The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 183

Book Reviews

is concerned with the Butterfield Stage Line, while the next
chapter is entitled "The Great Hanging," which, as any school-
boy knows, was the major event of the Civil War-in Cooke
County. The first signature in the book contains sixteen pages
of interesting pictures, including photographs of famous Cooke-ys
Joseph Weldon Bailey, Frank (Bring 'Em Back Alive) Buck, and
Gene Autry. The end papers are printed with a neat pictorial
map of the county, and between the end papers lies far more
substance in factual matter than in most county histories, yet
the book is written in a solid, readable, and literate style.
Equipped with a good index and an attractive format, the book
is well worth the price for persons interested in Texas county
history. SEYMOUR V. CONNOR
Texas Technological College
Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, z86z-z868. Edited by
John Q. Anderson. Baton Rouge (Louisiana State Univer-
sity Press), 1955. Pp. xxii+378. $4.95-
When the Civil War broke out, Kate Stone was living with
her mother and five brothers at Brokenburn, a twelve-hundred
acre plantation in northeast Louisiana. Her journal, with entries
from 1861 through 1868, records the reactions of a proud, sensi-
tive, and altogether partisan Southern girl to the vicissitudes of
war and reconstruction.
Kate was an ardent Confederate. The entries in her diary fair-
ly reek with contempt for local shirkers, with indignation at
Southern deserters, with resentment against neighbors who took
the Oath, and with impatience at the Confederate Army for not
carrying the war to "Washington City." Because of the intensity
of her devotion, she was an excellent emotional barometer, sensi-
tively recording the various mental stages ranging from the fierce
joy of the revolutionists to the brooding despair of the van-
quished. In the early days of the war, her writings reflected great
optimism. As the young men left home for their Great Adven-
ture, Kate's entries mirrored a smug confidence: "Our cause is
just and must prevail." This easy optimism gave way to fierce
hatred as the war moved closer to Brokenburn in 1862, as Grant

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