1864 when her husband (serving in the army) died from disease. She lived until 1909 but never remarried.

Life & Family
You can find information on McDonald’s family history on page 10 of of this PDF document. A list of McDonald’s children appears on page 10 and 11 of that PDF document. You can also find it in Gwin’s book (See the Appendix on page 273).

Sources
A key primary source is the diary edited by Minrose C. Gwin – A Woman’s Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862 (2003). McDonald discussed the challenges of raising children during the war in a number of diary entries. After her son was arrested on the suspicion of throwing a snowball at a Union officer, McDonald noted in her diary on March 17, 1863 that “I have to be constantly on the watch for fear of my boys doing something to provoke the persecution of the Yankees.” Other selected entries in House Divided include September 26, 1862 ; October 13, 1862 ; December 26, 1862 ; January 20, 1863 ; May 15, 1863. Earlier versions of the diary are available. In 1875 McDonald put together an edition titled A Diary with Reminiscences of the War, From March 1862. In addition,  Cornelia’s son Hunter McDonald published an edition in 1935 –  A Diary with Reminiscences of the War and Refugee Life in the Shenandoah Valley, 1860- 1865. (You can find more information about the 1935 edition here).  McDonald’s also created a scrapbook, which included both text and artwork. “McDonald’s handwriting is flawless and always legible,” as Gwin describes. Gwin notes in footnote 2 on page 275 that the McDonald family of Nashville, Tennessee has the scrapbook in their private collection. In addition, the Jasper County Public Library in Rensselaer, Indiana has the original parody Valentine drawing that McDonald sent to Robert H. Milroy in February 1863.

Other secondary sources related to McDonald’s diary include Margaretta Barton Colt’s Defend the Valley: A Shenandoah Family in the Civil War (1994), Michael Mahon’s Winchester Divided: The Civil War Diaries of Julia Chase & Laura Lee (2002), Sheila R. Phipps’ Genteel Rebel: The Life of Mary Greenhow Lee (2004), Jonathan Noyalas’ My Will Is Absolute Law: A Biography of Union General Robert H. Milroy (2006), Richard R. Duncan’s Beleaguered Winchester: A Virginia Community at War, 1861–1865 (2007). The online Encyclopedia Virginia also has an entry on “Winchester During the Civil War”.

Places to Visit
In Winchester, Virginia you can visit the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society and the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. McDonald is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, which is located in Richmond, Virginia.

Images
Minrose Gwin included three photographs in the 2003 edition of McDonald’s diary: Cornelia McDonald & her children in 1870, another family picture from in 1883, and McDonald’s house in 1914. McDonald’s profile on House Divided also has other images, such as McDonald’s home in Winchester circa 1900, William N. McDonald, and Angus W. McDonald.