Read Online My Old Confederate Home by Rusty Williams - Free Book Online

Poyntz tantalized his audience with an opening address that called attention to the plight of destitute Confederate veterans. “Age, like the silent night, progresses,” he intoned. He spoke of the increasing physical infirmity, mental distress, and poverty among Kentucky veterans. “Compelled by this decline, the aged soldier must have help to make his last days comfortable.”
    Offering no specific solutions, he adjourned the meeting for lunch.
    At the afternoon session Poyntz called on a series of speakers intended to whip up support for the establishment of a home. (Young had recommended the speakers to Poyntz and had helped craft their speeches.)
    Judge R. H. Cunningham of Henderson touched all the Lost Cause bases before asking attendees to give their less-fortunate and aging comrades “a home where ease and comfort shall be theirs.” A member of the newly formed Sons of Confederate Veterans, Reed Emery of Danville, spoke as a representative of the young men of Kentucky. He urged the men of his father's generation to care for their disabled and decrepit contemporaries so that “we have done all that love could do to make their last days ones of happiness and peace.” 10
    Cheers echoed around the hall as Poyntz—appearing to bow to the will of the assemblage—opened the floor for suggestions about how to found and fund a home. Well-meaning but unprepared attendees responded enthusiastically with half measures and half baked suggestions until Poyntz (according to plan) called on Bennett Young.
    Young strode to the podium, crisp in his new gray UCV uniform, and proceeded to dump ice water on the mawkish sentiment expressed thus far.
    The audience may have expected to hear Bennett Young the orator, but instead got a dose of cold reality from Bennett Young the attorney. Sentiment is a beautiful thing in its place, he warned them, but it wouldn't dispose of the poverty and want experienced by Kentucky veterans.
    â€œRemember, comrades,” he said, “men who can support a Confederate home grow fewer each year, while men who need a Confederate home will increase each year.”
    He spoke as if arguing to a jury of the problems Kentucky and other states experienced in maintaining a home from the pockets of the veterans alone. “The Confederate Veteran Association of Georgia with its 30,000 members did not sustain its Confederate home,” he reminded them.
    Young cited the successes in Missouri and Maryland, where local veterans built and furnished fine homes, then asked their state legislatures for an appropriation to maintain the residents. “Why shouldn't we ask Kentucky for this appropriation?” he asked the crowd. “Does not Kentucky owe much to the soldiery she furnished the South?”
    Of course she does, the audience roared in response.
    Young introduced a formal resolution—distributing copies printed the night before—calling for Kentucky veterans to raise $25,000 to build and equip a home for indigent veterans while simultaneously asking the state for funds to maintain it. He proposed that a steering committee of twenty-five members from all parts of the state see the project through to completion.
    â€œLet us put up fine houses, well equipped for our needy comrades. Then let us say to the legislature, ‘here is our home, well fitted out.’ Kentucky will do the rest,” he assured them. “We have delayed this work thirty-five years. It is needed now more than it ever was or will be again!”
    Veterans erupted in cheers, and several rushed the stage for the privilege of seconding Young's resolution. According to plan, however, John W. Green (representing the Orphan Brigade) seconded the motion. Poyntz opened the floor for discussion, and camp after camp endorsed Young's resolution.
    One delegate, however, expressed reservations.
    Alpheus Washington Bascom (though everyone, including his wife, called him “A. W.”)