Conditions in 1863–’4  
By the autumn of 1864 the Southern States found themselves ravaged of everything either edible or wearable. Food was enormously high in cities and in locations which proved tempting to foragers. Delicately bred women were grateful when they were able to secure a pair of rough brogan shoes at one hundred dollars a pair, and coarse cotton cloth from the Macon Mills served to make our gowns. For nearly three years the blockade of our ports and frontier had made the purchase of anything really needful, impracticable. Nor could we utilise the stores in Southern cities once these had fallen into the enemies’ clutches. A correspondent, Mrs. Captain du Barry,[34] who in December, 1863, was permitted to visit Memphis, now in the enemy’s possession, wrote, “I deeply regretted not being able to fill your commissions. I put them on my list that I sent in to General Hurlburt, when I requested a passport, but they were refused. All the principal stores were closed and their contents confiscated. There is a perfect reign of terror in Memphis. Not even a spool of cotton can be purchased without registering your name and address, and “swearing it is for personal or family use,” and no number of articles can be taken from the store without, after selection, going with a list of them in your hand, to the “Board of Trade,” accompanied by the clerk of the store, and there swearing on the Bible that the articles mentioned are for family use and not to be taken out of the United States. So many necessary 223articles are pronounced contraband by the United States authorities, that one is in momentary chance of being arrested, by ignorantly inquiring for them. The place is swarming with detectives who make a trade of arresting unfortunate people. They are paid by the United States Government two hundred and fifty dollars for detecting and arresting a person, and that person pays the Provost Marshal fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars to get off, that being the way matters are conducted in Memphis!”
All over the South old spinning wheels and handlooms were brought out from dusty corners, and the whirr of the wheel became a very real song to us. Every scrap of old leather from furniture, trunk, belt or saddle was saved for the manufacture of rough shoes, often made by the mother who had been fortunate enough to have hoarded them, for herself and children. I, myself, saw my aunt, Eloisa, wife of General Jones M. Withers, putting soles on the tops of once cast-off shoes of her children’s, and she, who had known so well the luxuries of life, was compelled to perform her task by the meagre light of a precious tallow candle. Complaints, however, were few, from our Spartan-spirited women. Writing to my husband, in November, 1864, I said, “A lady told me yesterday that she fattened daily on Confederate fare—for, since she could obtain no useless luxuries, her health, heretofore poor, has become perfect.”
The country was stripped not alone of the simpler refinements of life, but of even so necessary a commodity as salt. Scarcely a smoke-house in the South having an earthen floor, which had received the drippings from the hams or bacon sides of earlier days, but underwent a scraping and sifting in an effort to secure the precious grains deposited there. It happened that my host at “Redcliffe,” just previous to the breaking out of hostilities, had ordered a boat-load of salt, to use upon certain unsatisfactory land, 224and realising that a blockaded coast would result in a salt famine, he hoarded his supply until the time of need should come. When it became known that Senator Hammond’s salt supply was available, every one from far and near came asking for it. It was like going down into Egypt for corn, and the precious crystals were distributed to all who came, according to the number in each family.
Compared with those of many of my friends in other parts of the South, our surroundings and fare at Beech Island were sumptuous. Save at my Uncle Williams’s home, I had nowhere seen such an abundance of good things as “Redcliffe” yielded. Meats and vegetables were plenty; the river nearby was full of shad which were caught readily in seines; and canvas-backs and teal, English ducks and game birds, especially partridges, abounded. “Indian summer is here in all its glory,” I wrote to my husband late in ’4. “The hues of the forests are gorgeous, the roses wonderful! Millions of violets scent the air, and everything is so peaceful and lovely on this island it is hard to realise War is in the land. Splendid crops prevail, and the spirit of the people is undaunted!”
As times grew more and more stringent, tea and coffee proved to be our greatest lack, and here, as we had done in the last days at Warrenton, we were glad to drink potato coffee and peanut chocolate. The skin of the raw potato was scraped off—to pare it might have been to waste it—and the potato cut into slices or discs as thin as paper. It was then carefully dried, toasted and ground, and made into what proved to be a really delicious beverage.[35] Our chocolate was made in this wise: Peanuts, or pinders, or goobers, as they were variously called, were roasted and the skin slipped off. They were next 225pounded in a mortar; when, blended with boiled milk and a little sugar (a sparing use of this most costly luxury was also necessary), the drink was ready for serving, and we found it delightful to our palates.
There were spinners and weavers on Beech Island, too, and unceasing industry was necessary to prepare and weave cloth, both cotton and wool, sufficient for the clothing of the army of slaves and the family on the great plantation. One of the island residents, Mrs. Redd, was a wonderful worker, and wove me a cotton gown of many colours which had all the beauty of a fine Scotch plaid. She spun her own cotton and made her own dyes, gathering her colours from the mysterious laboratories of the woods, and great was the fame her handiwork attained wherever it was seen. Calico of the commonest in those days was sold at twenty-five dollars a yard; and we women of the Confederacy cultivated such an outward indifference to Paris fashions as would have astonished our former competitors in the Federal capital. Nor did our appearance, I am constrained to think, suffer appreciably more than our spirits; for the glories of an unbleached Macon Mills muslin gown, trimmed with gourd-seed buttons, dyed crimson, in which I appeared at Richmond in the spring of ’4, so impressed the mind of an English newspaper correspondent there, that he straightway wrote and forwarded an account of it to London, whence our friends who had taken refuge there sent it back to us, cut from a morning journal.
Not that our love for pretty things was dead; a letter preserved by Mr. Clay is fine testimony to the fact that mine was “scotched, and not killed.” It was dated Beech Island, November 18, 1864, and was addressed to Mr. Clay, now on the eve of departure from Canada.
“Bring me at least two silk dresses of black and purple. I prefer the purple to be moire antique, if it is fashionable. If French importations are to be had, bring me a spring 226bonnet and a walking hat, for the benefit of all my lady friends as well as myself, and do bring some books of fashions—September, October, and November numbers (Ruling passion strong in war), and bring——.” The list grew unconscionably. In after years I found a copy of it carefully made out in my husband’s handwriting, and showing marks of having been carried in his pocket until each article I had indicated for myself or others had been selected, Here it is:
1.
At least, 2 silk dresses, black and purple (for ’Ginie).
2.
French spring bonnet.
3.
Walking hat.
4.
Some books of fashion.
5.
Corsets—4—6, 22 inches in waist.
6.
Slippers with heels, No. 3 1–2.
7.
Gloves—1 doz. light coloured, 1 doz. dark.
8.
Handkerchiefs, extra fine.
9.
Two handsome black silk dresses for Lestia.
10.
Flannel, white and red.
11.
A set of fine, dark furs, not exceeding $25.
12.
Set of Hudson Bay Sables, at any price, for Victoria, large cape, cuffs and muff.
13.
Two Black Hernanis or Tissue dresses, one tissue dress to be brochetted for ’Ginie.
14.
3 or 4 pieces of black velvet ribbon, different widths.
15.
Bolt of white bonnet ribbon; ditto pink, green and magenta.
16.
French flowers for bonnet.
17.
Shell Tuck comb for ’Ginie.
18.
Present for little Jeff Davis, Claude and J. Winter.
19.
Needles, pins, hairpins, tooth-brushes, coarse combs, cosmetics, hair oil, cologne.
20.
Domestic, linen, muslin, nainsook, swiss, jaconet, mull muslin, each a full piece.
21.
Dresses of brilliantine.
22.
Black silk spring wrapping.
23.
Chlorine tooth wash and Rowland’s Kalydor.
24.
A cut coral necklace.
25.
Lace collars, large and pointed now worn.
Alas! my husband’s zeal in fulfilling my commissions 227all went for naught, for the boxes containing them (save two, which were deposited with Mrs. Chestnut, at Columbia, and later fell prey to the Federals or to the flames, we never knew which) were swallowed by the sea, and only he himself came home with the Government papers he had guarded, as the sole baggage he was able to save from the wreck of the Rattlesnake of all he had carried. And yet not all, for a long-lost pet which he had been enabled to reclaim for General Lee[36] was also brought safely to shore.
“Tell him,” wrote my sister, from Richmond, that “General Lee’s dog arrived safely. Poor dog! I’m sorry for him, for he will find the Confederacy a poor place to come to to get anything to eat! I trust for the country’s sake, he knows how to live without eating!”
For the making of our toilette we discovered the value of certain gourds, when used as wash cloths. Their wearing qualities were wonderful; the more one used them the softer they became. Needles were becoming precious as heirlooms; pins were the rarest of luxuries; for the greater part of the time locust thorns served us instead. Writing paper was scarcely to be had, and the letters of that period which were sent out by private persons were often unique testimony to the ingenuity of the senders. Wall-paper, perhaps, was most frequently resorted to, and we made our crude envelopes of anything we could find. We made our own writing fluids, our commonest resource being the oak ball, a parasite, which, next to the walnut burr, is the blackest thing in the vegetable world. Or, this failing us, soot was scooped from the chimney, and, after a careful sifting, was mixed with water and “fixed” with a few drops of vinegar. Sometimes we used pokeberries, 228manufacturing a kind of red ink, or, made thin with water, some bit of miraculously saved shoe polish provided us with an adhesive black fluid.
Our difficulties were as great in the matter of transmitting our letters, when once they were written. We might intrust them to the mails, but these particularly were prey to our invaders; or we might charge with the care of them some traveller who was known to be making his way to the city for which the letters were addressed. Stray newspapers reached us at “Redcliffe” occasionally, from even so distant a point as our capital, and efforts were made by local editors to purvey the news of battles and the movements of the armies, but the supply of paper necessary for the issuing of a daily journal and even a weekly edition was difficult to obtain. What at first had appeared as morning papers were changed to evening editions, as the cost of candles, by which the compositors must work, had risen in ’3 to three and on............