Chapter XIV: Repairing Damages--A Mother Made Happy--Conclusion 170 (3)

A woman who was a neighbor of ours made herself what really was an elegant dress for the times. The material was an old and well-worn black silk dress, altogether past renovating, and fine white lint cotton. The silk was all ripped up, and cut into narrow strips, which were all raveled and then mixed with the lint cotton and passed through the cotton cards two or three times, so as to have the mixture homogeneous. It was then carded and spun very fine, great pains being taken in the spinning to have no unevenness in the threads. Our neighbor managed to get for the warp of her mixed silk and cotton dress a bunch of number twelve thread, from cotton mills in Columbus, Georgia, fifty miles from our settlement, and generally a three days’ trip. She dyed the thread, which was very fine and smooth, with the barks of the sweet-gum and maple trees, which made a beautiful gray. Woven into cloth, it was soft and silky to the touch, and of a beautiful color. It was corded with the best pieces of the worn silk, and trimmed with pasteboard buttons covered with some of the same silk.

Some very rich-appearing and serviceable winter woolen dresses were made of the wool of white and brown sheep mixed, carded, spun and woven just so; then long chains of coarser spun wool thread dyed black and red were crocheted and braided in neat designs on the skirt, sleeves, and waist of these brown and white mixed dresses of wool.

Of course braid and tape could not be bought, nor could we weave that sufficiently narrow to make a neat appearance on dress goods; but we soon found that long chains of crochet-thread would answer nicely for braiding. Balls of it were crocheted of various colors; black, white, red, blue, and dark brown were the colors most used. It was braided on in various ways; sometimes singly, at times we would sew three or four chains together of colors to blend, making the tape an inch or more wide. And thus it was placed upon our dresses.

The extent and variety of our cloth manufacture, our fertility in making designs, our different ways of weaving, were really remarkable. We made cloth in stripes broad and narrow, and in checks wide and small. We made plain cloth, twilled cloth, jeans, and salt-and-pepper cloth, the latter by alternating one thread of white and one thread of black the width and length of the warp, and the same in the woof. This was a slow process, as the shuttles, with the quills of black and white thread, were changed at every tap of the batten. Plaids were woven both of wool and cotton thread. They required three and four shuttles and as many varieties of color. We had “dice”-woven homespun, or “basket plait,” as some would call it, which required three or four treadles and as many different ways of tramping them to form the plait. When the warp was dyed a solid red or deep garnet and filled in with blue, or perhaps purple, slate, or black, as one wished, or when the warp was dyed blue and filled in with whatever other color pleased the eye, such cloth we called our “chambrey.”

Sometimes lint cotton was dyed a deep and a pale blue, and then carded and spun as dyed. If the warp was of deep blue the woof would be pale blue; or the woof would be deep blue thread and the warp pale blue. It was woven solid and tipped with bright bits of silk, cassimere, merino, or other fine woolen scraps, which, cut in small pieces, were woven in the meshes of thread.

Cloth was woven with two, three, four, and five treadles. An ingenious way the weaver had of tramping the treadles would throw up on the right or upper side of the cloth whatever design was placed in front of the weaver’s eye. Some beautiful carpets of wool, dyed a variety of bright colors, were woven on our common house-loom; and large woolen coverlets as well as woolen and cotton flannels were made in the same manner.

I often wonder how we were able so quickly to adapt ourselves to the great changes rendered necessary in our modes of life by the blockade. But be it remembered that the Southerners who were so reduced and so compelled to rely entirely upon their own resources belonged to the Anglo-Saxon race, a race which, despite all prating about “race equality,” has civilized America. The reflection to which memory gives rise when I recall war times in the South is this, that “blood will tell.”

As to our cotton flannel, while it was rather heavy for every-day wear, it was just the thing for capes and cloaks, and was often made into blankets. The filling was spun rather coarse and very softly twisted. If it was to be used for capes or cloaks the raw cotton was dyed whatever color was made choice of before carding and spinning; if the flannel was to be used for blankets the lint cotton was carded and spun white. When placed in the loom for weaving the treadles were tramped in a manner which threw up the coarse, soft spun woof very nearly all on the upper side of the cloth. Two or three heavy beats of the batten were given to pack the filling close and dense. When so much had been woven and was still smoothly and tightly drawn over the breast-beam, one of a pair of cotton-cards was used by the hand to raise the lint of the coarse, soft-twisted, tightly-packed filling, till it was perfectly smooth and downy. It would then be passed over the cloth-beam, and again so much would be woven; then it left the loom-bench, and with the card the lint was raised again in the same manner. And so the process of weaving and stopping to raise the lint with the cards would go on to the end of the warp. It was a slow and tedious way of making cotton flannel, but a large quantity was made. That which was dyed a very dark brown, and with which great pains had been taken in raising the lint, was, at some little distance, sometimes mistaken for sealskin. So much for the ingenuity of the women of southern Alabama.

Soon after we had finished our self-imposed task of carding and spinning the warp and woof for our four dresses, and it had been noised far and wide in our neighborhood that we had had patience to hold out until the task was completed, one of our acquaintances, a young lady, set to to excel us, in that she was not only going to card and spin the warp and woof for a new homespun, but was herself going to weave the thread she had spun into cloth for her dress. She finally arrived at the loom with her warp and woof and commenced with great joy the weaving. Her homespun warp proved to be quite defective. There were more or less broken threads to mend in the run of any warp, even that spun at the cotton mills, which was always stronger than hand-spun warp. At first, when the threads of warp would break on either the cloth-beam or thread-beam side, she would leave the loom-bench and mend the broken threads; but she became impatient and wearied at the oft-breaking threads (sometimes three or four would snap asunder at once), and by the time she had woven three or four yards she had tired altogether of mending and piecing, so she began to leave the threads hanging wherever they happened to snap apart, and soon a thick fringe of thread was hanging from the sides and middle of the cloth on both sides the harness and sley. She kept on weaving, however, saying she had enough for the plain skirt, and, as it narrowed, that would cut the waist, and if it narrowed yet more, why that would make the sleeves; but the more threads that broke the fewer were there to sustain the remaining ones, so that the cloth, from being a good yard wide at the beginning, narrowed to less than half a foot, and after the first two or three yards was useless for any purpose, and there ended that homespun that was to be the wonder of the settlement. We felt nowise inclined to exult over our friend’s failure, for we no doubt would have suffered defeat had we attempted to weave our spun warp. It required no little patience to work with warp the threads of which were every now and then breaking, for every thread had to be mended as soon as it broke, or if not, thin, flimsy places would occur all through the web, and the cloth would not wear long enough to pay for the trouble of carding, spinning, and weaving.

VIII.

One of our most difficult tasks was to find a good substitute for coffee. This palatable drink, if not a real necessary of life, is almost indispensable to the enjoyment of a good meal, and some Southerners took it three times a day. Coffee soon rose to thirty dollars per pound; from that it went to sixty and seventy dollars per pound. Good workmen received thirty dollars per day; so it took two days’ hard labor to buy one pound of coffee, and scarcely any could be had even at that fabulous price. Some imagined themselves much better in health for the absence of coffee, and wondered why they had ever used it at all, and declared it good for nothing any way; but “Sour grapes” would be the reply for such as they. Others saved a few handfuls of coffee, and used it on very important occasions, and then only as an extract, so to speak, for flavoring substitutes for coffee.

There were those who planted long rows of the okra plant on the borders of their cotton or corn fields, and cultivated this with the corn and cotton. The seeds of this, when mature, and nicely browned, came nearer in flavor to the real coffee than any other substitute I now remember. Yam potatoes used to be peeled, sliced thin, cut into small squares, dried, and then parched brown; they were thought to be next best to okra for coffee. Browned wheat, meal, and burnt corn made passable beverages; even meal-bran was browned and used for coffee if other substitutes were not obtainable.

We had several substitutes for tea which were equally as palatable, and, I fancy, more wholesome, than much that is now sold for tea. Prominent among these substitutes were raspberry leaves. Many during the blockade planted and cultivated the raspberry-vine all around their garden palings, as much for tea as the berries for jams or pies; these leaves were considered the best substitute for tea. The leaves of the blackberry bush, huckleberry leaves, and the leaves of the holly-tree when dried in the shade, also made a palatable tea.

Persimmons dried served for dates.

Each household made its own starch, some of the bran of wheat flour. Green corn and sweet potatoes were grated in order to make starch. This process was very simple. The grated substance was placed to soak in a large tub of water; when it had passed through the process of fermentation and had risen to the surface, the grated matter was all skimmed off, the water holding the starch in solution was passed through a sieve, and then through a thin cloth to free altogether from any foreign substance. A change of clear water twice a day for three or four days was made to more thoroughly bleach the starch. It would then be put on white cloth, placed on scaffolds in the yard, and left to drip and dry. Starch of wheat bran was made in the same manner. It was as white and fine as any ever bought.

A good makeshift had soon been devised for putty and cement, and the artlessness of it will perhaps cause a smile to flit across the face of glaziers. But no cement could be bought, and this was useful in many ways, as panes of glass had to be set in, or a break to be mended; the handle broken from a pitcher to be placed on anew, or repairing done to table ware. When it was necessary to repair any such breaks, a Spanish potato (none other of the species of that esculent root answered so well) was roasted in hot ashes, peeled while yet hot, immediately mashed very fine, and mixed with about a tablespoonful of flour; it was then, while warm, applied to whatever need there was. This paste, when it had become hardened, remained fixed and firm, and was as durable as putty.

In place of kerosene for lights, the oil of cotton seed and ground peas, together with the oil of compressed lard, was used, and served well the need of the times. For lights we had also to fall back on moulding candles, which had long years lain obsolete. When beeswax was plentiful it was mixed with tallow for moulding candles. Long rows of candles so moulded would be hung on the lower limbs of wide-spreading oaks, where, sheltered by the dense foliage from the direct rays of the sun, they would remain suspended day and night until they were bleached as white as the sperm candles we had been wont to buy, and almost as transparent as wax candles. When there was no oil for the lamps or tallow for moulding candles, which at times befell our households, mother-wit would suggest some expedient by which the intricate problem of light could be solved.

One evening at a neighbor’s, where we had gone to tea, when we took our seats at the supper-table we were diverted by the lights we were to eat by, the like of which, up to that time, we had not seen, nor even thought of.

In the absence of any of the ordinary materials for lighting, the good woman of the house had gone to the woods and gathered a basketful of round globes of the sweet-gum tree. She had taken two shallow bowls and put some lard, melted, into them, then placed two or three of the sweet-gum balls in each of the vessels, which, soon becoming thoroughly saturated with the melted lard, gave a fairylike light, floating round in the shallow vessels of oil like stars.

At other times rude lamps or candles were improvised, anything but attractive in appearance, though the light was fairly bright. Medium-sized bottles (of course any proper sized bottle would answer) were taken, and several strands of spun thread twisted together to form a wick two or three yards long were well steeped in beeswax and tallow, and coiled around the bottle from base to neck closely and evenly. When ready for lighting, one or more of the coils of thread would be loosed from the bottle, raised above the mouth an inch or so, and pressed with the thumb to the neck of the bottle. When the wick had burned to the bottle’s mouth, the same process of uncoiling and pressing the wick to the bottle would be repeated. This gave a steady flame. When beeswax could not be had, tallow was used for steeping the strands.

Sewing societies were formed in every hamlet, as well as in our cities, to keep the soldiers of the Confederacy clothed as best we could. They met once every week, at some lady’s house, if it was in the country. To such societies all the cloth that could be spared from each household was given and made into soldiers’ garments. Socks, gloves, blankets, woolen coverlets, and even home-made bed-quilts were donated; wool scarfs, knitted on long oak or hickory-wood needles, were sent for our soldiers in the bitter cold of Virginia, to wrap around their necks and cover their ears.

In many settlements there were spinning “bees.” Many women whose husbands were in the army found it uphill work to card and spin all that was necessary to clothe a numerous family. In such cases, as often as was needful, there would be a gathering of ladies of the settlement, both married and single, for the “spinning bee.” Wheels, cards, and cotton were all hauled in a wagon to the place appointed. On the way, as often as not, a long flexible twig would be cut from the woods, and attached to one of the spinning-wheels; from the top of such flagstaff would play loosely to the wind, and jolts of the wagon, a large bunch of lint cotton, as our ensign. Sometimes as many as six or eight wheels would be whirring at the same time in one house, and assistance was also given in weaving, cutting out, and making up clothing for such families.

Ah, those stormy days of our convulsed country had their guileless pleasures, as well as sorrows! We were drawn together in a closer union, a tenderer feeling of humanity linking us all together, both rich and poor; from the princely planter, who could scarce get off his wide domains in a day’s ride, and who could count his slaves by the thousand, down to the humble tenants of the log-cabin on rented or leased land. I have now a letter written by a Southern woman, whose husband and oldest son belonged to an Alabama regiment, which was ordered to Island No. 10, in the Mississippi River; and soon surrounded there as it was by the Federal army, communication was cut off between our soldiers and the home ones. Soon the island was captured by our enemies, and her husband and son were taken prisoners. She was then thrown upon her own resources entirely to provide for a family of ten, no longer receiving the government pay of eleven dollars per month each for husband and son. Her two oldest daughters were large enough to give her some help in her battle to keep the wolf from the door. These people were of those who had never owned a slave in their lives, and who had but a few acres of land, but they were just as true and devoted to our cause as those who numbered their slaves and acres by the thousand. I cannot forbear quoting here a few lines of this brave, good woman’s letter.

“We had a hard time [she writes]; myself and two oldest daughters making a living for ten in the family. There was no work the little boys could do. We spun and wove cloth to sell, day by day, and we took in sewing, which was done by night. We knit a great deal, and worked, oh, so hard! and I thank God that it was so, for had it been otherwise, had I had time to sit and ponder over all the sad details that the daily news brought me, I should have failed. But when night came on, my weary, aching limbs and troubled heart were soon at rest; and I awoke refreshed, and ready for another day’s trials; and I am proud to say we never went to bed hungry.... We even had some merry days, neighbors and friends meeting together, telling our trials, and even laughing at them; feeling that the sacrifice was little, could we but gain our cause. There is one thing I am proud of, and that is, the advantages we took of our resources, and our own independence. I can hardly see how such a people could be conquered.”

She lives to-day in the “Lone Star” State, surrounded by nine of her children, who are all good and useful citizens. Her husband died in a Northern prison. The oldest son, who was taken prisoner when his father was, was paroled soon after the South’s surrender, and returned home, as thousands of others did, to join a broken home circle.

We often thought, and said too, that it was well for us all in the South that our minds were so taxed in devising temporary expedients, and our hands so busied in carrying them into effect; we really had no time to brood over the sorrowful news that the papers were daily depicting. We were being led in a way we knew not: and like the humble woman of the cottage, we even made merry over our inevitable privations and inconveniences. Indeed, we grew so accustomed to them that they scarcely seemed privations.

While hemmed in on all sides by the blockade, we used to think that if no war were raging, and a wall as thick and high as the great Chinese Wall were to entirely surround our Confederacy, we should not suffer intolerable inconvenience, but live as happily as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before they tasted the forbidden fruit. We used to say, “How can we be subdued, when we have so cheerfully and uncomplainingly given up every luxury, and in a measure even the comforts of life; and yet with what crude resources are at hand, we are feeding and clothing the whole people of the South, civil as well as military?” We felt all the more pride, when we remembered that at the beginning of hostilities we were unprepared in almost every essential necessary to the existence of our Confederacy; yet now, the best part of two years had gone, and the South was holding her own.

Our day of adversity had not come; it was not unnatural that we sang with fervor and animation, “We conquer or die,” and “Farewell, Brother Jonathan.” But we did not forget to call upon the Lord in the day of our success, as well as in the day of our adversity. Often the inhabitants of our settlement--and it was just the same all over the Southern States--were called to the house of worship to sanctify a fast. What comfort and consolation we gathered from the reading of the first and second chapters of the book of the Prophet Joel; how fervently and devoutly we prayed that God would stay up the hands of our armies, till victory was won; and trusting God we would return lifted up in spirit to our homes and to our labor. It was well for us that we had not prophetic vision to foresee the result of the contest. We fasted, we prayed, we trusted; but victory did not crown our armies.

IX.

It may excite some amusement to record the fact that among the thousand and one industries and makeshifts which blossomed into life in southern Alabama during the period of the war, the making of hoopskirts, which were worn extensively before, as well as during, and even for some time after, hostilities between the North and South, was not neglected. One of the ladies of our county devised a means of weaving the hoopskirt on the common house-loom. It mattered not if the tapes were all broken, and the casing all worn off the steels, a new farthingale was warranted, if only the steels of the worn skirt came.

There were raids made upon garrets for all old broken-up hoopskirts and pieces of steel belonging to such skirts, which we either carried or sent to the renovator of dilapidated hoopskirts. Her first move was to tightly wrap the steels one by one with homespun thread, three or four strands double, but not twisted, piecing the steels, when necessary. An old hoopskirt not so worn was her guide as to the proper number and length of steels. The thread for the warp of the skirt was passed through the harness eyes and reeds of the sley about an inch wide, which was to answer for the tape of the skirt; a space of threads, six or more inches, was skipped in the harness and sley; the thread for the tape again passed through the harness and sley; another skip, and so on the length of the sley. When ready for weaving, one of the encased steels was placed in the openings of the narrow strips of warp, the steel projecting about three inches on each side of the outside tape; the steel was woven in; then about two inches or more of tape was woven; another steel was placed in; the same length of tape woven; another steel, and so on till all the steels required for the skirt were woven in. The space of tape for the top of the skirt was then woven, and half of the skirt was finished. The other half was woven in the same manner; the projecting ends of the steels were joined and closely wrapped, and the hoopskirt was complete so far as the weaving was concerned.

These skirts were neat and satisfactory when finished off by hand. The weaving was slow and difficult, however, because the shuttle could not make a clean shoot through the narrow openings of warp, but had to be passed through each one by hand. The maker above referred to was another humble cottager whose husband and son were in our army, and to use her quaint expression, she was trying “to make both buckle and tongue meet,” while husband and son were fighting for our cause.

It was really ridiculous, our way of making raids upon what remained of our fine bed-linen, pillow-shams, and slips, for garments of finer texture than our own home-woven cloth. I well remember that once, when I stepped into a friend’s room, her very first words were, “This is the last bleached, seamless bed-sheet I’ve got, and now I must cut it up for garments!” I doubt very much if a fine sheet could have been found in any house in our settlement when the war closed. Perhaps there was not one in the blockaded South.

Fine white pillow-shams were cut up and made into white waists, to wear with our heavy home-made skirts in the hot summer. Sometimes a family would happen to have a bundle of scraps of blue striped bed-ticking, which would be divided around among the neighboring girls. We would ravel it all up, taking care to save every blue thread (which was a fast color) to embroider flowers on the front, collar, and cuffs of our white waists, made of pillow-shams and slips; and we did think them beautiful and prized them all the more highly because of the narrow pass to which we had arrived for fine material to tide us over till our cause should be won; and if we used up all the fine sheets, pillow-slips, and shams of ante-bellum days for our wear, soft homespun, home-woven sheets took their place.

Cloth that was called thirded was woven for sheets and pillow-slips. Two threads of warp would be passed through the reeds of the sley for all plain or twilled cloth. For single sleyed cloth one thread only was passed through the sley-reeds. For cloth woven “thirded” the weaver would begin by drawing two threads through the first reeds of the sley and one thread through the next reeds, two threads again, and then one, thus alternating the width of the warp two and one. When filled in with soft fine-spun filling, this stuff was soft and yielding, and easy to handle in the wash.

Some real nice towels were woven of the thirded cloth, and edged with wide or narrow blue borders of our home-made indigo, as that was ever a fast color. A fringe would be formed at both ends of the towel by raveling out an inch or so of the woof; they had to be inspected closely to note the difference between them and those bought in the usual manner.

Many of our women, when cotton was at its prime in opening, and before any rain had fallen on it, would select and pick themselves from the bolls that were the longest and fullest of the white fleecy staple, enough for their finest knitting purposes. They would also pick the seed from the white silky locks with their fingers, which would spin a longer, finer thread than if it had been ginned. I have seen socks and stockings knit of such prepared cotton that, in point of fineness of texture, were almost the equal, and in lasting power were more than the equal, of those bought at stores. One of my pupils, who is yet living in southern Alabama, prepared enough of such thread with her own hands to give me as a present, with the expressed desire that I should knit for myself a pair of stockings. I used very fine knitting needles, and took great care to draw every stitch on the needles so as to have no unevenness. Three or four inches above the instep I commenced knitting “shell-work,” which was in fashion then. We could not have our hose as fine as that which we had once bought, but we tried to cover that defect by all manner of fancy designs in knitting, such as “leaf and vine,” “clock-work,” “shell-work,” and plain or twisted “ribs.” These covered all the upper part of the foot, and had they been knit of fine white floss they could not have made a better appearance.

Another article which we learned how to produce was “hair oil.” We had plenty of roses, fragrant ones too, which we gathered, and then filled quite a large bowl with their petals, among which we put enough fresh, white hog’s lard to fill the bowl to the brim. When melted, a piece of glass was placed over the bowl securely; it was then put on a scaffold out in the yard, where the rays of the sun could shine down upon it all day. There it remained for two or three weeks day and night, until the petals became crisp and transparent. The mixture was then strained through a thin muslin cloth into a mug or other small vessel, and we were content with it, knowing that it contained nothing deleterious to the scalp or hair.

Although war was raging all around, both on sea and land, yet in our quiet valley which, we were vain enough to believe, rivaled the far-famed Vale of Cashmere, everything moved on the even tenor of its way. We were happy and contented, both master and slave. Late on Saturday afternoons, the weekly rations for the slaves were given out; and in addition to them would be given for Sunday cheer, flour, lard, butter, sugar, and some substitute for coffee, as real coffee had been given before the war. They had the privilege also of vegetables and fruits. On Sundays the slaves would do their own cooking. On week days a negro slave was regularly detailed to cook for the laboring hands, and even provender for the plow stock was placed in the feed troughs by the “trash-gang,” as they were called, composed of negro boys and girls not old enough for regular field work. On week days the laborer had only to take the gear off the mule and turn it in the lot gate, and then go to dinner ready waiting for him.

Farmers not owning more than fifteen or twenty negro slaves generally had all the cooking for white and black done at the same time. I have often heard farmers say since the war, and laugh over it, that they had really eaten no good cabbage, turnips, or collard-greens since slavery times. It used to be necessary to cook so much bacon for the slaves that vegetables and “greens” of any variety were well seasoned. During the war when bacon was very scarce, it often happened that the white household would deny themselves meat to eat, so as to give it to the slaves, as they had to toil in the field.

If a negro was sick, a doctor, who was already paid, was called in all haste, as planters used to engage a doctor by the year, at so much for each slave whether large or small.

One negro boy called “Jim,” about eighteen years of age, was quite sick of a fever one fall. His master and mistress had him brought from the “quarter” over to the dwelling-yard and placed in the cook’s cabin, so that he might be given close attention. One or the other watched him day and night (for he was a very valuable boy) and gave the medicine. One Saturday during his illness his master had to go to the city for some purpose, and he asked me to help his wife and daughter care for Jim that day, saying, as he stepped into his buggy, “Now be careful of Jim, and see to it that he lacks for nothing; if he dies, I’ve lost one thousand dollars, good as gold.” It was nothing uncommon then for able-bodied young negro men to be valued at from one thousand to eighteen hundred dollars. If Jim be living to-day, I know he has not forgotten our giving him his medicine and gruel at the regular hours, heating hot bricks and placing them at his feet as the doctor ordered, nor how I burned my fingers muffling the hot bricks.

Very often the sick negroes would be brought right into their masters’ houses, so as to be more closely watched.

Then there were the annual barbecues that each and all planters gave without fail to their slaves when the crops had all been laid by, which semi-holiday weeks embraced the last of July and the first of August. I remember in particular one barbecue roast that I witnessed one night in company with the household. The “pits” were some little distance from the mansion, and were half filled with red-hot coals of oak and hickory wood, over which the flesh of whole dressed beef, mutton, and shoats were slowly roasting, lying on a grate made of split staves of oak or hickory wood. A goodly-sized vessel, containing vinegar, butter, salt, pulverized sage, pepper, and thyme, all mingled together with a “swab,” stood in close proximity to the barbecuing meat. Every now and then the roasting flesh would be turned over with long oak sticks sharpened smoothly to a point at one end, which answered the place of forks; deep and long incisions would be made in the barbecuing meat, and with the swab a good basting of the mixed condiments from the bowl would be spread over; the process of turning the roasting flesh over the glowing red coals and basting with the seasoning continued till the meat was thought to be thoroughly done. It would sometimes be far beyond the hour of midnight before the barbecuing meat was removed from the “pits,” and I yet think that such barbecued meats cannot be surpassed by any other sort of cooked or roasted meats. When cold and sliced, it was certainly delicious. A night barbecuing was a weird scene. Blazing pine-torches heaped on the rude stands improvised for the occasion threw a ruddy glow out over the dark forest, giving an uncanny aspect to the long thick moss swaying sylphlike in the night breeze. Some of the negroes would be tending the roasting flesh; some with the swab, basting with the seasoning; some laughing loud enough to wake the sleeping echoes; some lazily stretched out on the ground thinking of to-morrow’s feast. Now and then some one would “pat Juba,” as they called it, while the dim light of the moon and stars peeping through the heavy foliage, together with the savory smoke rising from the pits, enhanced the strangeness of the fête.

When the morrow came, two or three long tables were set in the far-reaching shade of grand old oaks, whose every limb was hung plentifully with the long gray moss that is so common in the southern part of the Southern States, and which imparts to the trees in that section an aspect strikingly patriarchal.

The tables would be weighted with the flesh of the ox, mutton, pork, and great pans of chicken pies, as well as fruits, vegetables, and light bread and cakes of our bolted meal. Seats were arranged all around, and old and honored negroes, called to preside at the heads of the tables, would bid them all to seat themselves,--by fifties, it often was,--when, with hands uplifted, they invoked the divine blessing.

Many in southern Alabama yet retain a vivid recollection of these regular annual barbecues, given to the slaves when the crops had all been “laid by.”

X.

Often have we sat on the colonnade of that lovely Alabama home, and wondered if any part of the world could be more beautiful. We would number the stars at night as they peeped forth one by one, in the clear blue vault above, until they became innumerable, and then the full moon would deluge the whole scene with its shining flood of light. Or perhaps it would be in the deepening twilight, when the heavens were unrelieved by moon or star, that the soul would be touched, as the drowsy hum of nature’s little wildwood insects came stealing gently on the ear. Not infrequently the mocking-birds would trill their varied notes, or we would hear the faint tinkle of bells as “the lowing” herds wound “slowly o’er the lea.” In the distance the negro plowmen were returning homeward chanting their “corn song.” Ah! but those old “corn songs” had melody then! They lent enchantment to all the surroundings. Even yet they call from out the misty shadows of the past a host of memories, when they fall upon ears that were wont to listen to their quaint refrain in days gone by.

Often Uncle Ben, on the colonnade or in the hall, would while off on the violin that his master had given him pleasing plantation melodies, accompanying his performance with his rude singing. He would seem almost transported with ecstasy, as he used to stand with head thrown back, eyes shut, and foot vigorously keeping time; and often as he drew forth his artless strains a dozen or more negroes, old and young, would be dancing in the white, sandy yard, as merrily as “birds without barn or storehouse.”

Sometimes, in the solemn hush of the closing Sabbath eve in the country, sweet strains of song would float out upon the air from the negroes’ quarter. Many large planters had preachers employed to teach and preach regularly to the slaves. One Sabbath night I yet remember above all the others. Our day of gloom was drawing on, we could no longer close our eyes to the fact that our cause was drooping; our soldiers were meeting with reverses on all sides, hope was only faintly glimmering. Cast down and disquieted as we were that night, the services at the negro church made a deep impression upon our minds. They sang an old time song, the refrain of which we could just catch. When they began the first verse,--

“Where, oh where is the good old Daniel?
Where, oh where is the good old Daniel?
Who was cast in the lion’s den;
Safe now in the promised land.”

When they would strike the refrain,--

“By and by we’ll go home to meet him,
By and by we’ll go home to meet him,
Way over in the promised land,”

we could almost imagine they were on wing for “the promised land,” as they seemed to throw all the passion of their souls into the refrain, and fancy would almost hear the rustle of wings, as the deep swelling anthem rolled forth. Again it would be,--

“Where, oh where is the good Elijah?
Where, oh where is the good Elijah?
Who went up in a chariot of fire;
Safe now in the promised land.”

And the chorus,--

“By and by we’ll go home to meet him,”

would peal forth again in loud-shouting strains. I hushed my breath to hear the mellow strains of that song, and seemed to see the mantle of our lost cause descending.

It was about this time that a letter came from my father, saying one of the soldier brothers was at home on a twenty-one days’ furlough. This was the first’ home-coming since the commencement of hostilities in 1861. My presence was again desired at home, to meet with the long-absent brother. But by some irregularity of the mail, it so happened that my letter had been delayed, and I saw by the postscript and date that my brother would be leaving for the front again before I could possibly reach my father’s house. Yet a great yearning came over me, on reading his kindly letter, to see my father again. Soon I was homeward bound once more, disappointed and pained at not being in time to see my brother. I gave little heed to the landscape spread out as the train swept onward; but my heart gave a glad bound when the waters of the Chattahoochee river, sparkling in the bright sunlight, greeted my eyes, for now I should soon be at my father’s house.

Here and in all the surrounding neighborhood, as far as I could see, the same vigorous efforts were put forth to feed and clothe the soldiers of our Confederacy, as well as the home ones, that I had witnessed in southern Alabama. There was the same self-sacrifice, without a thought of murmuring for the luxuries enjoyed before the war. Yet with the nicest economy, and the most studied husbandry,--however generously the earth might yield of grain, fruits, and vegetables,--the South was awakening to the painful reality that the produce grown on our narrowing space of Confederate soil was inadequate for the sustenance of those at home, our soldiers, and the Northern soldiers whom we held as prisoners. We were not only encompassed by land and water, but the Confederacy was divided in twain by the gunboats of the Federals on the Mississippi River. With nearly all the soldiers from west of the Mississippi River in the eastern half of our Confederacy, we had no communication whatever from beyond the great “Father of Waters.” All aid and succor as regarded provisions and clothes for our army was at an end from beyond the Mississippi. We were caged up like a besieged city. There was neither egress nor ingress for men or means. Our soldiers from the west had to share what little provisions were grown in our circumscribed limit. They also shared what clothing could be manufactured in the more and more straitened condition of the South.

If a soldier from the west drew a furlough he could not get to his home. Those who had relatives or friends east of the Mississippi River would spend their leave of absence with them. Sometimes the soldier from the west would give the furlough he drew to some friend he had made on this side; or perhaps it would be that the soldier of our side of the river would send his comrade of the west to his people and home with a letter of introduction.

I remember a good man and neighbor, who lived near my school, who had four grown sons in the army, one by one killed outright in battle, one at Fort Donelson, one at the battle of Franklin, in Tennessee, another near Chattanooga, the last and youngest at Chickamauga. A while before the last two were slain, one had drawn a furlough to come home, but there being in his regiment a comrade from the State of Texas, to whom he was very much attached, and who was by no means well, though on duty, this son had the furlough he had drawn transferred to his Texas comrade, whom he sent to his father’s with a letter of introduction, asking for his Texas friend the same welcome that would have greeted himself.

Mr. Saunders, the Texan, came, and was welcomed in Mr. Weaver’s family as warmly as one of his own sons would have been, the more kindly by the family and all the neighborhood because he was debarred from visiting his own home. He spent three weeks in our settlement, and returned to camp much invigorated in health and spirits. In less than six months, both the sons were slain in battle, and a few weeks afterwards Mr. Saunders also fell and was buried in north Georgia.

My employer also had Texas relatives in our army, who came on their leave of absence to his home. They could not so much as hear from their own homes.

To make our situation worse, all the rice-growing lands of Georgia and South Carolina were overrun by Northern troops; and all the negro laborers of the large rice plantations, as well as those lying contiguous to the rice-growing districts, had been decoyed off by Federal troops, which more and more crippled the eastern half of our Confederacy, which was then burdened with the whole Confederate army, as well as thousands of Northern prisoners, to say nothing of the Federal army camped on this same half of the South. Corn and what little wheat could then be grown, with rice and sorghum syrup, formed the base of our supplies. Of course fruits and vegetables were grown, but being perishable were worthless for our soldiers or prisoners, so limited were our means of transportation.

Northern journals often ask why it was that the South gave Northern prisoners nothing to eat; and I must say here, that there is a sorrow deep-felt at the knowledge that our soldiers and the Northern prisoners both suffered for the want of sufficient food to nourish; they suffered both as to quantity and quality. But I ask in all candor, how could it be otherwise, hemmed in as the South was? Not one tenth of the government tithes of grain and meat, west of the Mississippi River, could reach us; the blockade was all around; the Federal army’s tents were pitched on Southern soil; detachments of the Union army were invading the narrowing space of territory left to raise provisions on, and were decoying off the laborers and destroying and laying waste the country through which they marched; every means we had to feed either our army or the Northern prisoners was disabled.

My brothers wrote home (without murmur or discontent) that they were living the greater part of the time on parched corn, which they either bought or begged; that they were foraging around in the country, on the mountain sides, and in the valleys, for succulent roots, leaves, and berries to allay the pangs of hunger; sassafras bushes were stripped in a trice of leaves, twigs, and bark, and eaten ravenously. They wrote that sometimes for two or three months they never saw so much as a slice of bacon, and then perhaps for a week or two a rasher of bacon the size of a pocket-knife would be issued to each man of their regiment. One of my brothers once drew from his pocket, when asked about his slice of bacon, the pocket-knife which he brought home after the war was over, and said: “It is a fact; the rasher of bacon was no longer, and about just as thick and wide as this knife.”

Such a slice they held over the fire with bread underneath to catch the drippings, so as to lose none. A brother-in-law of mine told me that he, as well as other soldiers of his division, lived on parched corn most of the time; sometimes they had roasting ears, either roasted in the ashes or eaten raw; that if they had money, they would buy the corn; if not, beg it; and at times they would be so crazed with hunger that if neither money nor begging would get it, they would steal it. At first the men were punished for stealing something to eat, but at last the sight of our hollow-eyed and ragged, emaciated soldiers appealed so to the sympathies of the officers that they could not find it in their hearts to punish their men for trying to keep soul and body together with pilfered corn. Times were almost as hard with citizens all over the South the last year of the war, as with our soldiers. Corn was twelve and thirteen dollars per bushel, and our government’s pay to its soldiers was only eleven dollars per month; so one whole month’s wages would not quite buy a bushel of corn.

What could be grown of provisions, in the waning of our Confederacy, was shared equally and willingly between our soldiers and their Northern prisoners. I verily believe, in the pressing need of the times the prisoners had the greater share. That was little enough, to be sure, but in that narrow space that was left to us as the Northern army advanced, where we had to hold our prisoners, there was almost no food or forage to be had. When the great “book of remembrance” is opened to view, on its pages white and fair the North will surely see, not that the South would not, but that the South could not, better feed the Northern prisoners, with all the mighty pressure that was being brought to bear against us. And of this fact I am very sure that, had there been an exchange of prisoners between the North and South toward the last days of our Confederacy, such as there was at first, and such as the whole South from our chief executive down to the humblest citizen was begging and praying for, as much for the unfortunate prisoners among us, as to have our soldiers in the ranks of our army again, there never would have been an Andersonville.

XI.

Leaving a broken home circle, I returned to southern Alabama, where everything was moving on as before; the thump of the house-loom and the whirring of the spinning-wheel were just as regular in every household; substitutes and expedients were still being devised or improved upon. There was no diminution of patience or perseverance, and we still felt, in that section, none of the effects of war, saving the privations and inconveniences to which allusion has been made.

We still had our merry social gatherings. Now and then a homespun wedding would occur, in which the bride and all who were bidden would be in homespun out and out. We were invited to one such marriage in our settlement. I wore a homespun dress of my own labor, but I neither carded, spun, nor wove it. I had become quite skillful in crocheting capes, vandykes, shawls, scarfs, and gloves, and as I had had more than enough work carding and spinning my second homespun dress, I took a neighbor at her word, when she said: “I’ll give you a hank of thread to crochet me a cape like yours.” The hank would weave one yard of cloth, and I could crochet two capes per week, besides discharging my school duties faithfully. I thus made two yards of cloth clear, as the thread was furnished for whatever piece I crocheted. More or less in cuts of thread were paid, according to the article I furnished, whether shoulder-cape, vandyke, shawl, or gloves. At one time I had so many hanks of homespun thread that they were quite a weight to lift, and I was proud of them, too, so proud that if a neighbor came to spend the afternoon, I always drew forth that bunch of thread from the large wardrobe where I kept it hanging, for her to view. Beside having enough for another full homespun dress, and all my knitting and crocheting, I sent to my mother as many as twenty hanks, that had been paid me for knitting and crocheting shawls, capes, vandykes, and similar articles for neighbors.

I had the thread for the dress just mentioned dyed blue with our home-made indigo, and a deep garnet with a strong tea of pine-tree roots. One-half was dyed blue, the other half garnet. In the warp it was four blue, and four garnet threads. Two shuttles were used, one with a blue quill of thread, the other with a garnet quill, and the result was a neat and simple plaid. I cut the buttons out of a gourd shell, and covered them with scraps of red merino. We always took pains to take such buttons off when our homespuns required washing. When the stuff had been starched and ironed, we stitched the buttons on again.

The bride’s dress was woven a solid light gray color, warp and woof; the buttons were made of gray thread, overcast with white thread. Special pains had been taken with some white cotton flannel, three rows of which, about three inches wide, were placed around the bottom of the skirt, with about three inches’ space between each row. The cuffs, collar, and shoulder-cape were trimmed with this white cotton flannel; and from only across the room it appeared as if the bride wore a real fur-trimmed dress, and the effect was graceful in the extreme.