What do you think?
Rate this book
Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868
This journal records the Civil War experiences of a sensitive, well-educated, young southern woman. Kate Stone was twenty when the war began, living with her widowed mother, five brothers, and younger sister at Brokenburn, their plantation home in northeastern Louisiana. When Grant moved against Vicksburg, the family fled before the invading armies, eventually found refuge in Texas, and finally returned to a devastated home.
Kate began her journal in May, 1861, and made regular entries up to November, 1865. She included briefer sketches in 1867 and 1868. In chronicling her everyday activities, Kate reveals much about a way of life that is no more: books read, plantation management and crops, maintaining slaves in the antebellum period, the attitude and conduct of slaves during the war, the fate of refugees, and civilian morale. Without pretense and with almost photographic clarity, she portrays the South during its darkest hours.
Kate began her journal in May, 1861, and made regular entries up to November, 1865. She included briefer sketches in 1867 and 1868. In chronicling her everyday activities, Kate reveals much about a way of life that is no more: books read, plantation management and crops, maintaining slaves in the antebellum period, the attitude and conduct of slaves during the war, the fate of refugees, and civilian morale. Without pretense and with almost photographic clarity, she portrays the South during its darkest hours.
440 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
25 people are currently reading
200 people want to read
About the author
Kate Stone
40 books6 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the GR database.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 18, 2022
I purchased this book at the museum during a visit to the Vicksburg, MS, National Park this summer. Driving through the battlefield - the hills. The trees and thick vegetation. The Mississippi River- helped me visualize the battle of Vicksburg while I was reading and made the book come to life.
The book took a long time to finish. It was very long and would become monotonous, so I wouldn’t touch it for a while. But reading about life, albeit one-sided, during the Civil War was fascinating.
The diarist spoke of many, many visits - both to her family and her family making them - of friends and family with many of those for extended periods of time. A lot of time was spent visiting or playing games on “the gallery,” a/k/a porch.
Lots of sickness, followed by death, of those friends and family. I wondered if modern medicine could have saved them?
Kate’s family crocheting gloves and underwear for the military men was something I hadn’t thought of before. The economy was poor during the war; of course those items would need to be made and donated! Embroidering the back of the men’s gloves made me chuckle, though.
Her happiness of Lincoln’s assassination saddened me. I had never thought of anyone thinking that was a good thing.
This was a thought-provoking look at real-time history for me. I see myself picking it up again to read random chapters about that era.
Personal fact I learned from my mom during my reading is that my great-great-great grandfather Matthew Motley fought in the Civil War Company C 52 Regiment Kentucky Volunteers at 20 years old. I couldn’t help but wonder who made his gloves and underwear, or did he go home to visit family?
The book took a long time to finish. It was very long and would become monotonous, so I wouldn’t touch it for a while. But reading about life, albeit one-sided, during the Civil War was fascinating.
The diarist spoke of many, many visits - both to her family and her family making them - of friends and family with many of those for extended periods of time. A lot of time was spent visiting or playing games on “the gallery,” a/k/a porch.
Lots of sickness, followed by death, of those friends and family. I wondered if modern medicine could have saved them?
Kate’s family crocheting gloves and underwear for the military men was something I hadn’t thought of before. The economy was poor during the war; of course those items would need to be made and donated! Embroidering the back of the men’s gloves made me chuckle, though.
Her happiness of Lincoln’s assassination saddened me. I had never thought of anyone thinking that was a good thing.
This was a thought-provoking look at real-time history for me. I see myself picking it up again to read random chapters about that era.
Personal fact I learned from my mom during my reading is that my great-great-great grandfather Matthew Motley fought in the Civil War Company C 52 Regiment Kentucky Volunteers at 20 years old. I couldn’t help but wonder who made his gloves and underwear, or did he go home to visit family?
June 8, 2025
In her early 20s, Kate Stone journaled a diary through the Civil War from her plantation home Brokenburn Plantation in the Mississippi Delta to refugee flight across the state to Tyler, TX and areas.
Sometimes seeing humanity in the "darkies", she tries to maintain a life of novel-reading, huckleberry-gathering, and socializing while her brothers are pulled away into the war and eventually the "Yankees" arrive regardless.
It is not all war rumors and eroding quality of life. There is, for instance, a comet:
Also, sewing up gloves, hats, and jackets as sell as making food like souse.
Sometimes seeing humanity in the "darkies", she tries to maintain a life of novel-reading, huckleberry-gathering, and socializing while her brothers are pulled away into the war and eventually the "Yankees" arrive regardless.
It is not all war rumors and eroding quality of life. There is, for instance, a comet:
June 30
There is a comet visible tonight. We were surprised to see it, as we did not know it was expected. Have seen nothing of it in the papers. It is not very bright but has the appearance of a large star, Venus at her brightest, with a long train of light seen dimly as through a mist. Jimmy first discovered it. Two splendid meteors fell just above it, and the boys said it was a big star chased by little ones trying to regain its orbit.
Also, sewing up gloves, hats, and jackets as sell as making food like souse.
March 16, 2017
The roles of rumor and social visits in 1860s life are made crystal clear in Kate Stone's journal of her Civil War years (and a little beyond), "Brokenburn."
At a time when it could take a week or more for concrete information about even major news events to trickle to the average American, speculation and gossip ruled the day. And this was often life-or-death news.
There's much more to this journal of a Louisiana woman in her early 20s than the role of rumors, of course, but it's one thing that struck me — particularly how wildly wrong they usually were. One spring 1865 rumor Stone relates had Union general William T. Sherman killing vice president (who became president) Andrew Johnson! Elsewhere, reported victories turn out to be defeats, the presumed dead survive and vice versa.
The number of visits by friends and neighbors among the plantations near Vicksburg, Mississippi, and later at the Stones' other residences in Louisiana and Texas, where they fled the war in 1863, is astonishing, and the comings and goings of folk takes up a lot of this journal.
Yes, this is a Civil War era diary from a young woman whose family lived near the site of one of the war's major campaigns. There are a few instances of Yankees prowling the premises during the Vicksburg campaign. But mostly this is a fascinating glimpse into the life of Southerners in the 1860s and of everyday life during wartime. The Stone family owned slaves, and we're privy to Kate's attitudes toward blacks, from pity and affection to mean prejudice and foul racism.
"The Negroes really seemed to like the cotton picking best of all," she says, but later says she doesn't blame them for running to Union soldiers. In writing about the family's slaves she is patronizing, sympathetic, thoughtless, badly frightened and cordial by turns. But the systemic racism of the time prevails.
Her attitude toward the Union army and its commander-in-chief is decidedly one-note. After Lincoln's assassination, the news of which, of course (along with the presumed dire fate of Secretary of State William Seward, attacked but not killed as it turned out), takes many days to reach them in Texas, she says: "All honor to J.W. Booth. What torrents of blood Lincoln caused to flow, and how Seward has aided him in his bloody work. I cannot be sorry for their fate. They deserve it."
Kate Stone's family includes her mother and several siblings, two of whom, brothers, die in 1863. The book could roughly be divided into two parts, consisting of the Stones' wartime life in Vicksburg, and their long journey and resettlement in comparatively safe Texas after escaping a dangerous situation (prowling Union soldiers and black men) by fleeing their plantation in a canoe.
Names and people come and go, and the reader cannot keep track of them or know them all, but it doesn't matter much. Stone, just 20 when the war started, writes well and fascinatingly. She's fairly bright and is always on the lookout for a good book. In the end, she herself produced one, an account stirring even in its day-to-day chronicling of a family's life. It's hardly surprising that the citizens in the shadow of war, like Kate, became numbed to it, used to the ordinary hardship and extraordinary horrors, but that's no less interesting for being understandable.
Kate: "The sword of Damocles in a hundred forms is suspended over us, and there is no escape. The country seems possessed by demons, black and white."
At a time when it could take a week or more for concrete information about even major news events to trickle to the average American, speculation and gossip ruled the day. And this was often life-or-death news.
There's much more to this journal of a Louisiana woman in her early 20s than the role of rumors, of course, but it's one thing that struck me — particularly how wildly wrong they usually were. One spring 1865 rumor Stone relates had Union general William T. Sherman killing vice president (who became president) Andrew Johnson! Elsewhere, reported victories turn out to be defeats, the presumed dead survive and vice versa.
The number of visits by friends and neighbors among the plantations near Vicksburg, Mississippi, and later at the Stones' other residences in Louisiana and Texas, where they fled the war in 1863, is astonishing, and the comings and goings of folk takes up a lot of this journal.
Yes, this is a Civil War era diary from a young woman whose family lived near the site of one of the war's major campaigns. There are a few instances of Yankees prowling the premises during the Vicksburg campaign. But mostly this is a fascinating glimpse into the life of Southerners in the 1860s and of everyday life during wartime. The Stone family owned slaves, and we're privy to Kate's attitudes toward blacks, from pity and affection to mean prejudice and foul racism.
"The Negroes really seemed to like the cotton picking best of all," she says, but later says she doesn't blame them for running to Union soldiers. In writing about the family's slaves she is patronizing, sympathetic, thoughtless, badly frightened and cordial by turns. But the systemic racism of the time prevails.
Her attitude toward the Union army and its commander-in-chief is decidedly one-note. After Lincoln's assassination, the news of which, of course (along with the presumed dire fate of Secretary of State William Seward, attacked but not killed as it turned out), takes many days to reach them in Texas, she says: "All honor to J.W. Booth. What torrents of blood Lincoln caused to flow, and how Seward has aided him in his bloody work. I cannot be sorry for their fate. They deserve it."
Kate Stone's family includes her mother and several siblings, two of whom, brothers, die in 1863. The book could roughly be divided into two parts, consisting of the Stones' wartime life in Vicksburg, and their long journey and resettlement in comparatively safe Texas after escaping a dangerous situation (prowling Union soldiers and black men) by fleeing their plantation in a canoe.
Names and people come and go, and the reader cannot keep track of them or know them all, but it doesn't matter much. Stone, just 20 when the war started, writes well and fascinatingly. She's fairly bright and is always on the lookout for a good book. In the end, she herself produced one, an account stirring even in its day-to-day chronicling of a family's life. It's hardly surprising that the citizens in the shadow of war, like Kate, became numbed to it, used to the ordinary hardship and extraordinary horrors, but that's no less interesting for being understandable.
Kate: "The sword of Damocles in a hundred forms is suspended over us, and there is no escape. The country seems possessed by demons, black and white."
December 12, 2021
I can't recommend this book. The editor made the terrible decision to leave all the boring trivialities in, and there are a mountain of them. This is a trend in modern academia, and it especially plagues recent scholarly books of Civil War memoirs and letter collections. Older generations of academics had no qualms about cutting out trivial text, but this generation of academics is too timid to try it.
Brokenburn is filled with stuff like this: "Mamma and I went out Monday and took dinner with Mrs. Savage and went up in the afternoon to call on Mrs. Carson. I remained there until this evening. Mamma came out and spent the day. Had a delightful visit."
Or this: "Mamma is better today but only feels well enough to lie on the lounge and bed. I commenced a set of chemise and will do the machine work, and Courtney, the seamstress, will finish them."
Page after page of brain-dead stuff like this is maddening to read. Until a version of Brokenburn comes along with a better editing job, I would skip it. I've read several Civil War memoirs by women that are better than this.
Brokenburn is filled with stuff like this: "Mamma and I went out Monday and took dinner with Mrs. Savage and went up in the afternoon to call on Mrs. Carson. I remained there until this evening. Mamma came out and spent the day. Had a delightful visit."
Or this: "Mamma is better today but only feels well enough to lie on the lounge and bed. I commenced a set of chemise and will do the machine work, and Courtney, the seamstress, will finish them."
Page after page of brain-dead stuff like this is maddening to read. Until a version of Brokenburn comes along with a better editing job, I would skip it. I've read several Civil War memoirs by women that are better than this.
July 23, 2020
I found out about this publication from Laura F. Edwards's Scarlett Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and reading the excerpts of it in that book sold me on my desire to read the entire published version of Kate Stone's journals. First of all, what got me interested in reading this was what Kate Stone wrote about her enslaved people. I'm a public historian who's worked at plantation house museums for several years, and my focus is interpreting the experienced of the enslaved instead of the experiences of the slaveholding family. There's this one particular passage from Kate Stone's diary where she writes about this particular incident of resistance from her family's enslaved workers: they moved into the slaveholding family's house after the family fled to Texas, put on the slaveholding family's remaining clothes, and took over the household. Naturally, Kate Stone was horrified and shocked by the behavior of her family's "loyal servants," and it was that inclusion of that particular incident as well as her reaction that told me I had to read the entire thing.
I didn't do a good job describing that entry, but stories of resistance amongst the enslaved are necessary, and this one struck a particular cord with me. The rest of Kate Stone's journal is interesting in how she and her family interact with and speak to/about their enslaved workers, so while that isn't a main focus of the diary itself, if you're interested in the history of slavery, this published journal is definitely worth a read.
I didn't do a good job describing that entry, but stories of resistance amongst the enslaved are necessary, and this one struck a particular cord with me. The rest of Kate Stone's journal is interesting in how she and her family interact with and speak to/about their enslaved workers, so while that isn't a main focus of the diary itself, if you're interested in the history of slavery, this published journal is definitely worth a read.
July 30, 2022
A rather interesting read of a woman who begins the war in the upper echelon and ends up far more impoverished as their means of income and livelihood are slowly taken away. The war clearly seemed far away until it was literally in their back yard. Their subsequent exodus from their state in hopes of outlasting the war clearly didn't prove to be fruitful. The inflation of items alone are so baffling that they might seem high even all this time into the future. Their standard of living continued to fall right up until the end of the war. There is a certain plus of this book that it goes slightly into the reconstruction era instead of ending at wars end, which helps explain how people attempted to get back on their feet.
July 28, 2019
Fascinating first-hand account of the Confederate homefront during the Civil War. Very much worth a read for anyone interested in history, esp what life was like among the Southern upper class before and during the war. It's startling to read from a modern perspective the author's celebrating of Lincoln's assassination and her easy acceptance of how glad she is to rest b/c the servants (read: slaves) can handle all the work. Yet you can't help but like the author and appreciate her insights and humor, and empathize with her grief at the loss of family members to the war.
October 4, 2018
Great insight to a woman's life during the War between the States.
October 16, 2020
The best account of a Confederate woman's life during the war that I have read yet.
March 9, 2009
My mother's aunt Christine Kitchens was a history-devotee who taught Latin in the high school in Tallulah, Louisiana in the 1930s-1950s. She was involved in Kate Stone Day back in 1955 and would have been thrilled to have seen how beloved Brokenburn has become over the years. The experiences related by Kate Stone in her journal were by those of many of the parents and grandparents of our family's neighbors in Tallulah, St. Joseph, and other Louisiana towns, but Stone's is considered one of the best. Ironically enough, her niece Kate Stone Emanuel ended up in Iowa Park, Texas, some 400 miles away from Madison Parish, Louisiana but not 20 miles from Wichita Falls, my hometown. Both were a far cry from the East Texas camp-life experienced by Kate during her family's flight in 1863.
May 16, 2010
I read this to get a better understanding of life in the South during the CW. I better understand the feelings of planters before and after the war and how those feelings have come down through time to whites and blacks living the South today. It seems that Southern women focused more on keeping diaries than women in the North so there are a number of books like this. However, this one seems to be more detailed and less fictionalized after the original writing.
June 29, 2015
Great read
Anyone with ancestors from the Vicksburg area during the 1860's will enjoy this. Not only did Kate give me an idea of what daily life was like but how she was conflicted about the slave issue. I myself never got the idea that she believed the war was about slavery. She gave some information I needed regarding the marriages of various Vicksburg citizens. Most of all I was able to see how our relatives made their way from Mississippi to various parts of Texas.
Anyone with ancestors from the Vicksburg area during the 1860's will enjoy this. Not only did Kate give me an idea of what daily life was like but how she was conflicted about the slave issue. I myself never got the idea that she believed the war was about slavery. She gave some information I needed regarding the marriages of various Vicksburg citizens. Most of all I was able to see how our relatives made their way from Mississippi to various parts of Texas.
March 15, 2008
I read this book for American History in high school, and it has been on my list to reread for a long time. I'm sure it will have more depth for me the second time around, but I learned a lot from it the first time.
December 5, 2012
There are a handful of books I think everyone should read. This is one of them. You get a complete view of what it was like for a prominent Southern white family during the Civil War. Kate Stone comes across as very human and likeable. Do yourself a favor and read it.
August 27, 2014
I liked Kate Stone much better than Mary Chestnut.
July 24, 2016
Remarkable!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews