Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 05.pdf/259
EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS.
"The Confederate Home" at Charleston, S. C., is an institution which we have had opportunity of visiting several times recently, and which should command the warm sympathies, fervent prayers, and liberal contributions of philanthropists everywhere.
Not long after the close of the war an energetic, devoted South Carolina woman determined to establish a "Home" for the widows and daughters of Confederate soldiers, who gave their lives or were disabled in the cause of Southern Independence. A contribution of $1, made by a poor widow, an inmate of a "Home" in Baltimore, was the small beginning of this noble charity; benevolent gentlemen and noble women took hold of the enterprise; a building, once the leading hotel of Charleston, and every way suitable for the purpose, was rented (the projector of the scheme mortgaging her private property as pledge for payment of the rent), and has since been purchased; and the enterprise has succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations of its friends.
The Home is under the management of a "Board of Control," consisting of thirteen. ladies, aided by the advice and counsel of a "Gentlemen's Auxiliary Association," composed of annual members, who pay $10 per annum, and life members, who pay $200. There are now in the Home seventy-three orphan daughters of Confederate soldiers, and thirty-six Confederate widows. The Home is sustained at an annual expenditure of about $8,000, and is most economically and judiciously managed in all of its departments.
A walk through the well-ventilated and admirably-kept rooms; a peep into the well-disciplined and well-taught school, and an examination into the plans and the general management of the institution, are sufficient to convince any one of the wisdom and enlightened zeal with which the affairs of the Home are conducted. No wonder that when W. W. Corcoran, Esq., of Washington, visited it he added $5,000 to the liberal contributions he had before made. And, surely, an institution which is endeavoring to fulfill in part the pledges we made our brave soldiers when they went to the front—to pay a small part of the debt we owe the men who died for us—ought to command the cheerful help of every true son of the South who is not willing to repudiate the most sacred obligations.
Mrs. M. A. Snowden, President, or Miss J. A. Adger, Corresponding Secretary, would take pleasure in communicating with any one desiring further information concerning the Home.