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268CIVIL WAR HISTORY guidance." The iconography buttressing the movement reflected the spirit of the postwar white South. Organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the United Confederate Veterans advanced Lost Cause symbolism in their campaigns to garner public support for the establishment of soldiers' homes. Indigent and disabled veterans were generally portrayed as heroes, deserving of public support in their time of need. Surprisingly, what might have seemed a relatively noncontroversial movement frequently generated discord. It usually centered on funding. Would it be public or private? If public, what would be adequate support? In many states, particularly in Georgia, where New South spokesman Henry Grady became involved, the financial issue was a continual problem. Few, however, questioned the need for the homes. Despite controversy, institutions were eventually established in all of the former Confederate states as well as in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and even California. They enjoyed their heyday for some four decades after 1880. In addition to Rosenburg's fine analysis of Lost Cause ideals and the struggles for establishment of the homes, daily life in the institutions is scrutinized . He also focuses on the relationship of each home with its community. His vivid, moving images of tottering, uniformed veterans being mustered out under the oaks to be gawked at by a visiting Sunday school class or to be loaded on wagons for a Jefferson Davis birthday celebration in town, help to make Living Monuments a poignant portrait of Southern life. John E. Simpson Savannah State College Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, 1862. By Richard B. McCaslin. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994. Pp. ?vi, 234. $29.95.) An assistant professor of history at High Point University in North Carolina, Richard McCaslin has produced a veritable masterpiece filled with tough, gritty research. Tainted Breeze relates in depth the story of the "Great Hanging " in Gainesville, Texas, which occurred in October of 1862, wherein at least forty-four "Unionist Peace-plotters" (who allegedly planned rebellion against Texas authorities) met death by lynch law. As well, a number of other men were lynched in the Gainesville environs. Thus, the hangings have bearing on and become part of a larger chapter in the history of disaffection in the Confederacy which did so much to undermine the South's war effort. Prior to McCaslin's effort, most students of the great hanging had to rely primarily on only two contemporary sources, narratives written by Thomas Barrett, a participant, and George W. Diamond, the younger brother of a participant , and on an occasional secondary article, including one written by this reviewer and published by Civil War History in 1976. Tainted Breeze, how- BOOK REVIEWS269 ever, incorporates and then highly surpasses all such previous efforts. Its author found scraps of information by searching through private and state papers in various depositories in Texas, in the National Archives, in the Library of Congress, and elsewhere. He also turned to various types of county court records and many contemporary newspapers—all this while also going to accounts written soon after the hangings and to modern secondary works that touch on the subject. McCaslin earns praise for his massive research effort. The narrative itself is broken into six chapters. Although the author covers the hangings and hysteria day by day, including the deliberations of the "Citizens Court," which was little more than part of the lynch mob, he does more. In his leading chapter, "Foundations of Dissent," McCaslin discusses the history of Cooke County and its environs prior to the hangings to set the "stage." Further, he also places the story in the context of the general stories of disaffection; as well, he moves beyond discussion of why individuals acted as they did and also considers the wartime military, economic, and social conditions that led to the hangings. Where relevant, he also delves into family relationships and family history. Three appendices add to the value of this volume. Together, they contain names and biographical information on the lynch victims, on the "Citizens Court," and on other participants as well. This reviewer has only one quibble with the author, who stresses the need ofpeople to have "order and security" as motivation...

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