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OUR WOMEN IN THE WAR.
AN ADDRESS
BY
Capt. Francis W. Dawson,
DELIVERED FEBRUARY 22, 1887,
AT THE
FIFTH ANNUAL RE-UNION
OF THE
ASSOCIATION OF THE MARYLAND LINE,
AT THE
ACADEMY OF MUSIC, BALTIMORE, MD.
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION.
CHARLESTON, S. C.
WALKER, EVANS & COGSWELL COMPANY, PRINTERS,
Nos. 3 and 5 Broad and 117 East Bay Sts.
1887.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADDRESS.
In the writings of Count Montholon there is the following passage: “On
great occasions, it is almost always women who have given the strongest
proofs of virtue and devotion. The reason is that, with men, good and
bad qualities are, in general, the result of calculation, whilst in
women they are impulses springing from the heart.”
Macaulay, in one of his essays, speaks of “that perfect
disinterestedness and self-devotion of which man seems incapable, but
which is sometimes found in woman.”
This virtue, this perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion, was
manifested on every side, and on all occasions, by Southern women during
the Confederate war. Their constancy and fidelity, their tenderness and
courage, their unfailing cheerfulness and patience, have no parallel in
the history of human achievement and human suffering.
Think for a moment of the peculiar circumstances. The soldiers on the
Northern side fought as the Confederates fought, and were equally
exposed to the fatigue of the march and the hazard of battle. But the
Northern soldier was well-clad, well-fed, well-armed. Naught that
science and wealth could furnish to make him an effective combatant was
allowed to remain wanting. The Confederate, on the other hand, was
stinted in his food, and, besides, was poorly equipped in arms and
munitions. In a campaign, he was more often bare-backed and bare-footed
than warmly clothed and well-shod.
Apply the same test to the women. The mothers and wives, sisters and
daughters, of the Northern soldiers were worn with anxiety as the
Southern women were. The sword of affliction pierced every heart alike.
But there was a striking difference, nevertheless. The bereavement of
the Southern maid and matron was more agonizing than that of the
Northern matron and maid, because the South risked more of its own flesh
and blood than the North risked, family by family. This is not all.
Apart from the fear of ill tidings of those in service, apart from the
anguish that wounds, disease and death could bring, the Northern women
had no special care or discomfort. They were in no danger themselves.
There was no Milroy, no Butler, no Hunter, no Sheridan, no Sherman, to
taunt and upbraid them, to strip them of their most precious mementoes,
to steal or scatter their scanty store of provisions and burn their
homes over their head.
The Southern women, dwelling in a land which was hedged about with
armies and fleets, and cut off from all regular and expeditious
communication with the rest of the world, encountered every form of
hardship and privation. Living almost alone on their plantations, they
were at the mercy of their slaves. It is true that the slaves were, as a
rule, faithful and submissive, but the peril existed all the same. There
was difficulty, from the beginning, in obtaining such necessaries or
luxuries as could not be home-made. As the years went by the privations
became more and more intense. There was actual lack of meat and bread in
many parts of the South. And, behind the black spectre, there was the
threat of rapine and revenge whenever a raiding party should come within
reach.
Therefore, it is that the lives of “Our Women in the War” are beyond the
reach of comparison, and stand nobly, supremely alone, without peer or
rival. Physical suffering, the torment of the body, was added to
“crucifixion of the soul.”
What was the depth of their dolor, none but the All-seeing Eye could
discern. But those who were with them, who were bound to them by ties of
blood or affection, know this, at least, that the Southern women never
hesitated or faltered; that every rich sacrifice on the altar of country
but confirmed their resolution to surrender whatever else remained;
that, in fine, they were joined to the Southern cause to love, to honor,
to obey—for richer or for poorer, for better and for worse, and until
death them should part!
* * * * *
The bloody struggle ended more than twenty years ago. Many a vacant
chair has been filled, and merciful time has brought its consolations.
Far be it from any of us to sow the bitter seeds of discord, or to
revive the poignant regret at the loss of what “might have been.” For
us, there is no country but this country. There is no flag but “the old
flag.” To that country and to that flag we are true, in the measure of
our truth to the cause that was lost and the flag that is furled
forever. How could it be otherwise? The harder the soldier fights, and
the better soldier he is, the more is he to be trusted when the strife
and carnage are over. The noblest Americans in the North to-day are
those who came first to the front, in the battle, and stayed there unto
the end. And side by side with them are the Southern soldiers—the old
Confederates—who met them face to face, and were as true as they. The
better the soldier, the better the citizen. On that platform—broad as
our blessed country—stand all our people—all of us—to-day.
Yet right is right. Truth is truth. It is well enough to cover our
wounds and hide our scars. But never let it be denied—never should it be
denied—that the scars and wounds are there. They are there, however, not
to rankle or to irritate, but as signs and tokens of the days that are
dead, and of glories and disasters whose memory we could not blot out if
we would, and would not if we could! Too much history has already been
written for us—too little has been written by ourselves, and for the
justification of our people. It is, then, but meet and right that, on
such an occasion as this, the truth shall be told, and the whole truth,
even if it hurt the feelings of “our friends, the enemy.” It is not for
their sake but for ours—not to pain them, but to set forth, in proper
light and in true colors, the unexampled conduct of Southern women and
Southern men, in the unsuccessful struggle for independence—that the
eventful story, with its sunshine and shadow, should and must be told.
* * * * *
The war began. The “conflict” which the North, not the South, had made
“irrepressible,” came at last. Troops were organizing in every part of
this sunny land. As rapidly as the battalions were formed they were
hurried to the front. There was, for a time, no special trouble in
procuring, in the cities, the requisite uniforms and camp equipage. The
women, in the towns where troops were stationed, applied themselves
primarily to the construction of Havelocks and tobacco bags. These
tobacco bags, by the way, were supposed to serve the same purpose as
scalps in another kind of warfare. They marked, at least, the long-roll
of pleasant words and kindly glances, if not of incipient flirtations.
In the country districts, however, the work for the soldiers was more
arduous. The whole time and thought of the women was given to the
preparation of clothing. The courthouse or church formed a convenient
place of meeting, and there the overcoats, jackets and other garments
were deftly made. And how many hopes and prayers went forth with the
flash of the flying needle, and the ache of the weary fingers. Nothing
was too irksome, or too hard. The women made cartridges and sand bags,
and in town and country alike scraped lint and prepared bandages, in sad
anticipation of what was soon to come.
In a single word, the Southern women, old and young, gentle and simple,
had but one thought, and that was to aid and encourage, in every
conceivable way, the soldiers of the South. Aye! and the valor in the
field would have but little worth without the bravery at home.
Doubtless, many of you remember these exquisite lines:
The maid who binds her warrior’s sash,
And smiling, all her pain dissembles,
The while, beneath her drooping lash,
One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles—
Though Heaven alone records the tear,
And fame shall never know her story,
Her heart has shed a drop as dear
As ever dewed the field of glory!
The wife who girds her husband’s sword,
’Mid little ones who weep and wonder;
And bravely speaks the cheering word,
What though her heart be rent asunder—
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of war around him rattle,
Has shed as sacred blood as e’er
Was poured upon the field of battle!
The mother who conceals her grief,
While to her heart her son she presses,
Then breathes a few brave words and brief,
Kissing the patriot brow she blesses—
With no one but her secret God
To know the pain that weighs upon her,
Sheds holy blood, as e’er the sod
Received on Freedom’s field of honor!
* * * * *
Soon, all too soon, the provision for the care of the sick and wounded
was found to be insufficient, and the Southern women then entered into
their highest and most exalted labor, blessed and blessing. There was
some little trouble in the beginning, perhaps, as young girls wanted to
visit the hospitals at inconvenient times, and paid but little heed to a
surgeon’s orders, regarding diet, when the sufferer was handsome or
otherwise interesting. Every visitor wanted to do something for the
soldiers. A joke was current in Richmond in those days which is worth
recalling. The scene is in a Confederate hospital:
Lady: (presumably young and at the bedside of a sick soldier.) “How
d’ye do? Is there anything you want?”
Soldier: (curtly.) “No, I believe not.”
Lady: “Is there nothing I can do for you?”
Soldier: “No! I think not.”
Lady: “Oh! I do want to do something for you. Can’t I wash your
hands and face?”
Soldier: “Well! if you want to right bad, I reckon you can; but, if
you do, you will be the fourteenth lady who has done so this
morning.”
But the hospital work went on. The women had found their mission:
Fold away all your bright-tinted dresses,
Turn the key on your jewels to-day,
And the wealth of your tendril-like tresses
Braid back in a serious way.
No more delicate gloves—no more laces,
No more trifling in boudoir or bower;
But come—with your souls in your faces—
To meet the stern needs of the hour.
* * * * *
Pass on! It is useless to linger
While others are claiming your care;
There’s need of your delicate finger,
For your womanly sympathy there.
There are sick ones athirst for caressing—
There are dying ones raving of home,
There are wounds to be bound with a blessing—
And shrouds to make ready for some.
Up and down, through the wards, where the fever
Stalks noisome, and gaunt, and impure,
You must go with your steadfast endeavor,
To comfort, to counsel, to cure!
I grant that the task’s superhuman,
But strength will be given to you
To do for these dear ones what woman
Alone in her pity can do.
And the lips of the mothers will bless you
As angels, sweet-visaged and pale!
And the little ones run to caress you,
While the wives and sisters cry “Hail!”
But e’en if you drop down unheeded,
What matter? God’s ways are the best!
You have poured out your life where ’twas needed.
And he will take care of the rest.
* * * * *
There will be no attempt to describe in detail the work of the different
hospitals in every part of the South, or to set forth the loving and
charitable acts of all Southern women, wherever there was a Confederate
soldier to comfort and to care for. The particular instances which are
to be mentioned must be taken merely as exquisite specimens of a
splendid whole.
* * * * *
During the winter of 1861–62, the number of sick and wounded soldiers
who were sent to their homes in different parts of the South became
considerable, and there was urgent need of means of caring for them and
giving them proper nourishment during their journey.
The Wayside Hospital at Columbia, S. C., was established on March 10,
1862, and continued until February 15, 1865. Over one hundred soldiers
were often accommodated with cots and three hundred with meals in a day.
The Home was entirely supported by voluntary contributions from all
parts of the State. Soldiers detained by sickness, and want of
connection in the trains, had religious service from ministers of the
different religious denominations. The number of soldiers entertained in
this Home, during its existence of nearly three years, was about
seventy-five thousand. After the 17th of February, 1865, when the Home
could no longer be used, large numbers of soldiers received food and
accommodations, when they were passing through Columbia. Funds belonging
to the Wayside Home were sent to the upper districts as long as they
were available, during the spring of 1865, benefiting in that way many
soldiers returning home.
* * * * *
In an address delivered before the South Carolina Medical Association,
at Charleston, in 1873, Dr. John T. Darby—himself distinguished for
gallantry as well as surgical skill—alluding to the ameliorations of
modern warfare, described the relief given to the soldiers on the way to
and from their homes, and said:
“Here be it said, with justice and pride, that the credit of
originating this system is due to the women of South Carolina. In a
small room, in the capital of this State, the Wayside Home was
founded. From this little nucleus spread that grand system of
wayside hospitals which was established during our own and the late
European wars.”
The Wayside Hospital at Columbia, S.C., was then the first institution
of the kind, not only in this country, but in the whole world!
Were the noble women embarrassed or annoyed in the fulfilment of their
welcome task? A lady who was at the Wayside Hospital at Columbia, almost
daily, during the whole period of its existence, gives the answer. She
says:
“I never heard a sentiment of disloyalty or dissatisfaction. I never
heard a doubt thrown upon the right of our cause, or a regret that
the war had begun. I never saw one man, however wasted by disease,
or disabled by wounds, whose chief desire did not seem to be to
recover as speedily as possible so that he might be back at his
place in the field again; and while I encountered many illiterate,
rough and uncouth men, I never met one who failed in that courtesy
which every Southern man, however humble his station, instinctively
accords to womanhood.”
One incident should not be passed over. The ladies at the Wayside
Hospital, one morning, noticed that a pine box, covered with flowers,
was being put on the train. They inquired whose remains were there. The
reply was: “In that box lies the body of a young man whose family
antedates the Bourbons of France. He was the last Count de Choiseul, and
he has died for the South.” So let him be held in perpetual remembrance
by all who love the South and revere the past!
* * * * *
The Wayside Hospital was not the only means of lessening the pain and
travail of strife devised by “Our Women in the War.” At Charlottesville,
Virginia, on April 15, 1862, was organized “The Ladies’ Kitchen,” as it
was called. It was first suggested by the daughters of Senator Mason, of
Virginia, who came to Charlottesville directly from their old home in
Winchester, “where the women were particularly noted for their devotion
and systematic attention to disabled soldiers.” And surely what is true
of Winchester is true of all the Virginians of all the Valley.
The arrangement at Charlottesville was for a storeroom where provisions
were kept, and a kitchen where the Virginia women cooked, with their own
hands, such food as the surgeons prescribed. They did not confine
themselves to dainty preparations such as custards and jellies, although
these were made with rare skill out of materials often inadequate to
their presentment, according to prescribed rules. Unused to labor as
they were, these gentle women kneaded huge trays full of bread and
withheld not their hands from any task, however irksome and laborious.
The necessities of the times taught those apt scholars many a strange
lesson of economy and ingenuity combined, so that, if the receipts for
many a dish concocted to suit the exigencies of Confederate supplies had
been written down, they would have added a valuable chapter to the
culinary lore of our country. The commissary furnished the storeroom
with such substantial as meat, flour, sugar, and also fuel, but to
voluntary contributions the managers looked for all else, and seldom was
their larder empty.
The Ladies’ Kitchen, at Charlottesville, continued its merciful work
from day to day, Sundays included, for three whole years. There was a
roll of honor, on which every donation was recorded, but it is believed
to have been destroyed at the time of “the great Yankee raid.” Well may
it be said, however, that “with no thought of self-seeking were those
gifts made, and surely we may look for their record on high, although
every vestige of them may have departed from earth, save in the memories
of a faithful few.”
There was infinite pathos in the scenes in the hospitals, but there was
at times an element of humor in the sadness. Tears and smiles are near
allied. An anecdote which is told by Miss Emily V. Mason, of Virginia,
illustrates this.
In the field was Gen. R. E. Lee. At home, his gentle wife—Mary Custis
Lee—spent most of her time in knitting gloves and socks for the
soldiers. Mrs. Lee gave Miss Mason, at one time, several pairs of Gen.
Lee’s old socks. Miss Mason says:
“The socks were so darned that we saw that, they had been well worn
by our hero. We kept them to apply to the feet of those laggard old
soldiers who were suspected of preferring the luxury of hospital
life to the activity of the field, and such was the effect of the
application of these warlike socks that even a threat of it had the
effect of sending a man to his regiment who had been lingering for
months in inactivity. It came to be a standing joke in the hospital,
and was infinitely enjoyed by the men. If a poor wretch was out of
his bed over a week he would be threatened with Gen. Lee’s socks,
and through this means some most obstinate chronic cases were cured.
Four of the most determined rheumatic patients, who had resisted
scarifying of the limbs, and, what was worse, the smallest and
thinest of diets, were sent to their regiments and did good service
afterwards. With these men the socks had to be left on several hours
amidst shouts of laughter from the assistants, showing that, though
men may resist pain and starvation, they succumb at once to
ridicule.”
* * * * *
To appreciate what was accomplished in hospitals and kitchens and by
individual effort for the care and comfort of the soldiers, it is only
necessary to compare the resources of the Southern people with those
which were at the command of the Northern soldiers and their friends. To
these the whole world was open; their means were boundless. In the South
there was need of the utmost ingenuity to procure what was strictly
requisite. Of all the marvels of Southern life, in those days, none was
greater than the success of the women in making much out of little, and
apparently something out of nothing. Their love, their devotion, gave
them a patient ingenuity and enduring readiness which no phrase can
adequately portray or define.
* * * * *
When the soldiers came home, there was a jubilee, for they brought
particular tidings of others as well as themselves. They were feasted
and danced to the top of their bent. What if the feast had in it more of
tenderness and grace than of sumptuous cheer. Our women gave what they
had—denying themselves in giving it—and the soldiers thought more of
wife and sister and sweetheart than of mere “cakes and ale.” Then, while
the soldiers were away, and before the bitterest times had come, there
was the pleasant duty of sending boxes to camp. One of the chroniclers
says:
“We girls worked very hard, as we thought, giving concerts,
tableaux, &c., by which to raise money with which to purchase for
these boxes. I can see even now the bevy of bright-eyed, red-lipped,
white-handed girls, flitting hither and thither in their dainty
dresses and bright ribbons. What a lovely picture they made
tripping, or kneeling by the huge boxes, packing parcels marked for
‘Captain,’ or ‘Lieutenant,’ or ‘Private,’ so and so. I smile with a
sadness akin to pain as I recall the contents of those first boxes,
the proceeds of what we call labor! Wine and jellies, mammoth cakes
and confections, dainty toilet appurtenances, china and majolica
shaving cups, inlaid dressing cases, perfumery, &c. There were
bursts of silvery laughter and little shrieks of delight as we found
one more place where something could be stored. There were books,
too, small blue and gold bound volumes of the poets, interlined with
pencil, and holding between the leaves a cluster of blue-eyed
violets, purple pansies, or a geranium leaf, clasping on its green
heart a rosy oleander.”
All such giving of good gifts, be it remembered, was very early in the
fray. Yet in the larger cities, as in Richmond, there was always
abundant merry-making. In the soft summer days, the sweet stillness
broken only by the boom of a distant gun on the lines, there was
abundant opportunity for party-giving, for riding excursions, and, it
must be said, for innocent flirtations. Though there was, by this time,
an abiding ache in nearly every woman’s heart, there was ever a smile
for the soldier and a cheering word besides. Nor was the paramount
consideration, success in the war, ever forgotten. The man who was not
quick to enter the service found no favor in the sight of our women, nor
did he who was inclined to linger overlong in town. The story is told of
a young lady who was engaged to be married. Her betrothed was, of
course, in the army, but suddenly returned home. “Why, have you left the
army?” she inquired of him. “I have found a substitute,” he replied.
“Well, sir, I can follow your example, and find a substitute, too. Good
morning.” And she left him in the middle of the room—a discarded lover,
because he was a disgraced soldier.
Then were “starvation” parties in vogue. You remember them. There were
no refreshments, save an abundance of water as tawny as the historic
stream of Father Tiber. But there was no less merriment, no less
jesting, no less coquetting, no less love-making. The coming events cast
their shadows before, perhaps. There was something of feverishness in
the joy of those days. But through it all the women—“Our Women in the
War”—were undaunted and resolute, trusting in the God of Battles, and
believing in the justice of our cause, as you and I believe—and as all
of us who wore the Confederate gray, and are not renegades or apostates,
will believe to the end!
* * * * *
Turn now for a moment from the gay cities to the plantations in the “far
South.” There the mails were received irregularly, and news—even ill
news—was slow in coming. This made the pain and suffering the greater.
Everywhere the lot of the women at home was harder than that of the
soldier in the field. A thousand anxieties were theirs which were
unknown to him. If he were not killed or wounded in an engagement, he
knew it, and he could contentedly await his next chance; but for days,
and perhaps weeks, the poor women at home were kept in agonized
suspense. Yet their hands were full. There was room for the exercise of
all the administrative and executive ability—the power to direct and the
will to command—which the slave system conferred upon the Southern
women. Out upon those who speak of them, and write of them, as drones,
as women who lived in luxurious indolence!
* * * * *
For the sake of one who knew of what he wrote, and who expressed it in
every thought and aspiration of his learned and loving life, allow me
to recall to you what my dear friend, Dr. G. W. Bagby, of
Virginia—humorist, scholar and always gentleman—said of the Virginia
matron, who is the type of all our mothers and sisters in the South:
“Over and over, the cares and responsibilities of her station, as
the mother of so many children, the mistress of so many servants and
the hostess of so many guests, had utterly overwhelmed her. Again
and again had she been willing, nay, glad—were it God’s pleasure—to
lay down the burden that was too heavy for poor human nature to
bear. To her own sorrows she added the sorrows of her friends, her
neighbors, her dependents. Into how many negro cabins had she not
gone, when the night was far spent and the lamp of life flickered
low in the breast of the dying slave! How often she ministered to
him with her own hands! Thin hands, wasted with overwork—for she
disdained no labor, manual or mental—I can see them now! Nay, had
she not knelt by his lowly bed and poured out her heart to God as
his soul winged its flight, and closed his glazed and staring eyes
as the day was dawning. Yet the morning meal found her at her
accustomed seat, tranquil and helpful, and no one but her husband
the wiser for her night’s ministrations.
“What poor woman, for miles around, knew not the brightness of her
coming? Some of her own children had been taken from her—that deep
anguish she knew it all—and the children of her neighbors, even the
humblest, had died in her lap; herself had washed and shrouded them.
“To feed, to clothe, to teach, to guide, to comfort, to nurse, to
provide for and to watch over a great household, and keep its
complex machinery in noiseless order—those were the woman’s rights
which she asserted, and there was none to dispute that this was her
mission, and none ever dared to question it.”
* * * * *
Have you any just idea of the burdens and cares of the Southern women in
the last two or three years of the war? Take the vivid description given
by Mrs. Mary Rhodes, of Alabama, as an illustration:
“We not only had to furnish clothes for our own immediate soldiers,
but there were others belonging to the company whose friends were
entirely out of reach, and we clothed them to the end. The clothing
for the negroes was a heavy item, and all supplies of that kind was
cut off, and we could only give them what was made at home. On every
plantation, and almost in every house, were heard the constant hum
of the wheels and click of the looms. The soldiers’ clothes were a
constant care. As soon as one suit was sent another was made, for
they often lost their clothing, and it had to be ready to send at a
moment’s notice.
“We wore homespun dresses, which were really very pretty. At a
little distance they looked like gingham, and we were very proud of
our work. We dyed them very prettily, and were more anxious to learn
a new process of dyeing than we ever had been to learn a new stitch
in crochet or worsted work. We knitted all the undershirts the
soldiers wore, also socks and gloves, besides those required at
home. We often knitted until midnight, after all the day’s work was
done, and ladies knitted as they rode in their carriages. Indeed, we
were very busy, and in the constant employment found our greatest
comfort. I heard one woman say: ‘I never go to bed until I am too
tired and worn out to think.’
“And through all the trials, and trouble, and work, the love of the
South kept us up. We never would listen to the thought that we might
fail. We fully realized what defeat meant, and dreaded it so much
that we were willing to risk our all rather than submit to it. We
had the hardest lot. The men were moving about—to-day a fight, or
looking forward to one, the constant excitement keeping them up; and
even when not on duty the camp seldom failed to provide amusement.
We at home had to sit still and wait.
“Now in those last two years all our medicines were exhausted, and
we had to go to the woods for bark, and roots and herbs. We made
quinine of dogwood and poplar, boiled to a strong decoction, and
then to paste. We had to do the work of a chemist, without his
laboratory. We made our own mustard and opium and castor oil. This
last, with all the refining that we were capable of, was a terrible
dose, and only used in extreme cases.”
* * * * *
There was a host of queer devices. Shoe blacking was made from the China
berry, and it unfortunately happened, once at least, that a bottle of it
which was sent, with a quantity of edibles, to a cadet at the Virginia
Military Institute was applied internally instead of externally. The
comment of the cadet who swallowed it was that “the catsup was rather
insipid.”
For ordinary candles and lamps there were many substitutes, such as
sycamore balls split in half and soaked in some fatty substance. On the
large plantations candles were made from beef tallow, with twisted cloth
for wicks, or of tallow and beeswax. There were also green candles made
of the wax of myrtle berries.
Then the children in those days, as even in these days, would burst
their buttons. Pins could take their place, but pins cost $5 a paper.
Persimmon, peach and gourd seeds were then resorted to. It was only
necessary to extract the seeds and bore holes in them, by which they
could be sewed on, and lo! there was a button more durable than that of
pearl or porcelain.
Exquisite artificial flowers were made from goose feathers, and what was
considered a very pretty head-dress was made from the pith of a pumpkin.
House-made dyes were easily devised: For yellow, sassafras; for drab,
kalmia or dwarf laurel; for slate color in cotton and blue-black, in
wool or linen, willow bark; for chocolate brown, red oak bark; for lead
color, white oak bark; for dyeing cotton a dun color, sweet gum bark;
for dyeing wool lead color, the seeds of guinea corn.
* * * * *
Here is another woman’s story:
“The nimble fingers were never idle, nor did they stop at the
adornment of self. The women stitched incessantly. What a precious
thing a needle was in those days! Bone and wooden knitting needles
were used when steel failed. Our women wove domestic and
linsey-woolsey. Black and white check was very popular. Gray and
brown flannels, piped with scarlet, made very pretty and serviceable
suits. Then Garibaldis came into vogue. These were made of every
material, from velvet to muslin, and worn with black or plaid
skirts. Cotton and woollen yarn was used for a hundred different
purposes. It was knitted into gloves, caps, jackets, comforters,
socks, shirts and skirts. Our shoes were carefully husbanded. Happy
was that maiden whose lover captured and sent her a pair when out on
a raid. Sheepskin made a soft but stretchable shoe. Hats were
crocheted of homespun cotton, bleached, starched, pressed and
trimmed with odds and ends of ribbons and flowers made of feathers.
Sometimes they were made of palmetto, bleached, split and plaited.
Those palmetto hats, without trimming, cost only $30. They were
trimmed with ornaments made of palmetto or dried natural grasses,
wheat ears, &c. Hats for the boys and men were made of remains of
the soldiers’ clothes, or of rushes, and sometimes of pine needles
twisted and sewn together with strong homespun twisted and dyed
thread. Heavy? Yes, but what would you do? They could not go
bare-headed. Stylish jackets were contrived out of the cast-off
clothes of some male member of the family, and all were glad to make
over old clothes which, in ante-bellum days, were scarce good enough
for the negroes.
“Money there was in plenty, but some things were not to be bought.
One dollar was good for a piece of gingerbread five inches square,
but the syrup and flour were home-raised, and ginger there was none.
Fifty cents would buy a pint of ‘goobers,’ but they, too, were
home-raised. ‘Striped candy’ for the little ones was not
come-at-able, but our women boiled the home-made syrup, and that
answered as well.”
Tea was made of the sassafras root or blackberry leaf. Coffee was made
of parched meal, rye, wheat, okra, corn and black-eyed peas. Late in the
war, it was discovered that parched sweet potato was the best
substitute. Miss Kate Burwell Bowyer, of Bedford, Va., gives an amusing
illustration of the patriotic adaptability of our people. It was, as she
says, at once amusing and pathetic when the old Virginia cavaliers would
meet and innocently endeavor to assist each other in sustaining our
various patriotic Confederate delusions. Then such a colloquy as this
would take place:
“Now, Mr. B., what do you think this coffee is?”
Mr. B., emphatically: “Think it is? Madame, I do not often now, as I
said, taste the genuine article, but still I can never be deceived
when I do come across it. This is the real old Mocha!”
Mrs. Bowyer’s mother, who prided herself upon her own particular
admixture and adjustment, as did other housekeepers, with equal
right, pride themselves upon theirs, now came forth deliberately and
with triumph.
“This, sir, is parched wheat, with a little rye and a few roasted
chestnuts added, I never put sweet potatoes in _mine_!”
Mr. B., rising in eloquence: “If such a drink as this can be
compounded without coffee, I find we have in our time expended
hundreds of dollars uselessly upon the product, and if the war
should end to-morrow, I protest I shall never desire any better
drink than the cup of coffee you gave me to-day.”
And not only in Virginia. There is a venerable gentle woman in South
Carolina, who numbers well-nigh four-score years, who insists to this
day that the best coffee she ever tasted was made during the war, and
from rye at that. Such were our Southern women. This lady last mentioned
was born in a Northern State, yet firmly believes that there is no place
like the South, and that, as one of the preachers said at Columbia,
after the burning of that city, “there will be no villanous Yankees in
the New Jerusalem”—unless “they have entirely new hearts.”
Dress was peculiar, if pretty. The bodies of black silk dresses were
turned into bonnets, which were lined with red or blue satin from the
lining of old coat sleeves.
For ornaments the girls wore jewelry of their own making. Dainty chains
and bracelets were formed of water-melon seeds, linked together and
varnished and dried. Earrings, pins and bracelets were made of S. C.
army buttons, also of palmetto cut into lace fibres, and so prepared and
cured as to be cream-tinted. Gleaming pearl-like flowers were formed of
bleached and polished fish scales.
The most ingenious dress that is recorded was a black silk, made from
the covers of worn parasols, the umbrella-form being preserved. It was
lined with mosquito netting and considered very stylish.
* * * * *
By the autumn of 1863, any lingering tendency to follow the fashions
“had long since been beaten out of the female mind, and women now
aspired to nothing beyond the mere wearing of clothes, irrespective of
style, shape or texture. Large women appeared squeezed into garments of
smallest proportions, small women floating about in almost limitless
space, while women of tall statue dangled below circumscribed skirts,
and others trailed about in fathoms of useless material. To all these
eccentricities of costumes the Confederate eye had become inured, as
well as to the striking effect of blue bonnets with green plumes, red
dresses with purple mantles, &c., until these extraordinary modes failed
to offend even the most fastidious.”
But there were some bright spots, as in the account of a Confederate
marriage at Bull’s Gap, Tennessee, which is found in Mr. de Fontaine’s
_Marginalia_:
“The bridegroom stood largely over six honest feet in his socks, was
as hairy as Esau, and pale, slim and lank. His jacket and pants
represented each other of the contending parties at war. His shoes
were much the worse for wear, and his toes, sticking out of the
gaping rents thereof, reminded one of the many little heads of
pelicans you observe protruding from the nest which forms a part of
the coat of arms of Louisiana. The exact color of his suit could not
be given. Where the buttons had been lost in the wear and tear of
the war, an unique substitute, in the shape of persimmon seed, was
used. The bride had assayed to wash ‘Alabam’s’ clothes, while he
modestly concealed himself behind a brush heap.
“The bride was enrobed in a neat but faded dress. Her necklace was
composed of a string of chinquapins, her brow was environed by a
wreath of faded bonnet flowers, and her wavy red hair was tucked up
behind in the old-fashioned way. She wore a stout pair of number
nine brogans, and her stockings and gloves were made of rabbit skin,
fur side next to the skin. On her fingers were discerned several
gutta percha and bone rings, presents, at various times, from her
lover. All being ready, the ‘Texas parson’ proceeded to his duty
with becoming gravity. ‘Special’ acted the part of waiter for the
bride and groom. Opening the book, the parson commenced: ‘Close up!’
and the twain closed up. ‘Hand to your partner!’ and the couple
handed. ‘Attention to orders!’ and we all attentioned. Then the
following was read aloud: ‘By order of our directive general,
Braxton Bragg, I hereby solemnly pronounce you man and wife, for and
during the war, and you shall cleave unto each other until the war
is over, and then apply to Governor Watts for a family right of
public land in Pike County, the former residence of the bridegroom,
and you and each of you will assist to multiply and replenish the
earth.’”
* * * * *
The end was drawing nigh. Sadness sat on the brows of patient mothers
who had demeaned themselves so gallantly, and of wives who had blithely
buckled on their husbands’ swords. In the latter part of 1863 flour was
$50 a barrel, bacon $2.25 a pound, salt 70 cents a pound, butter $1 a
pound, meal $2.25 a bushel, tobacco $4 a pound, sugar $2 a pound,
sheeting $1.75 a yard, nails $1.50 a pound. Fearful prices; but low in
comparison with the prices a year later, when butter was as high as $10
a pound, bleached domestic $12.50 a yard, spool cotton $1 a spool, and a
pair of cavalry boots $250. In Richmond, in March, 1865, the prices, as
recorded at the time, were: Barrel of flour $300, coffee per pound $40,
butter $25, beefsteak $13, shoes $80 a pair, and sewing cotton $4 and $5
a spool.
Under the stress of the rapidly depreciating currency and the demands of
refugees who had no place where to lay their heads, rents became
enormously high, and houses of average size were usually occupied by
five or six families. Each family had its own rooms, with the right to
use the common parlor. Those who had had whole houses now only had
rooms. The fit phrase was coined, “Are you housekeeping?” “No,” was the
response, “I room-keep.” Prices went higher and higher. It sorrowfully
was said, towards the end of the war, that the frugal housewife took her
Confederate money to market in a basket and brought back in her pocket
all she could buy with it. But how touching is the history of the
Confederate note:
Too poor to possess the precious ores,
And too much of a stranger to borrow,
We issue to-day our promise to pay,
And hope to redeem on the morrow.
The days rolled on and weeks became years
But our coffers were empty still.
Gold was so scarce, the treasury quaked,
If a dollar should drop in the till.
But the faith that was in us was strong indeed,
Though our poverty was undiscerned,
And this little note represented the pay
That our suffering veterans earned.
They knew it had hardly a value in gold,
But as gold our soldiers received it;
It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay,
And every true soldier believed it.
But our boys thought little of price or pay,
Or of bills that were overdue.
We knew if it bought our bread to-day
’Twas the best our poor country could do.
Keep it, it tells all our history o’er,
From the birth of the dream to the last;
Modest, and born of the Angel Hope,
Like our hope of success it Passed!
Nevertheless, there was no doubt, no dismay. The army must be fed and
clothed. Boxes must still be sent to the dear boys in the West, or in
the trenches around Petersburg and Richmond. Yet how different was the
picture. Miss A. C. Clark, of Atlanta, draws a vivid sketch of the
scene:
“Were these the same people—these haggard, wrinkled women, bowed
with care and trouble, sorrow and unusual toil? These tame, pale,
tearless girls, from whose soft flesh the witching dimples had long
since departed, or were drawn down into furrows—were they the same
school girls of 1861? These women who, with coarse, lean and brown
hands, sadly and mechanically were stowing away into boxes, (not
large ones,) meat, bread, cabbage, dried fruit, soda, syrup,
home-made shoes and coarse home knit socks, garments of osnaburg and
homespun, home-woven clothing of every description—these women with
scant, faded cotton gowns and coarse leather shoes—these women who
silently and apathetically packed the boxes, looking into them with
the intense and sorrowful gaze that one casts into the grave—were
these, I say, could these be the same airy-robed, white-fingered
women, so like flowers, who, months and months ago, (it appeared an
eternity) packed away, ’mid laughter and song, smile and jest those
_articles de luxe_ for the boys at the front?
“Before the close of the conflict I knew women to walk twenty miles
for a half bushel of coarse, musty meal with which to feed their
starving little ones, and leave the impress of their feet in blood
on the stones of the wayside ere they reached home again. When
there, the meal was cooked and ravenously eaten, though there was
not even salt to be eaten with it. Yet these women did not complain,
but wrote cheerful letters to their husbands and sons, if they were
yet living, bidding them to do their duty and hold the last trench.”
What wonder is it? Even superhuman strength could not bear unmoved the
burden placed upon the frail bodies and indomitable minds of the women
and children. Think of what their losses were. Death on the battlefield
or in hospital had brought desolation to tens of thousands of once
joyous homes. Every household was in mourning. What Southern family had
altogether escaped? The poor suffered with those who had been rich. Mr.
James Argo, of Pulaski County, Ga., had fourteen sons and sons-in-law in
service. Ex-Governor Wm. A. Graham, of North Carolina, had five sons in
the army, and his sister, the wife of the Rev. Dr. Morrison, gave two
sons and four sons-in-law to the Southern cause, and among these
sons-in-law were D. H. Hill and Stonewall Jackson. The Shuler family,
originally from Orangeburg District, South Carolina, had fifty-one
direct representatives in the Confederate service. The Easterlings, of
South Carolina, had sixty-three. Mrs. Hamrick, of Cleveland County,
North Carolina, had seven children, all boys. Six of them went at once
into service; the seventh was little more than a child. At
Fredericksburg was killed Lieut. Bell, of Augusta County. Twelve of the
members of his family wore the Confederate gray, and he was the ninth to
be slain, and all of them in the same regiment. But why prolong the
harrowing record! It establishes what was asserted in the
beginning—that, in the nature and extent of their sorrows and
sufferings, the Southern women were tried as no other women were ever
tried, and that, whoever else grew hopeless and timorous, they were
unflinching and unbending, faithful and true.
* * * * *
But the worst of the agony of the wives and mothers of the South, the
worst of their trials and sufferings, was yet to come. It was in the
very last days, in the march of Sherman’s columns through Georgia and
Carolina, in the raids in Virginia, that the culmination of insult and
wrong was reached. From the innumerable descriptions of the brutal and
barbarous conduct of the invading armies it is difficult to select those
which are most significant, and your patience may already be exhausted.
But what is sought to be impressed upon you—so that you shall never
forget it—is that the raiders and bummers had no respect for age or sex,
for young children, tender women, decrepit old men.
Shortly after the burning of Columbia, a body of Northern troops crossed
the Catawba River and entered the town of Lancaster, S. C. What followed
is described by a gentle woman who was there:
“At daylight my aged mother was engaged in her devotions, her room
being down stairs. In a moment her arms were seized by rough
soldiers, who exclaimed: ‘Get up, old woman; praying will do you no
good now, for Sherman’s bummers are upon you!’ Her gold spectacles
were torn from her eyes, her pocket was rifled, her bureau, valise
and dressing table were stripped of every article of value or
comfort.
“A lovely little girl of six years, who had treasured her pet doll
and a cake of sweet soap, a great luxury in those days, during all
her journey from Columbia, sprang out of bed, seized her treasures,
and, childlike, darted under the bed for refuge. The same disgusting
scene of pillage and violence was occurring in the room as had
happened below. At length one of the men approached the bed, and
finding it warm, in dreadful language accused us of harboring and
concealing a wounded rebel, and swore he would have his heart’s
blood. He stooped to look under the bed, and seeing the little white
figure crouching in a distant corner, caught her by one rosy little
foot and dragged her forth. The child was too terror-stricken to
cry, but clasped her little baby, and her soap, fast to the
throbbing little heart. The man wrenched both from her and thrust
the little one away with such violence that she fell against the
bed.”
There were times, however, when the biter was bit. Mrs. Gilmer
Breckinridge, of Fincastle, Va., was visited by the enemy. The usual
searching and plundering began. One of the men opened a press and,
finding a bottle labelled “blackberry wine,” seized it and swallowed the
contents at a gulp. No sooner had he done so than, dashing the bottle
from him with an oath, he yelled out in rage:
“My God, you have poisoned me.”
“You have poisoned yourself,” replied Mrs. P. with provoking
complacency.
“Why did you not tell me it wasn’t wine?”
“You did not ask me,” replied Mrs. P.
Now, although the man never found out, Mrs. P. knew he had only taken a
heavy dose of iron filings, a medicine prescribed as a tonic, and put in
a bottle, from which she had forgotten to remove the original label.
One of the most painful of all the stories of cruelty and insult is told
by a lady who was living at Walhalla, S. C., which was visited by the
enemy on May 1, 1865, three weeks after the surrender at Appomattox.
There were but four persons in the little household: the writer of the
sketch; a brother, who was fifteen years old; a one-armed soldier, an
older brother, who had returned from the army a mere wreck of his former
self; and lastly his wife. The one-armed soldier is spoken of as Earle,
and his wife as Iris. Here are the more striking passages:
“In a second of time the rooms swarmed with armed men intent on
finding the treasure. Fearful oaths and threats were heard as they
explored the house from cellar to garret, succeeded by shouts of
savage exultation as the heavy old chests were drawn from their
hiding places and the rich contents exposed to the greedy gaze of
the plunderers. Looking at the wealth before them, their cry for
gold was for a time silenced, and with coarse jests and triumphant
laugh they began the work of appropriation. Haversacks and pockets
were filled, and when no dint of pressing could put more into them,
snowy cases were drawn from pillows and converted into sacks into
which they stored their booty.
“With feelings difficult to analyze, I followed the robbers
upstairs, determined, if possible, to rescue some of the jewels at
least. These now lay scattered over the floor, and the men, down on
their knees, were making selections. So intent were they on their
work that at first they did not observe my entrance. I watched them
quietly until I saw the wretch, styling himself Colonel, take up a
ring, which, more on account of associations than for any intrinsic
value, I highly prized. ‘You will not take that,’ I said, stepping
forward and extending my hand. ‘That ring was the gift of one now
dead, and I cannot afford to lose it.’
“‘Some damned lover I suppose, whose bones I trust are now bleaching
on the battlefield! Well, give me a kiss and you shall have it.’
“I recoiled, with the disgust I felt depicted in my face.