Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS171 rial champions tended to be heretical on matters of theology, causing northern conservatives to ally with southern clergymen against both abolition and theological "liberalism." Smith argues persuasively that the motivation of northern conservatives was not so much their desire for denominational unity as their own racism. The author also reveals the intense politicizing of southern evangelical ministers which provides a needed corrective to the otherworldly stereotype which southern Christianity and its critics share in common. The third era discussed is Reconstruction, and the author's most controversial conclusion is his flat assertion that white racism was the "greatest single factor in moving black people to establish churches of their own" (p. 228). While it is true that southern evangelicals were racists and that black evangelicals separated, the cause and effect relationship is not so certain as Smith surmises. As many historians have demonstrated, the black's desire to control his own institutions was at least as powerful a motive in this separation. Smith also emphasizes that developments in the North again reinforced racism in the South. Smith divides southern clerical thought between 1877 and 1910 into a predominant racist pattern which contained two elements. Extremists considered the Negro inherently inferior and opposed any attempt to help him, while moderates agreed on his inferiority but favored educational uplift. Standing outside this dominant position were a handful of religious iconoclasts who rejected the doctrine of Negro racial inferiority. This is a solid study of a dismal subject. Wayne Flynt Samford University Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868. Edited by John Q. Anderson. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. Pp. xxviii, 400. $8.95.) This reprint of Kate Stone's journal, originally published in 1955, is a welcome addition to the Library of Southern Civilization series. Here is presented in enjoyable form the day-to-day reactions of a young woman of the planter class to the progress of the war and the increasing hardships of life on the home front. Throughout the war, Kate was confident of success and certain of the justice of the Confederate cause. Her unmitigated patriotism allowed her to brand the Emancipation Proclamation a "diabolical move" (p. 145) and to say "All honor to J. Wilkes Booth, who has rid the world of a tyrant . . ." (p. 333). When marauding Yankees and Negroes frightened the family into leaving their large northeastern Louisiana cotton plantation, Kate endured camping out on the road to Texas and living among Texans, for whom Kate could find few kind words. "There must be something in the air of Texas," she said, "fatal to beauty" (p. 224). New interest in the history of women has enhanced the value of this diary. Completely lacking selfconsciousness, Kate revealed the active 172CIVIL WAR HISTORY role of women in plantation life and the immense expansion of that role during the war. The competence of Kate's "Momma" is pervasive, as she —a widow—managed the affairs of the family while her eldest sons fought in the army. Kate's description of the behavior of Negroes and Yankees near Vicksburg in 1862 and 1863 may be of interest to those studying black history. Social historians have long found useful Kate's references to plantation life, visiting customs, illnesses and remedies, popular fiction, the deprivations of the war, the difficulties of traveling during the war, and refugee life in northeastern Texas. Kate's two short annual summaries in 1867 and 1868—the regular entries end in November 1865—reveal a little about changed race relations and economic readjustment after the war. The general reader, as well as the historian , will find the diary a pleasant diversion. Judith Fenner Gentry University of Southwestern Louisiana The Gray and the Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation. By Robert F. Durden. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. Pp. xi, 305. $10.95.) Robert F. Durden's The Gray and the Black proves that almost anything with the word "Black" in the title can be published today. In a real sense this book is merely an edited collection of documents covering the Confederate debate on arming and freeing the slaves. Durden has strung together the debate with a scissor and...