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 N-HLHBHMK 
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 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/blockadedfamily01 hagu 
 
BLOCKADED FAMILY 
 
 b 
 
 LIFE IN SOUTHERN ALABAMA DURING 
 THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 PARTHENIA ANTOINETTE HAG UE 
 
 114246 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 (3Tfe CubnsiOe Drrss, EamlriDoe 
 1888 
 
Copyright, 1888, 
 
 By Parthenia Antoinette Hague. 
 
 All rights reserved . 
 
 The Riverside Press , Cambridge : 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page 
 
 Beginnings of the Secession Movement — A 
 Negro Wedding i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Devices rendered necessary by the Block- 
 ade — How the South met a Great Emer- 
 gency 1 6 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 War-time Scenes on an Alabama Plantation 
 — Southern Women — Their Ingenuity and 
 Courage 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 How Cloth was dyed — How Shoes, Thread, 
 Hats, and Bonnets were manufactured . 45 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Homespun Dresses — Home-made Buttons 
 and Pasteboard — Uncle Ben ... 61 
 
IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Page 
 
 Aunt Phillis and her Domestic Trials — 
 Knitting around the Fireside — Tramp, 
 Tramp of the Spinners . . . 76 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Weaving Heavy Cloth — Expensive Prints — 
 
 “ Blood will tell ” 89 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Substitutes for Coffee — Raspberry-leaf Tea 
 
 — Home-made Starch, Putty, and Cement 
 
 — Spinning Bees 101 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Old-time Hoopskirts — How the Slaves lived 
 
 — Their Barbecues 113 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Painful Realities of Civil Strife — Strait- 
 ened Condition of the South — Treatment 
 of Prisoners 125 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Homespun Weddings — A Pathetic Incident 
 
 — Approach of the Northern Army . . 137 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Pillage and Plunder — “ Papa’s Fine Stock ” 
 
 — The South overrun by Soldiers . 154 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 V 
 
 Page 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Return of the Vanquished — Poverty of the 
 Confederates 164 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Repairing Damages — A Mother made Happy 
 — Conclusion 170 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 I. 
 
 On a glorious sunshiny morning in the 
 early summer of 1 86 1 I was on my way to 
 the school-house on the plantation of a 
 gentleman who lived near Eufaula, Ala- 
 bama, and in whose service I remained 
 during the period of the war. 
 
 As I was nearing the little school-room 
 on a rising knoll, all shaded with great 
 oaks and sentineled with tall pines, I heard 
 skipping feet behind me, and one of my 
 scholars exclaiming, “ Here is a letter for 
 
 you, Miss A ! It has just been brought 
 
 from the office by ‘ Ed ’ ” — the negro boy 
 who was sent every morning for the mail. 
 
 A glance at the handwriting gave me to 
 know it was from my father. I soon came 
 to a pause in the school path : for my 
 father wrote that my brothers were pre- 
 paring to start for Richmond, Virginia, as 
 
2 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 soldiers of our new formed Southern Con- 
 federacy. As he wished to have all his chil- 
 dren united under his roof, before the boys 
 went away, my father earnestly desired me 
 to ask leave of absence for a few days, so 
 that I might join the home circle also. 
 
 The suspending of the school was easily 
 arranged, and I was soon at home assist- 
 ing in preparing my brothers for military 
 service, little dreaming they were about to 
 enter into a four-years’ conflict ! 
 
 But oh, how clearly even now I read 
 every milestone of that convulsed period, 
 as I look back upon it after a quarter of a 
 century ! Our soldiers, in their new gray 
 uniforms, all aglow with fiery patriotism, 
 fearing ere they should join battle that the 
 last booming cannon would have ceased to 
 reverberate among the mountains, hills, and 
 valleys of “ Old Virginia.” The blue cock- 
 ades streaming in the wind, while Southern 
 songs, inspirations of the moment, were 
 heard on all sides : “ We conquer or die,” 
 and “ Farewell to Brother Jonathan,” lead- 
 ing with fervent ardor. 
 
 While the war was in progress, it so 
 happened that I was far removed from the 
 seaboard and border States, in southern 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 3 
 
 Alabama, where our people, encompassed 
 and blockaded by the Federal forces, were 
 most sadly straitened and distressed. It 
 is of the exigencies of that stormy day, 
 as hydra-headed they rose to view, that I 
 have to write ; of the many expedients to 
 which we were reduced on our ever-nar- 
 rowing territory, daily growing not only 
 smaller, but less and less adequate for the 
 sustenance of ourselves, our soldiers, and 
 the Northern prisoners who were cast 
 upon us by the fortunes of war. 
 
 Blame us not too severely, you who 
 fought on the Union side ; we, too, loved 
 the Union our great and good Washington 
 bequeathed us : with what deep devotion 
 God knoweth. But, as Satan sagely re- 
 marks in the Book of Job, “all that a man 
 hath will he give for his life.” Also a 
 writer of profane history has truly said 
 that “a man’s family is the nearest piece 
 of his country, and the dearest one.” Need 
 there be any wonder that, when a political 
 party, with no love in its heart for the 
 Southern white people, came into power, a 
 party which we believed felt that the people 
 of the South were fit only for the pikes 
 hidden at Harper’s Ferry, we should have 
 
4 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 cried out, “ What part have we in David ? 
 to your tents, O Israel.” It is cheering 
 to know that our deeds and intentions have 
 one great Judge, who will say, “Neither 
 do I condemn thee.” 
 
 I well remember the day when word came 
 with lightning speed over the wires, “The 
 State of Georgia” — my native State, 
 one of the original thirteen of revolution- 
 ary fame — “ is out of the Union.” I also 
 remember that we were by no means elated 
 at the thought that our own noble common- 
 wealth had seceded from the sisterhood of 
 states. Feelings of sadness, rather, some- 
 what akin to those of the Peri outside 
 the gate of Paradise, overcame us, but we 
 thought and said, Come weal or woe, suc- 
 cess or adversity, we will willingly go down 
 or rise with the cause we have embraced. 
 And at that moment an unpleasant recol- 
 lection rushed to mind, which caused me 
 to think that perhaps, after all, secession 
 was not so very bad. I remembered a 
 temperance lecturer from one of the New 
 England States, who came to our settlement 
 and who was kindly received and warmly 
 welcomed in our Southern homes. There 
 was nothing too good for this temperance 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 5 
 
 lecturer from the far North. He was given 
 earnest and attentive audiences, with never 
 a thought that in the guise of the temper- 
 ance reformer his one sole purpose was 
 to make a secret survey of our county, to 
 ascertain which settlements were most 
 densely populated with slaves, for the al- 
 ready maturing uprising of the blacks 
 against the whites. 
 
 After the failure of the insurrection at 
 Harper’s Ferry, we saw with sorrow deep- 
 felt that the three places in our own 
 county which were known to all too well 
 to be most thickly peopled with slaves 
 were marked on John Brown’s map of 
 blood and massacre, as the first spots for 
 the negro uprising for the extermination 
 of the Southern whites. 
 
 When my brothers had left for Virginia, 
 I started again for southern Alabama, to re- 
 new my school duties. As the train sped 
 onward through the tall, long-leaved pines 
 and funereal cypress-trees rising here and 
 there on either side, a feeling of homesick 
 desolation gathered as a thick mist around 
 me, with vague and undefined forebodings 
 of sorrows in store for us. 
 
 To add to the depression, clouds dark 
 
6 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 and lowering were slowly looming up and 
 spreading themselves over the nether 
 heavens, while low and distant thunder dy- 
 ing plaintively away seemed never before 
 to have fallen so mournfully on my ear. 
 As I looked from the window of the speed- 
 ing train to the dark green gloom of the 
 almost unbroken forest, the low wail of the 
 wind in the tops of the pines, the lowering 
 dark clouds dimly outlined through the 
 shaded vista, pressed down my heart as 
 with a great sorrow ; the far-away mutter- 
 ings of thunder, the low moan of the 
 wind as it rocked to and fro the tops of 
 the pines, came to me as the Banshee’s 
 lonely wail. All seemed to presage some 
 dire affliction. Could it be that my father’s 
 household had joined together for the last 
 time in their earthly home ? Poe’s ghastly, 
 grim, and ancient raven seemed to speak 
 the “ Nevermore ; ” and, alas ! nevermore 
 did we children of that happy circle ever 
 meet again. 
 
 As the train gathered itself up in the 
 village of Hurtville, the inky black clouds, 
 flashes of almost blinding lightning, and 
 heavy peals of rolling thunder told that 
 the tempest was unchained. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 7 
 
 I still had a distance of fourteen or 
 fifteen miles to travel by the hack before 
 I should reach my school. But as the 
 storm began to increase so much in vio- 
 lence, I deemed it advisable to remain in 
 Hurtville for the night. On inquiring for 
 a place to stop at for the night I was di- 
 rected to Mrs. Hurt, whose spacious man- 
 sion and large and beautiful flower yard 
 and 'grounds stood fair to view from the 
 little village depot. 
 
 Hitherto I had passed the village by, in 
 my trips home and back to school again 
 during my vacation days, so that I was al- 
 together a stranger in the home of Mrs. 
 Hurt, but on making her acquaintance was 
 pleased to find her most kind and gener- 
 ous. My quiet satisfaction was further aug- 
 mented by a loved school companion step- 
 ping into the room most unexpectedly, ere 
 I had been seated half an hour. It was 
 a glad surprise for both. Her father and 
 mother lived in the village, and as the vio- 
 lent wind and rain storm had made roads 
 and bridges impassable for the time being, 
 I accepted the invitation of my friend to 
 spend the time of my detention with her. 
 
 One pleasing episode of that visit yet 
 
8 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 clings to memory. It so happened that 
 one of the negro girls of the house was to 
 be married the very week I was detained. 
 Preparations in various ways had been 
 making for several days before the cele- 
 bration of the ceremony. Dear Winnie, if 
 still a sojourner here, and you chance to 
 see these lines, I know your memory with 
 mine will turn back on the wheels of time 
 to that afternoon, when we were seated on 
 the colonnade of your father’s house. With 
 flowers scattered all around, our laps and 
 hands full, we twined the wreath for the 
 negro girl, the bride elect for the evening. 
 When twilight had deepened into darkness, 
 the bride was called into your room to 
 make ready for the marriage. When fully 
 robed in her wedding garment, she was 
 inspected by each and every member of 
 the household, and judged to be quite cm 
 fait. But Winnie pulled off her own watch 
 and chain, together with her bracelets, 
 and with these further adorned the bride. 
 She was married in the wide hall of her 
 master’s house, for having been raised in 
 the house almost from her cradle, her mar- 
 riage taking place in one of the cabins was 
 not to be thought of. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 9 
 
 Directly under the supervision of the 
 mistress of the house, a supper that would 
 have been pleasing to the taste of an epi- 
 cure was served on tables placed out in 
 the smooth gravelly yard. Then after the 
 feasting was over, a round of merry plays, 
 interspersed with the merrier songs and 
 dance, followed. Perhaps no happier be- 
 ings existed that night. It was like a vi- 
 sion of fairy-land. The full moon chosen 
 for the occasion rode in silent majesty 
 across the star-gemmed heavens ; fleecy 
 white clouds flitted like shadowy phantoms 
 across its silvery path ; the dark pines, half 
 in shadow, half in sheen, loomed vast and 
 giant-like on the outskirts of the village. 
 In the deeper forest could be heard the 
 weird notes of the whip-poor-wills. The 
 pleasing strains of the violin, the thrum- 
 ming of the banjo, accompanied by many 
 negro voices, awoke the sleeping echoes. 
 From the front colonnade, before us lay 
 the slumbering village all so quietly under 
 the starry firmament. We listened there 
 to the mellow peals of negro laughter, to 
 their strange songs, mingling with the 
 strains of the violin, and the low breathing 
 of the night wind in the forest. 
 
IO 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 As we roam back in the past, events of 
 earlier days rise in bright view to mind ; 
 one link in memory’s chain runs into an- 
 other. I cannot forbear here referring to 
 an incident which occurred a few years 
 before the civil war. There came to our 
 settlement from the North, three cultured, 
 refined, and educated ladies as school- 
 teachers. Their first Sabbath of worship in 
 the South was at the Mount Olive Baptist 
 church, in Harris County, Georgia. The 
 pastor of the church, for some unknown 
 cause, failed to appear at the hour ap- 
 pointed for service. We waited for some 
 time and still no preacher. Then the 
 good old deacon, known by all as “ Uncle 
 Billy ” Moore, who had lived by reason of 
 strength beyond the allotted threescore 
 and ten, arose, and said, as the hour for 
 service was passing, as the minister’s ar- 
 rival seemed doubtful, and as the congre- 
 gation had all assembled, he would suggest 
 that Uncle Sol Mitchell, an old and hon- 
 ored negro, preach for us, as he was pres- 
 ent, and a member and preacher in good 
 standing in the Mount Olive church. 
 There was not even a shadow of an objec- 
 tion to the negro slave’s occupying the pul- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 II 
 
 pit, as our friends from the far North were 
 witness. Ah, friends of the Green Moun- 
 tain and Bay State, you will, if yet in the 
 flesh, remember with me that Sabbath so 
 long ago in the South, when the negro 
 slave walked up to the pulpit, opened the 
 hymn-book, and announced the old sacred 
 song : 
 
 “ When I can read my title clear. 
 
 To mansions in the skies.” 
 
 I remember how loudly my dear father 
 tried to sing — though only a poor singer 
 — just because Uncle Sol was going to 
 preach ; how Sol gave the verses out by 
 couplets to be sung, as was the custom 
 then in the country. All joined in sing- 
 ing that sacred song, and bowed the knee 
 when Uncle Sol said, “ Let us pray.” I 
 am very sure I have never knelt with more 
 humble devotion and reverence than on 
 that Sabbath morning. 
 
 Roads and bridges having been made 
 passable after the storm, I said the 
 “ Good-by ” to the friends I had found in 
 the pleasant country village, and resumed 
 my journey. 
 
 It was a pleasing ride that balmy sum- 
 mer morning, ennobling to the soul, as 
 
12 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 nature’s great book unrolled its series of 
 beautiful scenes. Far in the azure blue the 
 great white banks of clouds seemed to lie 
 at anchor, so slow of sail were they ; the 
 gloom of the dense forest, gently waving its 
 boughs to the morning breeze, would greet 
 the eye ; the dulcet murmur of gurgling 
 streams would break on the- ear never so 
 gently ; quiet cottages, surrounded with 
 flowers and fruits, seemed the abodes of 
 peace and content. Grass-green marshes 
 all flecked with flowers of varied tints, 
 with here and there a tall pine or sombre 
 cypress standing as sentinels of the bloom- 
 ing mead ; song-birds caroling their sweet 
 lays as they flitted from bough to bough, 
 or lightly soaring in space ; fields of dead- 
 ened trees, all draped with the long gray 
 Spanish moss, reminded one of the ancient 
 Romans mantled with the toga, as they 
 were silhouetted against the sky ; groups 
 of great oaks, with clusters of the mistletoe 
 pendent, calling to mind the ancient Brit- 
 ons with their strange and terrible religion 
 of the Druids, when they met together in 
 their sacred groves for the celebration of 
 mystical rites. Now an open field of corn, 
 green of blade, gently billowed by the wind, 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 3 
 
 an old gray-haired farmer plowing, seem- 
 ingly oblivious to all surrounding objects, 
 and singing, as if from the fullness of a 
 glad soul, the refrain, “ I have some friends 
 in glory.” Ah, honest farmer, thought I, 
 many of us will join that sad refrain ere 
 this strife is ended ! On, past a large plan- 
 tation all in cotton, the clashing of the 
 many hoes, in the hands of slaves, in uni- 
 son with the merry songs that floated far 
 on the gentle zephyrs. The lone country 
 church gleaming white from a wilderness 
 of foliage, with its grass green mounds, so 
 quiet and still. At times the winds came 
 floating past, laden with the resinous odor 
 of myriad pines, and filled the surrounding 
 atmosphere with a sweetness of perfume 
 surpassing the far-famed incense of Ara- 
 bia. 
 
 In the near distance the home of my 
 generous employer rose to view, in every 
 respect the characteristic Southern home, 
 with its wide halls, long and broad colon- 
 nade, large and airy rooms, the yard a park 
 in itself, fruits and flowers abounding. 
 Here there was little or nothing to remind 
 us of the impending conflict. We were 
 far from the border States and remote from 
 
14 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 the seaboard. We had surmised that our 
 sequestered vale must have been the spot 
 where the Indian chief and his braves 
 thrust their tomahawks deep down in the 
 soil, with their “ Alabama, here we rest ! ” 
 But soon it came home to us, as the ear- 
 nestness of the strife began to be realized, 
 and when we found ourselves encompassed 
 by the Federal blockade, that we had to 
 depend altogether upon our own resources ; 
 and no sooner had the stern facts of the 
 situation forced themselves upon us, than 
 we joined with zealous determination to 
 make the best of our position, and to aid 
 the cause our convictions impressed on us 
 as right and just. And if up to that time, 
 in the South, many had engaged in work 
 purely as a matter of choice, there were 
 none, even the wealthiest, who had not 
 been taught that labor was honorable, and 
 who had very clear ideas of how work must 
 be done ; so when our misfortunes came, 
 we were by no means found wanting in 
 any of the qualities that were necessary for 
 our changed circumstances. 
 
 Surely there was work enough to be 
 done. Our soldiers had to be fed and 
 clothed ; our home ones had to be fed and 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 5 
 
 clothed. All clothing and provisions for 
 the slaves had to be produced and manu- 
 factured at home. Leather had to be of 
 our own tanning ; all munitions of war 
 were to be manufactured inside the block- 
 ade. The huge bales of kerseys, osna- 
 burgs, and boxes of heavy brogan-shoes, 
 which had been shipped from the North to 
 clothe and shoe the slaves, were things of 
 the past. Up to the beginning of the war 
 we had been dependent on the North for 
 almost everything eaten and worn. Cotton 
 was cultivated in the South almost univer- 
 sally before the war, it was marketed in the 
 North, it was manufactured there, and then 
 returned in various kinds of cloth-material 
 to us. 
 
* 
 
 II. 
 
 But now the giant emergency must be 
 met, and it was not long ere all were in 
 good training ; and having put hands to the 
 plow, there was no murmuring nor look- 
 ing back. The first great pressing needs 
 were food and clothing. Our government 
 issued orders for all those engaged in agri- 
 culture to put only one tenth of their land 
 in cotton, there being then no market for 
 cotton. All agriculturists, large or small, 
 were also required by our government to 
 give for the support of our soldiers one 
 tenth of all the provisions they could raise, 
 — a requirement with which we were only 
 too willing to comply. 
 
 In southern Alabama before the war 
 the cultivation of cereals was quite rare. 
 There Cotton was indeed king. I think 
 this saying was true in all the Southern 
 States. It applied to all the territory south 
 of Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri, at 
 any rate. 
 
A BLOCKADED FA MIL y. 17 
 
 When the blockade had inclosed the 
 South, our planters set about in earnest 
 to grow wheat, rye, rice, oats, corn, peas, 
 pumpkins, and ground peas. The chufa, 
 a thing I had never heard of before, now 
 came to the front, and was soon generally 
 cultivated, along with the ground pea, as 
 our position necessitated the production of 
 cheap food for swine. The chufa was 
 easily cultivated, and on fresh sandy or 
 porous soil produced large crops. Every 
 available spot was planted with the chufa, 
 ground peas, and peas. Even in orchards 
 the interstices between the fruit-trees 
 were filled with these nutritious ground 
 nuts. I remember an orchard near where 
 I taught school, planted with chufas. The 
 tubers were dropped about every two feet, 
 in furrows three feet apart. They seemed 
 like great bunches of grass, which spread 
 until the interval between the plants was 
 one mass of green foliage and roots from 
 furrow to furrow. The owners of that or- 
 chard said the feed for their poultry had 
 cost them nothing that season, as the 
 whole brood of fowls lived among the 
 chufas from the time they left the perch in 
 the morning till they were called to be 
 
1 8 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 housed for the night, and that never be- 
 fore had poultry been so well fitted for the 
 table, never before had the flesh been so 
 white or so well flavored. 
 
 Ground peas were rarely grown before 
 the war, and were generally called “goo- 
 bers.” I do not remember that I knew 
 them by any other name ; so one day in 
 school hours, when one of the little schol- 
 ars called to me that “ Hetty ’s got my 
 pindars,” I was somewhat mystified as to 
 what a “ pindar ” was, and when I called 
 the little girl to fetch the pindars to me, 
 she laid two or three goobers in my hand. 
 They were to be seen on all sides, branch- 
 ing out in all directions, in patches large 
 and small. Many planters in giving their 
 corn and cotton the “laying -by” plow- 
 ing, as it was called, would plant in the 
 middle furrows ground peas, chufas, and 
 cuttings from the sweet potato vines, 
 which required very slight additional labor 
 in harvesting the crops ; and by the time 
 the crops had all been gathered in and 
 frost appeared, the tubers were well ma- 
 tured, and were great helps in fattening 
 pork, thereby enabling the planter to pre- 
 serve more corn for the use of the govern- 
 ment. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 9 
 
 Beside growing the ground pea for help 
 in fattening pork, a good supply was 
 housed for seed and the use of the family. 
 I have pleasant recollections of the many 
 winter evenings when we would have the 
 great oven brought into the sitting-room, 
 placed on the hearth, with glowing red 
 coals underneath, filled with white sand, in 
 which we parched the pindars nice and 
 brown. Or perhaps the oven would be 
 filled partly with our home-made syrup, 
 with raw ground peas hulled and dropped 
 into the boiling syrup. Properly cooked, 
 what nice peanut candy that made ! Oil 
 from the peanuts was also expressed for 
 lamps and other uses during war times. 
 In fine, peanuts, ground peas, goobers, and 
 pindars, all one species, though known by 
 all these names, played an important part 
 during the blockade. 
 
 Many planters who had never grown 
 wheat before were surprised at the great 
 yield of grain to the acreage sown. I 
 well remember hearing a brother of Mrs. 
 
 G , who lived in Troy, Alabama, tell of 
 
 very highly fertilizing one acre of already 
 rich soil, as a test of what he really could 
 reap from an acre thus treated. The yield 
 
20 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 went far beyond his most sanguine expec- 
 tations, for that one acre yielded seventy- 
 five bushels of wheat. Another wealthy 
 planter, living in the village of Glennville, 
 Alabama, had his overseer single out and 
 lay off one acre of very rich hammock 
 land, which was only lightly fertilized, 
 from which he reaped fifty measured bush- 
 els. Of course this was only testing what 
 good uplands, or hammocks rich in soil, 
 would yield in wheat by highly or lightly 
 
 fertilizing. Mr. G had sown quite 
 
 heavily in wheat when all avenues for its 
 entrance to the South had been closed. I 
 remember one twelve acres of hammock 
 
 land that Mr. G had sown in wheat, 
 
 so rich of soil that no fertilizing was nec- 
 essary. Morning, noon, and night that 
 twelve-acre hammock in wheat was a topic 
 of conversation at the table during our 
 meal hours. In one of our afternoon rides, 
 when school hours were over for the day, 
 we made haste to view this paragon of a 
 field, and as we halted our horses on the 
 crest of a hill from which we could “ view 
 the landscape o’er,” what a grand pano- 
 rama came into view ! There, not the 
 “ fields arrayed in living green,” but wave 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 21 
 
 on wave of long amber wheat gently roll- 
 ing in the wind. A large stream of water 
 bounded two sides of the hammock, and 
 heavy green foliage formed a background 
 in vivid contrast to the golden heads whose 
 every culm seemed on a level. We slid 
 almost unconsciously from our saddles, 
 hitched the horses, and were soon standing 
 in the midst of the wheat, with eyes 
 scarcely able to peer over that vast plain 
 of golden-yellow. We took off our hats 
 and gave them a sail on the already ripen- 
 ing grain, — for it was near harvest time, 
 — and there they lay without perceptibly 
 bending the stalks of wheat. We plucked 
 some of the grain, rubbed it in our hands 
 to free and winnow it, and found it sweet 
 and palatable. Backward flew our thoughts 
 to that field of wheat near Lake Tiberias 
 through which Christ and his disciples 
 passed on the Sabbath day and plucked 
 the “ ears of corn ” and did eat, for they 
 hungered. 
 
 The yield of the hammock was estimated 
 to be at least five hundred bushels ; but a 
 rainy spell set in just as the reaping began, 
 and it rained in showers, light and heavy, 
 more or less for twenty-seven days. As 
 
22 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 the means then for harvesting wheat were 
 of a primeval order, the reaping was slow 
 and tedious, so that most of the grain was 
 badly damaged, and some was entirely 
 spoiled. 
 
 There was great bother when it came to 
 threshing the wheat ; many and varied were 
 the means employed for freeing the chaff 
 from the grain. Some planters threshed 
 and fanned the wheat at their gin-houses. 
 I remember a portable thresher came into 
 our settlement, and traveled from planta- 
 tion to plantation, threshing for a percent- 
 age of the grain. Others, whose sowing 
 and reaping was on a small scale, resorted 
 to ruder methods to free the grain, — meth- 
 ods which called to mind the rural life and 
 manners of ancient times. Sometimes the 
 wheat was threshed with the rudest sort of 
 home-made flails. 
 
 A woman, whose husband and two sons 
 were in the army, lived near our settlement 
 in a cottage which stood some little dis- 
 tance from the roadside, in a cluster of 
 oaks, whose foliage almost hid the house 
 from passers-by. While yet some rods 
 from the dwelling, one day, there came to 
 our ears a succession of regular thwacks, 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 23 
 
 the meaning of which we could not define 
 by the sound. As the woman was a neigh- 
 bor, we turned aside to investigate, and 
 opened wide our eyes when we beheld the 
 woman seated in a chair, with a common 
 sized barrel just in front of her, within 
 good striking distance. There she sat, a 
 sheaf of wheat held with both hands, and 
 with this she was vigorously belaboring 
 the barrel, at every stroke a shower of 
 wheat-grains raining down upon quilts and 
 coverlets which had been arranged to catch 
 it. By this simple process she flailed as 
 much as a bushel or two at one time. She 
 then spread the sheets out on the ground, 
 in the open air, and poured the wheat on 
 them in a continuous stream. The wind 
 acted as a great “ fan,” the grain by its 
 own weight falling in one place, while the 
 chaff was carried off by the wind. When 
 that threshing was ground at the flouring 
 mill and used up, the same rude flailing 
 was repeated. 
 
 Another contrivance for threshing wheat, 
 even more unique, was that of a woman 
 whose husband also was in our army. She 
 was left with five small children, but man- 
 aged to cultivate a small farm with those of 
 
 
24 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 the five children who had grown enough to 
 give a little help. She raised a small plat 
 of wheat year by year as the war went on. 
 She had in her smoke-house a large trough 
 that was used for salting pork when killed 
 in the winter ; indeed, nearly all smoke- 
 houses then had large troughs, some as 
 many as two or three, hewn and dug out 
 from the stocks of trees, and sometimes 
 six or eight feet long. They were very 
 useful in holding salted pork, salt, soap, and 
 dried bacon packed down in leached ashes. 
 The woman cleaned her trough nicely, un- 
 tied the sheaves of wheat, and placed them 
 in the trough, not quite brimming, so as to 
 lose none of the grains ; then with heavy 
 sticks and little wooden mauls she had 
 roughly shaped, she and her little children 
 would beat the grain free of the husks. 
 It was then winnowed the same way as 
 was the woman’s who threshed over the 
 barrel. 
 
 Hundreds during the war resorted to such 
 devices for freeing their grain of chaff ; yet 
 flour was very scarce, although the South 
 put forth her best energies to cultivate 
 wheat. After delivering the government 
 tithe, and sharing with our home ones, 
 
A BLOCKADED' FAMILY. 25 
 
 the crop rarely lasted till another harvest. 
 It was quite amusing to hear the neigh- 
 bors as they met in social gatherings, or 
 perhaps when separating from service at 
 church, press their friends to come and see 
 them, or come and have dinner, “ For we 
 have got a barrel of flour." It was even 
 more amusing to have friends sit at the 
 dining-table, and, when a waiter of brown, 
 warm biscuits was passed round, to see 
 them feign ignorance of what they were. 
 
 Bolted meal, when obtainable, made a 
 very good substitute for flour, though mil- 
 lers said it injured their bolting-cloth to 
 sift the corn meal through it ; yet nearly 
 every household, in sending its grist to be 
 ground, would order a portion of the meal 
 to be bolted for use as flour. Such bolted 
 meal, when sifted through a thin muslin 
 cloth and mixed up with scalding water to 
 make it more viscid and adhesive, was as 
 easily moulded into pie crust with the aid 
 of the rolling-pin as the pure flour. Nice 
 muffins and waffles were made of bolted 
 meal, and we also made a very nice cake 
 of the same and our home-made brown 
 sugar. 
 
 All the- moist and marshy places in the 
 
26 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 fields that had hitherto been thought fit for 
 naught as to the growing of farm prod- 
 ucts, were utilized for rice and sugar-cane 
 patches, and were found to yield plenti- 
 fully. Some people, not having dank or 
 moist spots suitable for rice on their 
 farms, planted rice on the uplands, and 
 were surprised to find they had an average 
 yield with those who had planted the moist 
 spots ; and thus it has come about that 
 even now in the South rice is planted on 
 the uplands. Some few rude rice mills 
 were hastily put up for stripping the coarse 
 brown husks from the rice, but as they 
 were distant from most of the planters in 
 our settlement, wooden mortars had to be 
 temporarily improvised. A tree of proper 
 size would be cut down ; from the stock a 
 length suitable would be cut or sawed ; a 
 cavity would be hollowed with an adze in 
 the centre of the block endwise. For the 
 want of better polishing tools the cavity 
 would be made smooth by burning with 
 fire. The charred surface was then scraped 
 off and made even, the hollow cleared free 
 of all coal dust, and the pestle, made, per- 
 haps, from a bough of the same tree, com- 
 pleted the primitive rice mill. Rough rice 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 2J 
 
 pounded in such a mortar and winnowed 
 by the wind was clean and white. The 
 only objection to it was that it was more 
 splintered than if it had gone through a 
 better mill. 
 
 Mills had also to be erected for grinding 
 sugar-cane and the sorghum-cane, as some 
 sorghum was raised in southern Alabama. 
 In our settlement only the “ green ” and 
 “ribbon” cane were grown, which, like the 
 cereals, were never cultivated before the 
 war. What cane had been grown was in 
 patches owned by slaves, and for the sac- 
 charine juice alone. Wooden cylinders 
 had to be used, as those of iron were not 
 easily obtained. With these cylinders all 
 of the juice could not be expressed, but 
 our farmers contented themselves with the 
 thought that there was no great loss after 
 all, as their swine could draw from the 
 crushed cane all the juice that was left 
 before it was hauled to fill ditches and gul- 
 lies. In case one was so fortunate as to 
 secure a sugar mill with iron cylinders, it 
 used to go the rounds of its immediate vi- 
 cinity, as the portable threshers did. First 
 one and then another of the neighbors 
 would use it till their crop of cane was 
 
28 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 ground and made into syrup and sugar. 
 The furnaces for sugar and syrup making 
 were built of rocks, if bricks were not con- 
 venient. They held one or two kettles, 
 according to the quantity of cane to be 
 ground and of juice to be boiled. A 
 couple or more of long wooden troughs 
 hollowed from trees were 'necessary for 
 containing the syrup when boiled to the 
 proper degree of density, before turning 
 into the barrels. That designed for sugar, 
 after being turned into the troughs, was 
 usually beaten with wooden paddles, and 
 dipper after dipper was filled with the 
 thick syrup and poured back into the su- 
 gar trough, till all was changed into sugar. 
 Of course there were mishaps now and 
 then, as evaporators could not be had, and 
 the planters were not experts in syrup and 
 sugar making. I remember one gentle- 
 man, whose “green” and “ribbon” cane 
 had been exceptionally fine for the season, 
 who had engaged a man who was said to 
 be something of an expert to supervise his 
 sugar boiling. The owner of the cane was 
 to make his own syrup unaided ; yet his 
 very first boiling of syrup, when run into 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 29 
 
 the trough and stirred back and forth with 
 the wooden paddles to cool, began to crys- 
 tallize into grains of sugar, and on turning 
 into the barrel was soon solid, compact, 
 light-brown sugar, without further stir, and 
 was his finest sugar, though the one who 
 supervised, when it came his turn to make 
 the sugar, tried hard to excel that made 
 by the merest accident ; but none of his 
 was so light of color or so free of drip- 
 ping. Another had boiled his juice too 
 much for either sugar or syrup, so that he 
 had a whole barrel full of dark-brown solid 
 candy, which had to be chipped out with 
 a hatchet. The syrup that was made 
 later, as the war went on, was all that 
 could be desired, — thick, clear, and pure. 
 The sugar was necessarily brown, as ap- 
 pliances for refining at that time could 
 not be had. The planters would place 
 smooth oak splits and switches in the bar- 
 rels of sugar, and just the length of the 
 barrel, to aid the dripping, and to better 
 free the sugar from moisture. It was not 
 uncommon to see planters, when they 
 called upon each other, draw from their 
 pockets small packages wrapped in our 
 
30 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 own manufactured brown paper, which 
 packages contained samples of their make 
 of sugar. These they carried about with 
 them and compared with the sugar made 
 by others. 
 
III. 
 
 A woman whose husband and one son 
 were in our army had raised, with the help 
 of her few slaves, among other farm prod- 
 ucts, a surplus of watermelons. The sea- 
 son had been propitious, and her melons 
 were large, well flavored, and very juicy. 
 So one day she determined to make a trial 
 of the juice of the watermelons for syrup. 
 She gathered those which were thought to 
 be ripe enough for use, prepared a large 
 tub with a sack hanging over it, sliced up 
 the melons, and scraped all the meat and 
 juice into the sack. From what dripped 
 into the tub through the sack when 
 pressed, she managed to get several gal- 
 lons of bright juice, which she placed for 
 boiling in her large iron kettle — generally 
 known in the country as the “ wash pot,” 
 and which was always left out of doors, in 
 a shady, convenient place, for washing 
 clothes, making soap, or drying up lard in 
 hog-killing time. She built her fire, boiled 
 
32 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 the juice slowly, carefully taking off all the 
 scum, and was rewarded with syrup of a 
 flavor as fine, or even finer, than that 
 made from the sugar-cane. Flushed with 
 success, she essayed sugar, also, from wa- 
 termelon juice, and cakes as nice as those 
 from the sap of the maple were the out- 
 come. The balance of her melon crop was 
 converted into sugar and syrup. 
 
 Inasmuch as syrup and sugar had to be 
 placed in barrels, barrel-making was an- 
 other industry that was forced upon the 
 South. Soon several coopers’ shops were 
 built here and there, and it seemed queer 
 enough for us to have home-made barrels, 
 casks, tubs, and piggins. They were man- 
 ufactured of oak, pine, cypress, and juni- 
 per. Those in use for syrup or sugar were 
 generally of oak, as it was thought they 
 gave a more pleasant taste to their con- 
 tents. 
 
 The Palma christi, or castor-oil plant, 
 being indigenous to the South and grow- 
 ing most luxuriantly in the wild state, was 
 soon cultivated in patches near our dwell- 
 ings, for the beans, from which castor oil as 
 thick and transparent as that sold by drug- 
 gists was extracted. As we had no rollers 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 33 
 
 to crush the beans, rude mortars were re- 
 sorted to, in which they were well crushed, 
 the oil passing, as it was expressed, 
 through an orifice in the side of the mor- 
 tar, near its base. Water was then added 
 to the oil, and the whole was boiled, or 
 rather raised to the boiling point, which 
 caused all the impurities to rise to the top, 
 when it was strained and the oil dipped 
 from the top of the water. An uncle of 
 
 Mrs. G had made some castor oil. He 
 
 brought her a bottle, and when shown me 
 I could scarce believe it home-made, as 
 there was no apparent difference between 
 this bottle of oil so produced in southern 
 Alabama and that which we had been 
 wont to buy before the blockade. 
 
 Shoes and leather soon became very 
 high-priced, bringing home to us the fact 
 that we had indeed entered on troublous 
 times. All our planters were reduced to 
 the necessity of tanning leather for their 
 own use, and also in order to aid in sup- 
 plying the soldiers of our Confederacy 
 with shoes. The home process of tanning 
 among the lesser planters was perhaps as 
 crude as that practiced in the earliest 
 ages ; for although there were many rude 
 
34 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 tanneries set in operation during the war, 
 and still ruder modes of grinding the red 
 oak bark for the vats were in vogue in 
 some places, planters on a small scale did 
 not care to carry the few hides they had 
 the long distances to the tanyards. With 
 them the question was how best to tan at 
 their homes, and as the necessity was 
 urgent, it was not long ere they had de- 
 vised a plan. 
 
 The hides were placed in a trough or 
 barrel and covered with water, in which a 
 small quantity of weak lye, that was made 
 to answer the purpose of lime, had been 
 mingled. When the hides had soaked the 
 required length of time, they were taken 
 from the trough, and with but little diffi- 
 culty and labor the hair was removed and 
 they were ready for the next stage of the 
 process. A pit, of size suitable for the 
 number of hides to be tanned, was dug in 
 the ground near a spring or stream of run- 
 ning water; the bottom and sides were lined 
 with boards riven from the stock of a tree ; 
 the seams were calked tightly with lint cot- 
 ton, to prevent the tan-ooze from escaping. •> 
 Then the red oak bark, which had been 
 peeled in long strips from the trees, hav- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 35 
 
 ing arrived, a layer of the bark was placed 
 smooth and even in the bottom of the vat, 
 a layer of hides was stretched over the 
 bark, another layer of bark was put in 
 position, then another of hides, and so on, 
 until the rough vat was filled with hides 
 and bark, — the bark being used just as it 
 came from the trees. Water was poured 
 into the vat, and its contents were left to 
 steep from three to six months, according 
 to the fancy of the tanner. I heard many 
 planters say they had never bought better 
 leather than that which they had tanned 
 by this simple process. 
 
 Of course, when neighbor called upon 
 neighbor, the leather that was home- 
 tanned used to be displayed. They would 
 double it over and over again, and often 
 pronounce it the best they ever saw. It 
 made a soft, peculiar noise when pressed 
 with the hands, and was very pliant and 
 supple, answering every purpose for which 
 leather is adapted. Its chief usefulness lay 
 in its furnishing shoes for our soldiers and 
 for those at home, but gear of all kinds 
 used on plantations was mended or made 
 anew from this product ; harnesses for 
 farm use or for equipping army saddles or 
 
36 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 ambulance trains were manufactured and 
 repaired out of home-tanned leather. And 
 to meet our pressing wants, the hides of 
 horses, mules, hogs, and dogs were all util- 
 ized. 
 
 One fall, while I was staying at Mr. 
 
 G ’s, he lost many fine fattening hogs 
 
 with the cholera. These hogs weighed 
 from two to three or four hundred pounds 
 apiece. It had been his habit to butcher 
 every winter from eighty to a hundred 
 fine porkers. This fall the cholera epi- 
 demic had been so fatal that there was 
 scarcely a planter in all the neighborhood 
 but lost a great many swine. They would 
 feed at night and seem to be perfectly 
 well, and be dead by morning ; or seem- 
 ingly well in the morning, and dead by 
 night. As this happened in war time, the 
 loss was felt heavily. 
 
 We needed leather so badly that the 
 hogs were flayed as soon as dead, and their 
 hides were tanned. The best and heaviest 
 leather was used for making shoes for the 
 slaves, as their work was out of doors as 
 a rule, and heavy brogans could not be 
 bought. But leather from the hides of 
 swine fell to our lot also, for winter shoes ; 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 37 
 
 and many other white families were obliged 
 to use it. I remember very plainly when 
 one of Mr. G— ’s daughters and I first 
 wore swine-skin shoes. They were made of 
 
 leather which Mr. G himself had had 
 
 tanned, and, except that the pores were 
 very large and wide apart, it looked like 
 ordinary leather. We had consented with 
 some reluctance to have these shoes made, 
 for, although we were willing to immolate 
 ourselves on the altar of our Southern 
 Confederacy, it had fallen rather severely 
 on us to think that we must wear hog-skin 
 shoes ! They were made, however, at a 
 cost of ten dollars a pair, we furnishing the 
 leather from which to make them. But 
 swine-skin leather was very extensible, and 
 our shoes spread out quite flat by the time 
 we had worn them a day or so. This was 
 more than we could endure, so we took 
 them off, and one of the negro house-girls 
 came into possession of two more pair of 
 shoes, while we stepped back into shoes 
 made of homespun. 
 
 As no shoe-blacking or polish could be 
 bought during the blockade, each family 
 improvised its own blacking, which was 
 soot and ail of some variety (either cotton- 
 
38 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 seed, ground peas, or oil of compressed 
 lard) mixed together. The shoes would 
 be well painted with the mixture of soot 
 and oil, with brushes made of the bristles 
 of swine. Then a thin paste made of 
 flour, bolted meal, or starch, was applied 
 all over the blackened shoe with another 
 brush, which paste, when dry, gave the 
 shoe as bright and glossy an appearance 
 as if “ shined ” by the best of bootblacks. 
 Planters were very careful in killing their 
 hogs to save a good supply of bristles, 
 from which shapely brushes were manu- 
 factured. 
 
 The obtaining of salt became extremely 
 difficult when the war had cut off our sup- 
 ply. This was true especially in regions 
 remote from the sea-coast and border 
 States, such as the interior of Alabama 
 and Georgia. Here again we were obliged 
 to have recourse to whatever expedient in- 
 genuity suggested. All the brine left in 
 troughs and barrels, where pork had been 
 salted down, was carefully dipped up, boiled 
 down, and converted into salt again. In 
 some cases the salty soil under old smoke- 
 houses was dug up and placed in hoppers, 
 which resembled backwoods ash-hoppers, 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 39 
 
 made for leaching ashes in the process of 
 soap-manufacture. Water was then poured 
 upon the soil, the brine which percolated 
 through the hopper was boiled down to the 
 proper point, poured into vessels, and set 
 in the sun, which by evaporation completed 
 the rude process. Though never of im- 
 maculate whiteness, the salt which resulted 
 from these methods served well enough 
 for all our purposes, and we accepted it 
 without complaining. 
 
 Before the war there were in the South 
 but few cotton mills. These were kept 
 running night and day, as soon as the Con- 
 federate army was organized, and we were 
 ourselves prevented by the blockade from 
 purchasing clothing from the factories at 
 the North, or clothing imported from 
 France or England. The cotton which 
 grew in the immediate vicinity of the mills 
 kept them well supplied with raw material. 
 Yet notwithstanding the great push of the 
 cotton mills, they proved totally inadequate, 
 after the war began, to our vast need for 
 clothing of every kind. Every household 
 now became a miniature factory in itself, 
 with its cotton, cards, spinning-wheels, 
 warping-frames, looms, and so on. Wher- 
 
40 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 ever one went, the hum of the spinning- 
 wheel and the clang of the batten of the 
 loom was borne on the ear. 
 
 Great trouble was experienced, in the 
 beginning, to find dyes with which to color 
 our stuffs ; but in the course of time, both 
 at the old mills and at smaller experi- 
 mental factories which were run entirely 
 by hand, barks, leaves, roots, and berries 
 were found containing coloring properties. 
 I was well acquainted with a gentleman 
 in southwestern Georgia who owned a 
 small cotton mill, and who, when he 
 wanted coloring substances, used to send 
 his wagons to the woods and freight them 
 with a shrub known as myrtle, that grew 
 teeming in low moist places near his mill. 
 This myrtle yielded a nice gray for woolen 
 goods. 
 
 That the slaves might be well clad, the 
 owners kept, according to the number of 
 slaves owned, a number of negro women 
 carding and spinning, and had looms run- 
 ning all the time. Now and then a planter 
 would be so fortunate as to secure a bale 
 or more of white sheeting and osnaburgs 
 from the cotton mills, in exchange for farm 
 products, which would be quite a lift, and 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 4 1 
 
 give a little breathing-spell from the almost 
 incessant whirr, hum, and clang of the spin- 
 ning-wheel and loom. 
 
 Wide unbleached sheeting was also used 
 for making dresses, and when dyed a deep 
 solid color and tastefully made up the ef- 
 fect was quite handsome. On one occasion, 
 
 when Mr. G had been fortunate in 
 
 getting a bale of unbleached factory sheet- 
 ing, Mrs. G gave to me, to her two 
 
 oldest daughters, and a niece of hers, who 
 was as one of the family, enough of the 
 sheeting to make each one of us a dress. 
 We had to hie us to the woods for col- 
 oring matter, to dye as each one pleased. 
 
 I have often joined with neighbors, when 
 school hours for the day were over, in gath- 
 ering roots, barks, leaves, twigs, sumach 
 berries, and walnuts, for the hulls, which 
 dyed wool a beautiful dark brown. Such 
 was the variety we had to choose from, to 
 dye our cloth and thread. We used to 
 pull our way through the deep tangled 
 woods, by thickly shaded streams, through 
 broad fields, and return laden with the 
 riches of the Southern forest ! Not infre- 
 quently clusters of grapes mingled with 
 our freight of dyes. The pine-tree’s roots 
 
42 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 furnished a beautiful dye, approximating 
 very closely to garnet, which color I chose 
 for the sheeting for my dress. A strong 
 decoction of the roots of the pine-tree was 
 used. Copperas of our own production was 
 was used as the mordant. A cask or some 
 small vessel was set convenient to the 
 dwelling-house and partly filled with water, 
 in which a small quantity of salt and vine- 
 gar had been mingled ; then pieces of rusty, 
 useless iron, such as plows too much worn 
 to be used again, rusty broken rails, old 
 horse-shoes, and bits of old chains were 
 picked up and cast into the cask. The liq- 
 uid copperas was always ready, and a very 
 good substance we found it to fix colors in 
 cloth or thread. The sheeting for the dress 
 was folded smoothly and basted slightly so 
 as to keep the folds in place. It was first 
 thoroughly soaked in warm soapsuds, then 
 dipped into the dye, and afterwards into a 
 vessel containing liquid lye from wood- 
 ashes ; then it went again into the dye, 
 then the lye, and so on till the garnet color 
 was the required shade. By varying the 
 strength of the solution any shade desira- 
 ble could be obtained. My garnet-colored 
 dress of unbleached sheeting was often 
 mistaken for worsted delaine. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 43 
 
 Many of the planters in southern Ala- 
 bama began to grow wool on quite a large 
 scale, as the war went on and no woolen 
 goods could be had. All the woolen mate- 
 rial that could be manufactured at the cot- 
 ton mills was used to clothe our soldiers, 
 so that all the varied kinds of woolen goods 
 that hitherto had been used with us had 
 now to be of home hand-make. In this 
 we achieved entire success. All kinds of 
 woolen goods — flannels both colored and 
 white, plaids of bright colors, which we 
 thought equal to the famed Scotch plaids ; 
 balmorals, which were then in fashion — 
 were woven, with grave or gay borders as 
 suited our fancy. Woolen coverlets and 
 blankets were also manufactured. The 
 woolen blankets were at first woven with 
 the warp of cotton thread, but a woman of 
 our settlement improved on that by weav- 
 ing some blankets on the common house 
 loom, both warp and woof of wool, spun by 
 her own hands. The borders were bright 
 red and blue, of texture soft and yielding ; 
 they were almost equal to those woven at 
 a regular w r oolen mill. The process of 
 weaving all-wool blankets with warp and 
 woof hand-spun was quite tedious, yet it 
 
44 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 was accomplished. Various kinds of 
 twilled woolen cloth were also woven. In 
 weaving coverlets, the weaver had the 
 “ draught ” before her, to guide her in 
 tramping the pedals and throwing the 
 design of flower, vine, leaf, square, or dia- 
 mond on the right side. Beautiful carpets 
 also were made on the same plan as cover- 
 lets. 
 
 Many of the planters, after the shearing 
 of their sheep, used to carry the wool to 
 the nearest cotton mill and have it carded 
 into rolls, to facilitate the making of woolen 
 cloth ; and often large quantities of lint 
 cotton were hauled to the factories, to be 
 carded into rolls to be spun at home. 
 But carding rolls by common hand-cards 
 was a rather slow and tiresome process. 
 
IV. 
 
 There was some pleasant rivalry as to 
 who should be the most successful in pro- 
 ducing the brightest and clearest tinge of 
 color on thread or cloth. Most of the wo- 
 men of southern Alabama had small plats 
 of ground for cultivating the indigo bush, 
 for making “ indigo blue,” or “ indigo 
 mud,” as it was sometimes called. The 
 indigo weed also grew abundantly in the 
 wild state in our vicinage. Those who 
 did not care to bother with indigo cultiva- 
 tion used to gather, from the woods, the 
 weed in the wild state when in season. 
 Enough of the blue was always made 
 either from the wild or cultivated indigo 
 plant. We used to have our regular “ in- 
 digo churnings,” as they were called. 
 When the weed had matured sufficiently 
 for making the blue mud, which was about 
 the time the plant began to flower, the 
 plants were cut close to the ground, our 
 steeping vats were closely packed with the 
 
46 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 weed, and water enough to cover the plant 
 was poured in. The vat was then left 
 eight or nine days undisturbed for fermen- 
 tation, to extract the dye. Then the plant 
 was rinsed out, so to speak, and the water 
 in the vat was churned up and down with 
 a basket for quite a while ; weak lye was 
 added as a precipitate, which caused the 
 indigo particles held in solution to fall to 
 the bottom of the vat ; the water was poured 
 off, and the “ mud ” was placed in a sack 
 and hung up to drip and dry. It was just 
 as clear and bright a blue as if it had 
 passed through a more elaborate process. 
 
 The woods, as well as being the great 
 storehouse for all our dye-stuffs, were also 
 our drug stores. The berries of the dog- 
 wood-tree were taken for quinine, as they 
 contained the alkaloid properties of cin- 
 chona and Peruvian bark. A soothing 
 and efficacious cordial for dysentery and 
 similar ailments was made from blackberry 
 roots ; but ripe persimmons, when made 
 into a cordial, were thought to be far su- 
 perior to blackberry roots. An extract of 
 the barks of the wild cherry, dogwood, 
 poplar, and wahoo trees was used for chills 
 and agues. For coughs and all lung dis- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 47 
 
 eases a syrup made with the leaves and 
 roots of the mullein plant, globe flower, 
 and wild-cherry tree bark was thought to 
 be infallible. Of course the castor-bean 
 plant was gathered in the wild state in the 
 forest, for making castor oil. 
 
 Many also cultivated a few rows of pop- 
 pies in their garden to make opium, from 
 which our laudanum was created ; and 
 this at times was very needful. The man- 
 ner of extracting opium from poppies was 
 of necessity crude, in our hedged-around 
 situation. It was, indeed, simple in the 
 extreme. The heads or bulbs of the pop- 
 pies were plucked when ripe, the capsules 
 pierced with a large-sized sewing-needle, 
 and the bulbs placed in some small vessel 
 (a cup or saucer would answer) for the 
 opium g-um to exude and to become in- 
 spissated by evaporation. The soporific 
 influence of this drug was not excelled by 
 that of the imported article. 
 
 Bicarbonate of soda, which had been in 
 use for raising bread before the war, be- 
 came “a thing of the past” soon after the 
 blockade began ; but it was not long ere 
 some one found out that the ashes of corn- 
 cobs possessed the alkaline property essen- 
 
48 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 tial for raising dough. Whenever “ soda ” 
 was needed, corn was shelled, care being 
 taken to select all the red cobs, as they 
 were thought to contain more carbonate of 
 soda than white cobs. When the cobs were 
 burned in a clean swept place, the ashes 
 were gathered up and placed in a jar or 
 jug, and so many measures of water were 
 poured in, according to the quantity of 
 ashes. When needed for bread-making, a 
 teaspoonful or tablespoonful of the alkali 
 was used to the measure of flour or meal 
 required. - % 
 
 Another industry to which the need of . 
 the times gave rise was the making ’of 
 pottery, which, although not food or cloth- 
 ing, was indispensable. Of course, our 
 earthenware was rough, coarse, and brown ; 
 and its enameling would have caused a 
 smile of disdain from the ancient Etrus- 
 cans. Nevertheless, w& found our brown- 
 glazed plates, cups aTid saucers, washbowls 
 and pitchers, and milk crocks exceedingly 
 convenient and useful as temporary expe- 
 dients, as no tin pans could be had ; and 
 we were thankful that we could make this 
 homely ware. 
 
 All in our settlement learned to card, 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 49 
 
 spin, and weave, and that was the case 
 with all the women of the South when the 
 blockade closed us in. Now and then, it 
 is true, a steamer would run the blockade, 
 but the few articles in the line of merchan- 
 dise that reached us served only as a re- 
 minder of the outside world and of our 
 once great plenty, now almost forgotten, 
 and also more forcibly to remind us that 
 we must depend upon our own ingenuity 
 to supply the necessities of existence. 
 Our days of novitiate were short. We 
 soon became very apt at knitting and 
 crocheting useful as well as ornamental 
 woolen notions, such as capes, sacques, 
 Vandykes, shawls, gloves, socks, stockings, 
 and men’s suspenders. The clippings of 
 lambs’ wool were especially used by us 
 for crocheting or knitting shawls, gloves, 
 capes, sacques, and hoods. Our needles 
 for such knitting were made of seasoned 
 hickory or oakwood a foot long, or even 
 longer. Lambs’ wool clippings, when 
 carded and spun fine by hand and dyed 
 bright colors, were almost the peer of the 
 zephyr wool now sold. To have the hanks 
 spotted or variegated, they were tightly 
 braided or plaited, and so dyed ; when the 
 
50 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 braids were unfolded a beautiful dappled 
 color would result. Sometimes corn husks 
 were wrapped around the hanks at regular 
 or irregular spaces and made fast with 
 strong thread, so that when placed in the 
 dye the incased parts, as was intended, 
 would imbibe little or no dye, and when 
 knit, crocheted, or woven would present 
 a clouded or dappled appearance. Hand- 
 some mittens were knit or crocheted of 
 the same lambs’ wool dyed jet black, gray, 
 garnet, or whatever color was preferred ; a 
 bordering of vines, with green leaves and 
 rosebuds of bright colors, was deftly knit- 
 ted in on the edge and top of the gloves. 
 Various designs of flowers or other pat- 
 terns were used for gloves, and were so 
 skillfully knitted in that they formed the 
 exact representation of the copy from 
 which they were taken. For the border- 
 ing of capes, shawls, gloves, hoods, and 
 sacques the wool yarn was dyed red, blue, 
 black, and green. Of course, intermediate 
 colors were employed in some cases. The 
 juice of poke berries dyed a red as bright as 
 aniline, but this was not very good for wash 
 stuffs. A strong decoction of the bark of 
 the hickory-tree made a clear, bright green 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 5 I 
 
 on wool, when alum could be had as a mor- 
 dant ; sometimes there were those who, by 
 some odd chance, happened to have a bit 
 of alum. 
 
 There grew in some spots in the woods, 
 though very sparsely, a weed about a foot 
 and a half high, called “the queen’s de- 
 light,” which dyed a jet black on wool. 
 We have frequently gone all of two miles 
 from our home, and, after a wide range of 
 the woods, would perhaps secure only a 
 small armful of this precious weed. We 
 did not wonder at the name, it was so 
 scarce and rare, as well as the only one of 
 all the weeds, roots, bark, leaves, or ber- 
 ries that would dye jet black. The indigo 
 blue of our make would dye blue of any 
 shade required, and the hulls of walnuts 
 a most beautiful brown ; so that we were 
 not lacking for bright and deep colors for 
 borderings. 
 
 Here again a pleasant rivalry arose, as 
 to who could form the most unique bor- 
 dering for capes, shawls, and all such 
 woolen knit or crocheted clothing. There 
 were squares, diamonds, crosses, bars, and 
 designs of flowers formed in knitting and 
 in crocheting. 
 
52 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 We were our own wool-sorters, too, and 
 after the shearing had first choice of the 
 fleeces. All the fine, soft, silky locks of 
 wool were selected for use in knitting and 
 crocheting. 
 
 Our shoes, particularly those of women 
 and children, were made of cloth, or knit. 
 Some one had learned to knit slippers, and 
 it was not long before most of the women 
 of our settlement had a pair of slippers 
 on the knitting needles. They were knit 
 of our homespun thread, either cotton or 
 wool, which was, for slippers, generally 
 dyed a dark brown, gray, or black. When 
 taken off the needles, the slippers or 
 shoes were lined with cloth of suitable 
 texture. The upper edges were bound 
 with strips of cloth, of color to blend with 
 the hue of the knit work. A rosette was 
 formed of some stray bits of ribbon, or 
 scraps of fine bits of merino or silk, and 
 placed on the uppers of the slippers ; then 
 they were ready for the soles. 
 
 We explored the seldom-visited attic and 
 lumber-room, and overhauled the contents 
 of old trunks, boxes, and scrap-bags for 
 pieces of cassimere, merino, broadcloth, or 
 other heavy fine twilled goods, to make 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 53 
 
 our Sunday shoes, as we could not afford 
 to wear shoes of such fine stuff every day ; 
 home-woven jeans and heavy, plain cloth 
 had to answer for every-day wear. When 
 one was so fortunate as to get a bolt of 
 osnaburgs, scraps of that made excellent 
 shoes when colored. What is now called 
 the “ base-ball shoe ” always reminds me of 
 our war-time colored osnaburgs, but ours 
 did not have straps of leather like those 
 which cross the base-ball shoe. Our slip- 
 pers and shoes which were made of fine 
 bits of cloth, cost us a good deal of labor 
 in binding and stitching with colors and 
 thread to blend with the material used, 
 before they were sent to the shoemaker to 
 have them soled. 
 
 Sometimes we put on the soles ourselves 
 by taking wornout shoes, whose soles were 
 thought sufficiently strong to carry another 
 pair of uppers, ripping the soles off, pla- 
 cing them in warm water to make them 
 more pliable and to make it easier to pick 
 out all the old stitches, and then in the 
 same perforations stitching our knit slip- 
 pers or cloth-made shoes. We also had to 
 cut out soles for shoes from our home- 
 tanned leather, with the sole of an old shoe 
 
54 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 as our pattern, and with an awl perforate 
 the sole for sewing on the upper. I was 
 often surprised at the dexterity with which 
 we could join soles and uppers together, 
 the shoe being reversed during the stitch- 
 ing, and when finished turned right side 
 out again ; and I smile even now when I 
 remember how we used to hold our self- 
 made shoes at arm’s length and say, as 
 they were inspected : “ What is the block- 
 ade to us, so far as shoes are concerned, 
 when we can not only knit the uppers, but 
 cut the soles and stitch them on ? Each 
 woman and girl her own shoemaker ; away 
 with bought shoes ; we want none of 
 them ! ” But alas, we really knew not how 
 fickle a few months would prove that we 
 were. 
 
 Our sewing-thread was of our own make 
 Spools of “ Coats’ ” thread, which was uni- 
 versally used in the South before the war, 
 had long been forgotten. For very fine 
 sewing-thread great care had to be used in 
 drawing the strand of cotton evenly, as 
 well as finely. It was a wearisome task, 
 and great patience had to be exercised, as 
 there was continual snapping of the fine 
 hand - spun thread. From broaches of 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 55 
 
 such spun sewing-thread balls of the cot- 
 ton were wound from two to three strands 
 double, according as coarse or fine thread 
 was needed. The ball was then placed in 
 a bowl of warm soapsuds and the thread 
 twisted on to a bobbin of corn husks placed 
 on the spindle of the wheel. During the 
 process of twisting the thread a miniature 
 fountain would be set playing from the 
 thread as it twirled upon the spindle. 
 Bunch thread from the cotton mill, num- 
 ber twelve, made very strong sewing- 
 thread, but little could we afford of that ; 
 it was exceedingly scarce. When the web 
 of cloth, especially that of factory bunch 
 thread, had been woven as closely up as 
 the sley and harness would permit the 
 warp opening for the shuttle to pass 
 through, the ends of the weaver’s threads, 
 or thrums, generally a yard long when 
 taken from around the large cloth beam, 
 would be cut from the cloth and made into 
 sewing-thread. We spent many evenings 
 around the fire, if winter time, or lamp if 
 summer weather, drawing the threads sin- 
 gly from the bunch of thrums and then 
 tying together two or three strands, as the 
 thread was to be coarse or fine. It was 
 
56 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 also wound into balls and twisted in the 
 same manner as other sewing-thread. The 
 ball would be full of knots, but a good 
 needleful of thread, perhaps more, could 
 always be had between the knots. 
 
 There were rude frames in most peo- 
 ple’s yards for making rope out of cotton 
 thread spun very coarse, and quite a quan- 
 tity of such rope was made on these rop- 
 erys. A comical incident occurred at one 
 of the rope-makings which I attended. 
 One afternoon, I had gone out in the yard 
 with several members of the household, 
 to observe the method of twisting the long 
 coil of rope by a windlass attached to one 
 end of the frame, after it had been run off 
 the broaches on to the frame. Two of the 
 smaller girls were amusing themselves run- 
 ning back and forth under the rope while 
 it was being slowly twisted, now and again 
 giving it a tap with their hands as they 
 ducked under it, when, just as it was drawn 
 to its tightest tension, it parted from the 
 end of the frame opposite the windlass, 
 and in its curved rebound caught one of 
 the little girls by the hair of her head. 
 There was “music in the air” for some 
 little time, for it was quite a task to free 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 57 
 
 her hair from the hard twisted coils of 
 rope. 
 
 Our hats and bonnets were of our own 
 manufacture, for those we had at the be- 
 ginning of the war had been covered 
 anew, made over, turned, and changed till 
 none of the original remained. As we had 
 no “ flowers of sulphur ” to bleach our 
 white straw bonnets and hats, we colored 
 those we had with walnut hulls, and made 
 them light or dark brown, as we wished. 
 Then we ripped up our tarlatan party- 
 dresses of red, white, blue, or buff, some 
 all gold and silver bespangled, to trim hats 
 with. Neighbor would divide with neigh- 
 bor the tarlatan for trimming purposes, 
 and some would go quite a distance for 
 only enough to trim a hat. For the 
 plumes of our hats or bonnets the feathers 
 of the old drake answered admirably, and 
 were often plucked, as many will remem- 
 ber, for that very purpose. Quaker or 
 Shaker bonnets were also woven by the 
 women of Alabama out of the bulrushes 
 that grew very tall in marshy places. 
 These rushes were placed in the opening 
 of the threads of warp by hand, and were 
 woven the same as if the shuttle had 
 
58 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 passed them through. Those the width 
 of the warp were always used. The bon- 
 nets were cut in shape and lined with tar- 
 latan. 
 
 The skirt of the Shaker was made of 
 single sleyed cloth, as we called it. In 
 common woven heavy cloth two threads of 
 warp were passed through the reeds of the 
 sley. For the skirts of our bonnets we 
 wanted the cloth soft and light, hence 
 only one thread was passed through the 
 reeds, and that was lightly tapped by the 
 batten ; it was then soft and yielding. 
 When the cloth was dyed with willow 
 bark, which colored a beautiful drab, we 
 thought our bonnets equal to those we had 
 bought in days gone by. There was va- 
 riety enough of material to make hats for 
 both men and women, palmetto taking the 
 lead for hats for Sunday wear. The straw 
 of oats or wheat and corn husks were 
 braided and made into hats. Hats which 
 were almost everlasting, we used to think, 
 were made of pine straw. Hats were made 
 of cloth also. I remember one in particu- 
 lar of gray jeans, stitched in small dia- 
 monds with black silk thread. It was as 
 perfect a hat as was ever moulded by the 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 59 
 
 hatter, but the oddness of that hat con- 
 sisted in its being stitched on the sewing- 
 machine with silk thread. All sewing-ma- 
 chines in our settlement were at a stand- 
 still during the period of the war, as our 
 home-made thread was not suited to ma- 
 chines, and all sewing had to be done by 
 hand. 
 
 We became quite skilled in making de- 
 signs of palmetto and straw braiding and 
 plaiting for hats. Fans, baskets, and mats 
 we made of the braided palmetto and 
 straw also. Then there was the “ bonnet 
 squash,” known also as the “ Spanish 
 dish-rag,” that was cultivated by some for 
 making bonnets and hats for women and 
 children. Such hats presented a fine ap- 
 pearance, but they were rather heavy. 
 Many would make the frame for their bon- 
 nets or hats, then cover it with the small 
 white feathers and down of the goose, color 
 bright red with the juice of poke berries, 
 or blue with indigo mud, some of the larger 
 feathers, and on a small wire form a wreath 
 or plume with bright - colored and white 
 feathers blended together ; or, if no wire 
 was convenient, a fold or two of heavy 
 cloth, or paper doubled, was used to sew 
 
6o 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 the combination of feathers on for wreath, 
 plume, or rosette. Tastefully arranged, 
 this made a hat or bonnet by no means 
 rustic looking. 
 
V. 
 
 Willow wickerwork came in as a new 
 industry with us. We learned to weave 
 willow twigs into baskets of many shapes 
 and sizes. 
 
 A woman of our settlement wove of wil- 
 low switches a beautiful and ornate body 
 for her baby carriage. As much, she said, 
 to show what she could make out of willow 
 withes, as for the real use of her baby. 
 
 The switches were gathered when the 
 willows were flowering, and stripped of 
 bark and leaves ; what was not wanted for 
 immediate use was put by in bundles, to be 
 used in our leisure hours. When placed in 
 warm water the withes were soon as flex- 
 ible as if freshly gathered and peeled, and 
 were as easily woven into varied kinds of 
 wickerwork. 
 
 Mrs. G had a flock of sixty or sev- 
 
 enty head of geese. A large stream of clear 
 water ran within a stone’s throw of the 
 rear of the dwelling, through what was the 
 
62 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 main pasture-lot for the geese. Clear pools 
 of water, caused by the sudden bend of the 
 stream, rocks, or perhaps a fallen tree, were 
 formed as the stream wound through the 
 pasture-lot, in which the geese were nearly 
 all the time swimming. This kept their 
 feathers snowy white. Wishing a finer 
 grade of fans than we had made of braided 
 palmetto or woven rushes or pasteboard, 
 it was not long ere we had learned to put 
 the secondary wing-feathers of geese to 
 that use. When the feathers were “ ripe ” 
 we would pluck them, being very careful in 
 the plucking to string on a strong thread 
 the feathers one by one as they were taken 
 out. All the right wing-feathers were 
 placed on one string, the left wing-feathers 
 on another separate string, so that when 
 we were ready to arrange the feathers for 
 making fans, each feather would be in its 
 proper place, just as drawn from the wing 
 of the goose, and would therefore have the 
 fitting curve. The secondary feathers of 
 both wings were used to make one fan. 
 Its handles were of cedar or pine wood 
 and were sometimes made on the “turn- 
 er’s machine,” but oftener we whittled 
 them out of cedar or pine wood ourselves. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 63 
 
 They were always covered with scraps of 
 velvet, silk, cassimere, or merino, and bits 
 of old faded ribbon dyed some bright color. 
 We soon became adepts in the art of mak- 
 ing fans out of the wing-feathers of geese, 
 and beside those for our own use we made 
 and sold many in the city of Eufaula for 
 ten, fifteen, and twenty dollars apiece. 
 
 A sister of Mrs. G , who lived some 
 
 little distance from us, and who owned a 
 large flock of pea-fowls, often favored her 
 sister with the more valuable dark olive- 
 green wing-feathers of her magnificent 
 birds, and they made superb fans. I was 
 
 remembered by Mrs. G , and was given 
 
 a select pair of wing-feathers. I gave my 
 best skill to this fan, for it was to be a 
 present to my mother. The handle I cov- 
 ered with a piece of dark green silk velvet 
 for which I exchanged a scrap of silk of a 
 different color, so as to have an exact 
 blending of the feathers and silk velvet 
 for covering the handle. On either side 
 where I had joined the handle and feath- 
 ers, I placed a rosette made of the small 
 green and blue variegated feathers that 
 adorn the neck and breast of the pea-fowl. 
 Two buttons cut out of pasteboard and cov- 
 
64 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 ered with a bit of the silk velvet, saved 
 from covering the handle, were placed in 
 the centre of the rosettes. I think it would 
 have been difficult to have singled out that 
 fan as not imported. I was offered thirty 
 dollars for it as soon as it was completed. 
 One would scarcely believe how beautiful 
 our snow-white fans of geese feathers were, 
 with their large rosettes on either side, 
 made of the blue and green small feathers 
 that grace the neck of the peacock. We 
 made fans also of gray goose feathers, and 
 from feathers out of turkeys’ wings and 
 tails were made strong substantial fans, for 
 every-day use in summer. 
 
 An amusing incident happened one day 
 while we were making fans of the feathers 
 of the geese. We had been told by some 
 one that if we would tie a strip of scarlet 
 cloth around a goose’s neck, it would fly 
 away and never return. Late one after- 
 noon the oldest daughter of the house and 
 I were strolling all alone in the pasture-lot 
 where the geese were feeding on the luxu- 
 riant grass. At sight of the sleek, glossy 
 flock feeding en masse, the impulse arose 
 on the instant to put to the test the roman- 
 tic hearsay, and we quickly caught a goose 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 65 
 
 of snowy whiteness. My companion then 
 took off her crimson silk belt (a relic of 
 ante-bellum days). We tied it around the 
 anser’s neck, kneeling on the soft carpet 
 of grass, one holding the goose by the 
 wings, while the other adjusted the belt; 
 then we loosed it, expecting to see the 
 spread of wings that was to bear it from 
 our sight forever. But nothing of the kind 
 happened. It stepped cautiously around 
 with its neck gracefully curved as if en- 
 deavoring to divine the mystery of the 
 crimson streamer, while the entire flock 
 without a single exception set up a hiss- 
 ing and cackling that was almost deafen- 
 ing, and with necks extended began to 
 chase the goose with the scarlet pennant. 
 The loud cackling of the flock awoke the 
 quiet of the house, and soon a negro girl 
 came running, sent by her mistress, to see 
 what was disturbing the geese. The leg- 
 end had proved false ; but we wondered 
 not, as we retraced our steps, that the loud 
 cackling of a flock of geese in Rome be- 
 trayed the presence of the Gauls who were 
 about to storm the citadel. 
 
 Mrs. G promised her two older 
 
 daughters, her niece, and myself a new 
 
66 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 home-woven, home-spun dress, just so soon 
 as we should jointly finish the make-up of 
 the slaves’ fall and winter clothing, which 
 we joined hands forthwith in cutting out. 
 Two suits apiece of heavy goods were 
 made for their winter wear, and two suits 
 apiece of material not so heavy for their 
 spring and summer wear. It usually took 
 from six to eight weeks of cutting out and 
 sewing to get all the slaves into their new 
 garments. We were ever willing to lend 
 our aid in the make-up of the negroes’ 
 clothing, yet the promise of a new home- 
 spun dress, to be dyed and woven as best 
 pleased us four, aroused our latent energy, 
 and we soon completed the task without 
 once knowing fatigue. Then our home- 
 spun dresses came to the front. There 
 was much consulting, advising, and draught- 
 ing by the four, before we had decided as 
 to the color, check, or stripe we should 
 have our dresses dyed or woven. I well 
 remember the color, stripe, and check — 
 together with the s-pangles that were woven 
 in the meshes of thread — that we each 
 made choice of. The warp was the same 
 for all four dresses, — nearly solid drab, 
 with the exception of a narrow stripe of 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 67 
 
 white and blue threads in a group, for 
 every twelve or fourteen threads of drab, 
 running parallel to each other the whole 
 length of the warp. The drab was dyed 
 with the bark of the willow-tree. The 
 hanks of thread for the woof of my dress 
 were closely plaited and dyed a deep, clear 
 blue with our home-made indigo. When 
 woven it presented the appearance of 
 “ cirro-cumulus ” clouds. The niece and 
 one of the daughters betook them to the 
 garret to rummage amongst antique silk 
 and woolen garments much “ the worse for 
 wear.” Part of an old black silk, and some 
 red scraps of merino, and a remnant of an 
 old blue scarf, was what they decided upon 
 as spangles for their dresses, and both were 
 to be just alike. The black silk and red 
 and blue were cut into narrow strips ; the 
 strips were again cut into bits from a quar- 
 ter to half an inch in length and woven 
 in the meshes of thread the whole length 
 of their dresses. 
 
 The black, blue, and red bits of color 
 were placed in by hand, varying from an 
 inch to two or three inches apart. Some- 
 times the bits of bright color were placed 
 in so as to form a square, diamond, or cross ; 
 
68 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 sometimes no order or method was heeded, 
 but they were placed in on the “ crazy ” 
 plan ; yet when all the tiny bits had been 
 placed in and when the material was made 
 up into the dress, it presented quite a 
 spangled appearance. The other daughter 
 had hers woven of solid drab, of willow-bark 
 dye, and with a narrow stripe of blue and 
 white running the length of it in the warp; 
 and this was just as pretty as the rest of 
 our dresses, that had given a deal of 
 trouble. 
 
 Buttons for our dresses were our next 
 consideration, and we had quite a debate 
 on this weighty subject, as our substitutes 
 for buttons and material for making them 
 were many and varied. It was something 
 bewildering for us to determine finally what 
 sort of buttons we should adopt. 
 
 Rude machines were devised for making 
 buttons of wood as the war went on, and 
 we were thrown more and more upon our 
 own resources. The buttons made of wood 
 were of various sizes, and were strong 
 and lasting for heavy goods, especially 
 the clothing for the slaves. Sometimes 
 we would get the wood buttons, polish 
 them with a bit of sandpaper, and varnish 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 69 
 
 them with a little of the copal varnish 
 that happened to be on hand when the war 
 began, and which was being carefully hus- 
 banded ; our buttons thus polished and 
 varnished exhibited some likeness to those 
 we had been wont to buy in palmier days. 
 Many a household manufactured its own 
 buttons. They were made of cloth cut 
 round, and of as many ply as was neces- 
 sary for firmness. Thick, heavy button- 
 hole stitches were worked all around the 
 edge with thread coarser than the cloth of 
 which the button was made, and when 
 these were stitched on firmly there was no 
 worry about the washerwoman’s breaking 
 or washing them off. 
 
 Thread that we spun at home was used 
 for making buttons. The process was sim- 
 ple. A small reed, or, if that was wanting, 
 a large-sized broom-straw, could be used ; 
 around this the thread for such buttons 
 would be wound till of sufficient bulk ; it 
 was then slid from the reed ; the button- 
 hole stitch was used here again, and was 
 thickly worked around the eyelet made by 
 the reed ; the eyelet was crossed with 
 thread stronger than that of which the but- 
 ton was formed, for the purpose of attach- 
 
70 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 ing it to the garment. Persimmon seeds 
 were also used for buttons with very good 
 success, for being of such a tenacious and 
 solid substance they could be put on cloth- 
 ing that required washing. Very nice but- 
 tons were also shaped out of pine bark, 
 and were covered or not, just as one liked, 
 but these were useless on garments for 
 wash. The shell of the common gourd 
 was almost universally used at the South 
 *--! for buttons during the period of the war ; 
 when covered with strong homespun cloth 
 they could stand washing. Pasteboard was 
 also used to make buttons. We have often 
 cut in different shapes and sizes paste- 
 board and the shell of the gourd for but- 
 tons. We would have them round, oval, 
 square, or diamond shaped, then cover 
 neatly with cloth, with scraps of silk, or 
 with fine pieces of colored woolen goods, 
 to match whatever material was used for 
 dress or basque. 
 
 Our pasteboard was made in our own 
 homes. I smile even now when I think of 
 that crude process. We used old papers 
 and worn garments and a paste made of 
 flour, or bolted meal sifted through fine 
 cloth. A paper was spread on a table, 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 7 1 
 
 paste was spread evenly and smoothly over 
 the surface of the paper, a layer of cloth 
 just the width and length of the paper was 
 laid on, another coating of the paste fol- 
 lowed, and so on, alternating with paper, 
 paste, and cloth, until the required thick- 
 ness was reached ; then with a hot smooth- 
 ing-iron the whole was pressed till perfectly 
 dry, smooth, and glossy, and we had paste- 
 board adapted for all household needs. 
 
 But to return to our buttons. They 
 were made of drab thread, and after we 
 had thickly worked the button-hole stitch 
 around the eyelet, each took thread col- 
 ored to blend with the warp and woof and 
 again lightly overcast the button, so that 
 the drab showed only as the background. 
 The older daughter and I overcast ours 
 with blue thread ; the other two overcast 
 theirs with red thread. It was then fash- 
 ionable to place straps on the shoulder 
 seams of ladies’ dresses, with generally 
 from four to six buttons on the straps. 
 We placed straps on ours, trimmed with 
 the buttons which we had made, and they 
 added not a little to the finish. 
 
 We had intended to wear our new home- 
 spuns to the village church the Sunday 
 
72 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 after completing them. Perhaps there was 
 the least bit of vanity in our thoughts of 
 how we should appear in church in our 
 first home-woven suits ; palmetto hats that 
 we had braided and made with our own 
 hands ; slippers that we had knit, with 
 soles cut out of our home-tanned leather, 
 and on which we had with our own hands 
 joined uppers and soles together. But 
 
 “ The best laid schemes o’ mice and men 
 Gang aft a-gley.” 
 
 It was Saturday night, and our new dresses 
 had been pressed with the smoothing-iron 
 all so nicely and hung on hooks alongside 
 the wall, so as to avoid any unnecessary 
 creasing. All four of us hung up the 
 dresses with especial care just before we 
 stepped into the dining-room to have our 
 suppers. “ Eliza and Mary always have 
 something new and unusual in the make of 
 their homespun dresses,” thought we, “but 
 they shall be surpassed to-morrow. Both 
 teacher and pupils were at an age then 
 when the heart is keenly desirous for 
 beauty and effect. 
 
 Uncle Ben was the negro man who 
 drove the carriage, made fires night and 
 morning in all the rooms of the house, 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 73 
 
 hoed the garden, helped Aunt Phillis, the 
 cook, who was his wife, and did chores in 
 general around the house and yard. Now 
 it happened, as Aunt Phillis afterward told 
 us, that Ben had made his plans for that 
 very Sunday also. He was to meet by 
 agreement with the negroes of contiguous 
 plantations in a swamp not far distant 
 
 from the negro quarter on Mr. G ’s 
 
 plantation, to engage in games with 
 cards. Their masters of course knew 
 naught of it, for they would not have per- 
 mitted it. In passing round the house 
 and yard Uncle Ben heard us say we were 
 going to the village church that particular 
 Sunday, and that we should be sure to 
 wear our new home - woven suits. He 
 knew he would have to drive the carriage, 
 and I suppose he thought if it had not 
 been for our new dresses of the home- 
 made cloth, like as not we would not want 
 to drive ; for often we did not use the car- 
 riage on Sundays, but preferred walking 
 to the quiet country church and Sabbath- 
 school scarce a mile from my employer’s 
 residence. 
 
 While we were all at the supper-table 
 that Saturday night, Ben, as usual, was 
 
74 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 making the round of the rooms, replenish- 
 ing all the fires. He reached our room. 
 There were the four dresses hanging plain 
 to view, and he thought of having to drive 
 the carriage on the morrow. One of the 
 little girls had taken a bath and left a 
 large basin of water, with the sponge in it, 
 near the fire-place. Ben gathered up the 
 sponge, pressed some of the water from it, 
 wiped the soot from the chimney’s back, 
 and smeared our prided homespun gar- 
 ments to his heart’s content ! Then he 
 carefully disposed the skirts so as to ef- 
 fectually conceal the smut. It being Sat- 
 urday night, he expected that we could not 
 have the much-soiled dresses ready for 
 Sunday’s wear, even if we should discover 
 the smut that evening. 
 
 When we went back to our rooms from 
 the supper-table our first glance was to- 
 ward our much-valued dresses, which ap- 
 peared to hang just as we had left them. 
 But before we had seated ourselves, sur- 
 prise was manifested at some large flakes 
 of soot on the hearth and floor and near to 
 our precious garments. One of us called 
 attention to the sponge, which was almost 
 black, floating in the basin of water. The 
 fire, beginning to burn anew, showed the 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 75 
 
 chimney’s back almost free of soot, and 
 scarcely dry from the sponge. Thinking 
 no harm had befallen our homespuns, I 
 casually touched the folds of mine, when 
 several flakes of soot fell to the floor. Im- 
 mediately I loosed wide the folds of the 
 skirt, when, lo ! such a smut never before 
 nor since have I seen, from waist line to 
 the hem, one whole width all begrimed 
 with scot. The other girls flew in a trice 
 to their dresses, and as quickly unloosed 
 the folds of their skirts. Lo ! behold, it 
 was smut, smut, soot, soot, broad and 
 long ! We knew in an instant it was Ben, 
 for he was often “contrary” about driving 
 the carriage, especially if he had made 
 plans for his own amusement. Irritation 
 and disappointment were the prominent 
 feelings at first, augmented by the thought 
 that our homespuns would never look de- 
 cently again, but our vexed feelings soon 
 gave way to ringing laughter as we pic- 
 tured to ourselves Uncle Ben in the midst 
 of smutting our dearly-prized garments. 
 He deserved punishment, surely, but be- 
 yond a good scolding no correction was ad- 
 ministered, although Aunt Phillis declared 
 that “ Massa orter half kill Ben fur sicher 
 mean trick.” 
 
VI. 
 
 One blustering, drizzling March night 
 at our home in Alabama the two little 
 daughters of Uncle Ben and Aunt Phillis, 
 who, since their early childhood had been 
 brought up in Mr. G ’s house as ser- 
 
 vants, came rushing into our room with 
 the startling intelligence that “ Daddy ’s 
 arter mammy ; he ’s got an axe in his hand 
 and says he ’s gwine ter kill her dis berry 
 night.” Where Phillis was hiding the lit- 
 tle girls knew not. She was not in the 
 kitchen, nor in her cabin ; neither had she 
 come into the house to her master and 
 mistress. “ Her ’s dodgin’ ’round to keep 
 out’en daddy’s way,” the younger of Phil- 
 lis’s girls declared. We all became deeply 
 interested in Aunt Phillis’s troubles, and 
 dropped our knitting and crocheting in 
 severe disapprobation of the way in which 
 Ben was treating his helpmate, and our 
 censure was the more emphasized when 
 we remembered the smutting he had given 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 77 
 
 our dresses. The smaller boys and girls 
 of the household came also into our room 
 to hear Martha and Maria tell of Ben’s 
 chasing Phillis around with the axe, and 
 soon we had ten all told around the fire, 
 all gathered close together. 
 
 The mournful echoing and reechoing of 
 the March wind as it rushed past in fitful, 
 heavy gusts, sometimes rattling the win- 
 dow panes, then dying away through the 
 dark pine forests that bounded one side 
 of the mansion, added not a little to our 
 excited imaginings, and we lapsed into a 
 kind of dread silence, when all of a sudden 
 an unearthly scream came from just be- 
 neath our feet, it seemed, and we sprang 
 up instantly. Martha, who had recognized 
 her mother’s voice, at one bound passed 
 through our room door to the rear hall 
 door, which she opened in a twinkling and 
 Aunt Phillis flew into our room. We 
 slammed the door to on the instant, think- 
 ing Uncle Ben was at his wife’s heels, and 
 that one of us might catch the hurl of the 
 axe intended for Phillis. We braced our 
 shoulders against the door with all our 
 strength, but Uncle Ben was prudent 
 enough not to try to force an entrance. 
 
78 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 Mrs. G , hearing our screams, im- 
 
 agined that the house had caught fire. 
 She sped to our room and reached the 
 door just as we were in the act of slam- 
 ming it shut, so that it caught her left 
 hand just across the knuckles, and she was 
 held all of a minute before she could make 
 herself heard in the great uproar. The 
 third finger of her left hand was badly- 
 crushed, and to this day shows the imprint 
 of that accident. Mr. G also has- 
 
 tened to our room, and, finding that Ben 
 was after Phillis with an axe, got his gun, 
 and from the rear hall door peered forth 
 into the bleak night for Ben ; but no Ben 
 could be seen or heard. When the Ba- 
 bel-like confusion of our tongues had some- 
 what stilled, Aunt Phillis was called upon 
 to explain her piercing scream. She said 
 that as she was putting her kitchen in or- 
 der for breakfast in the morning, Ben had 
 told her he was going to split her head 
 open that very night with the axe, and 
 went to the wood-pile for the axe. Then 
 Aunt Phillis slipped round on the front col- 
 onnade next her mistress’ room, thinking if 
 Ben should come for her there she could 
 quickly spring into that room. From the 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 79 
 
 front colonnade she saw Ben go into the 
 kitchen axe in hand. Not finding her 
 there, he came out again and went to the 
 rear of the house. Although the night 
 was dark, she imagined her dress was of 
 light enough color to betray her to Ben, 
 should he come on that side of the house. 
 She then thought of our room, which, on 
 account of an incline in the yard toward 
 the front gate, was not raised as high off 
 the ground by two or three feet as the 
 rooms on the front colonnade. Aunt Phil- 
 lis reasoned that if she crept under the 
 house as far as our room, where a good fire 
 was always burning in the winter time, 
 she could keep warm seated at the base of 
 the chimney, and if need be, sleep there all 
 night, secure from the fury of Ben. So 
 she crawled as far down as our room, and 
 made herself as comfortable as the ground 
 would permit, chuckling the while at Ben’s 
 prowling around for her in the raw March 
 wind and rain. She was the more content 
 as she knew her two girls slept in her mis- 
 tress’s room. To use her own words, “ I 
 was gitten good and warm ’gin the bricks 
 o’ de chimbley, and feeling sort 0’ sleepy, 
 soon was nodden. I jest happened to 
 
8o 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 open my eyes as I raised my head of a 
 sudden, and bless God ! dar was Ben 
 crawlin’ right up to me on his knees, wid 
 de axe in his hand. I tell yer, I never 
 knows how I did got out fro’ under dar.” 
 
 Uncle Ben, despite his eccentricities, 
 lives yet on the old plantation with his 
 
 mistress ; but Mr. G died years gone 
 
 by now. No one bears any ill-will, I am 
 sure, to venerable Uncle Ben, not even 
 those of us who well remember his mis- 
 deeds ; and this episode of those days of 
 civil strife — an episode connected with 
 
 the two oldest daughters of Mrs. G , 
 
 her niece, and myself, — stands out with 
 clear distinctness, though more than twenty 
 years have gone. 
 
 While knitting around the fireside one 
 f night, talking of what we had done, and 
 \ could yet accomplish, in industries called 
 into existence by the war and blockade, 
 we agreed then and there that each of 
 us four could and would card and spin 
 enough warp and woof to weave a dress 
 apiece. This proved a herculean task for 
 us, for at that time we barely knew how 
 to card and spin. Mrs. G smiled in- 
 
 credulously, we thought, but kindly prom- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 8 1 
 
 ised to have the dresses dyed and woven, 
 in case we should card and spin them. 
 The older daughter and I elected to work 
 together. I was to card and spin eight- 
 een yards of warp — nine yards of our 
 wide heavy homespun being then ample 
 enough for one plain dress. Of course we 
 used the same style the whole four years 
 of the war, in our secluded settlement ; not 
 a fashion plate or “ ladies’ magazine ” did 
 we see during that entire period, so that 
 we were but little troubled as to “ latest 
 styles.” My companion in work was to 
 card and spin eighteen yards of filling. 
 Similarly the other daughter and her 
 cousin agreed as to carding and spinning 
 their warp and woof. We imposed the 
 number of cuts each should spin, agreeing 
 that each should spin one cut every night 
 after our suppers, Saturday night excepted. 
 Every Saturday we were to card and were 
 spin six cuts apiece, till eighteen yards 
 finished. 
 
 Inasmuch as it took about six cuts of our 
 soft spun woof to make one yard of thick 
 heavy cloth, and about the same of hard 
 twisted warp, we were not long in num- 
 bering the weeks we should be in spinning 
 
82 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 the four dresses ; and of course, going to 
 school or teaching school, and spinning 
 only nights and Saturdays, our progress 
 on the eighteen yards was necessarily slow. 
 We thought, however, that we would have 
 them ready for the loom in ten weeks at 
 
 the farthest. Mrs. G said if we had 
 
 them ready to dye and weave in three or 
 four months we would do well. But there 
 were those who could card and spin from 
 one to two yards of cloth per day and do it 
 easily. 
 
 On a certain Monday evening, after we 
 had supper, we began quite merrily the 
 carding and spinning for our four dresses, 
 and made our first cut of thread by the 
 number of rolls we had carded and spun. 
 I remember that seventy rolls carded 
 evenly and smoothly, if of medium size, 
 would reel one cut of thread. We invaria- 
 bly added two or three rolls to the seventy 
 for good measure. Our rolls at first were 
 oddly shaped, often evoking ridicule, but 
 we soon learned to mould them to perfec- 
 tion. 
 
 Our first Saturday to spin was looked 
 forward to with great expectations by the 
 four, as six cuts were marked down for 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 83 
 
 that day. I smile even now, as memory 
 wanders back over the tide of years, to 
 think how, all during the week preceding 
 that Saturday, I was resolving in my mind 
 to far outstrip the number of cuts imposed 
 as our task. I kept this resolution all to 
 myself, inwardly chuckling at the grand 
 surprise I was to give them all when the 
 day’s work should be finished ; and I did 
 give a surprise, too, but in a way that was 
 by no means pleasing to me. 
 
 The eagerly wished for Saturday dawned. 
 Two spinning-wheels and two pair of cot- 
 ton-cards, with a basket of nice white lint 
 cotton, were set in our room before we had 
 risen from bed, according to orders de- 
 livered the evening previous ; and as the 
 sun rose the hum of the spinning-wheels 
 began, as we had the night before carded 
 enough rolls to supply us with material. 
 Two would be carding rolls and two spin- 
 ning, and by alternating between carding 
 rolls and spinning, we rested, both as to 
 standing and sitting, discoursing mean- 
 while what color, or what variety of colors, 
 these self-spun dresses should be dyed ; 
 whether plain, plaid, checkered, or striped 
 they should be woven. Now and then the 
 
84 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 monotony would be enlivened by snatches 
 of song; merry laughs and jests went 
 round ; first one and then another of us 
 would cry out above the never - ceasing 
 humming of the wheels, “ I know I shall 
 have my six cuts by the time the sun is 
 down;” and I thought to myself, but did 
 not give voice to the words, “ Should n’t 
 wonder if I have seven cuts or more, when 
 the sun sets.” 
 
 Steadily all that Saturday was heard the 
 tramp, tramp, as we marched up and down 
 the floor beside our spinning-wheels. We 
 were glad indeed to see the sun sinking 
 like a huge ball of fire behind the green- 
 topped pines, plain to view from the win- 
 dows of our room. That evening the words, 
 “ The night cometh, when no man can 
 work,” had for us a new meaning. We 
 were more joyful, I believe, as the eve was 
 drawing on, than we had been at dawn. 
 We were wearied, but were in a fever of 
 anxiety to know the result of our steady 
 labor. So diligently had we applied our- 
 selves that two carded and spun while two 
 were at dinner ; there had been no cessa- 
 tion of our work. 
 
 When the sun set, the whirring ceased, 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 85 
 
 and gathering up our broaches which 
 looked like so many small pyramids, we 
 marched Indian file to the sitting-room for 
 
 Mrs. G to reel the thread we had 
 
 spun. Our broaches had to be placed in a 
 basket for the thread to be run off as it 
 listed. There was “ a scientific way ” of 
 running the thread on to the bobbins, 
 which were of corn-husks or thick paper, 
 and placed on the spindle of the wheel for 
 the thread to be run on to form the broach. 
 Any one at all experienced in spinning 
 could so run the thread on the broach that 
 in reeling, the broach being held at the 
 base by the hand, the thread would run 
 smoothly off the apex of the broach with- 
 out ever a break or tangle to the very last 
 strand. We had not run our thread on the 
 broaches with the same amount of skill we 
 had shown in spinning, hence there was 
 much difficulty in reeling, but before we 
 had finished the thirty-six yards of cloth 
 our broaches ceased to give annoyance. 
 
 It was decided by all in the room that 
 my broaches must be the first reeled, — 
 how strangely these names sound now, then 
 familiar household words, “ broach,” “ reel,” 
 “ hank,” “ rolls,” “ card,” “ warp,” “ web 
 
86 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 of cloth,” and so on ! With no little pride 
 I saw my great day’s work sailing round 
 on the reel. At every one hundred and 
 twenty rounds, a sharp click of the reel, 
 and one cut would be told. A thread was 
 looped around that cut, to separate it from 
 the next cut. But as the reel gave the 
 second sharp click, and that cut was looped, 
 I saw with dismay that what was left of my 
 broaches would barely reel another cut. I 
 almost held my breath as the third cut was 
 flying round. “ Shades of Pallas ! ” thought 
 I, “ am I to have only three cuts ? ” Alas ! 
 click ! only three cuts and a few strands of 
 thread over. How glad I was that I had 
 not voiced in the household my being so 
 sure of seven or more cuts ! All were 
 quite mystified for a few moments to know 
 why after such a day’s carding and spin- 
 ning I should have fallen so short of the 
 task allotted each one, and which was 
 fairly within our power. Some of the girls 
 were saying “ I think I won’t have my 
 
 broaches reeled.” Mrs. G , meanwhile, 
 
 was giving my small hank the necessary 
 loops around the reel before removing, and 
 when she did remove my hank from the 
 reel it rolled a ball of kinks in her hands. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 87 
 
 Having been warned that the warp, to make 
 it strong, required much more twisting than 
 filling, but being an entire novice in the 
 art, I had given the thread I spun entirely 
 too much twist, — had really put six cuts 
 in three, so that, after all, I had not done so 
 bad a day’s work, and could join as heartily 
 as the others in ridiculing my ball of kinks, 
 as it passed from one to another for inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 The other warp spinner had not given 
 her thread enough twist to answer for 
 warp, so that it had to be used for woof. 
 
 Mrs. G , dear motherly woman that she 
 
 ever was, knowing how assiduously we had 
 applied ourselves to the card and wheels, 
 and wishing to give encouragement to our 
 undertaking, gave to each of us unfortu- 
 nates eight cuts of warp so that we also 
 closed that Saturday night rejoicing with 
 the other two spinners, who had made just 
 their number of cuts. But as I lay down 
 to sleep, it was with the thought that the 
 twelve labors of Hercules were as nothing 
 compared to the eighteen yards of warp- 
 thread which I had given my pledge to 
 card and spin. 
 
 As the novelty of carding and spinning 
 
88 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 wore off, we often grew weary in our strife, 
 and it is not to be denied that all four of 
 us became heartily sick of our agreement 
 by the time we had carded and spun two 
 weeks at night and two Saturdays, and 
 never another Saturday dawned that found 
 us so eager to spin as did the first one. 
 Each of the four felt inclined to withdraw 
 from the compact, but that was never ac- 
 knowledged until victory had crowned our 
 efforts. 
 
VII. 
 
 As no muslin could be bought for sum- 
 mer wear, and our home-made cloth was 
 very heavy and warm for hot weather, we 
 women of southern Alabama devised a plan 
 for making muslin out of our own home- 
 spun thread ; and the fact that it was made 
 of this thread added not a little to its ex- 
 cellence in our estimation. 
 
 In the weaving of all heavy, thick cloth, 
 whether plain or twilled, two threads, some- 
 times three, were always passed through 
 the reeds of the sley, when the warp was 
 put in the loom for weaving the web of 
 cloth. The experiment for muslin, and it 
 proved quite a success, was to draw the 
 threads of warp singly through the reeds 
 of the sley. In the process of making 
 muslin, both warp and woof were sized with 
 sizing made of flour, to make the threads 
 more smooth and unbending ; whereas 
 plain cloth had only the warp sized, and 
 that with sizing made of Indian-meal. 
 
90 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 When thread for the muslin was beamed, 
 and one single thread passed through the 
 reeds of the sley, and only a slight tap of 
 the batten given as the shuttle passed 
 through the opening with its quill of sized 
 thread, the texture was thin and gauze-like, 
 and stood out like any real muslin stiffened 
 with starch. 
 
 The thread for our muslins was dyed a 
 deep plum color. In the case of each of 
 our four dresses, the warp was the same : 
 twelve or fourteen threads of the plum color 
 and three threads of white alternating with 
 the plum color and white thread the width 
 and length of the cloth. The older daugh- 
 ter and I had ours filled in solid with plum 
 color, which, with the narrow white stripes 
 in the warp, made a very neat dress. The 
 two other girls had theirs checked with 
 white, so as to form a square with the 
 white stripe in the warp ; then small bits 
 of crimson merino were placed in the cen- 
 tre of the square. Our muslins reminded 
 me of “Swiss muslins,” with their raised 
 flowers of silk or fine wool thread. When 
 we first appeared in them, they were mis- 
 taken for the genuine imported muslins. 
 
 Soon after completing and wearing our 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 9 1 
 
 home-made muslins, news came into our 
 settlement that a steamer had run the 
 blockade, and that the city of Eufaula had 
 secured some bolts of prints and other no- 
 tions. The Saturday following the report, 
 
 Mr. G ordered Ben to harness up the 
 
 horses, and we were driven to Eufaula, not 
 to buy, but simply to have a look at these 
 imports. Sure enough, on the shelves in 
 the store that had long lain empty, there 
 were tastefully disposed a few bolts of Eng- 
 lish prints, some ladies’ straw hats, a bolt or 
 two of fine bleached stuff, some calico, and 
 a few pairs of ladies’ shoes. These were 
 the magnets which had drawn us eleven 
 miles ! We had fondly imagined ourselves 
 satisfied with our home-made cloth, and 
 had said of it, as David of the sword of 
 Goliath, “ There is none like that ; give it 
 me.” When we had held aloft our knit and 
 cloth-made shoes and slippers, with the 
 words, “ What do we care for the blockade 
 when we can make such as these?” we 
 had little dreamed that our firmness would 
 so suddenly collapse before about three 
 bolts of calico and a few pairs of black mo- 
 rocco shoes, lined with red and deep blue 
 leather, laced high and scalloped around 
 
92 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 the top edge. Yet so it was, for when the 
 merchant unfolded to our view his brand- 
 new prints, looking so fresh and novel, we 
 four had nine yards apiece cut off, paying 
 twelve dollars per yard for it. It was 
 something over a yard wide, and as we 
 knew nothing of the ruffling, puffing, plait- 
 ing, tucking, or shirring of overskirts or 
 polonaises outside the blockade, nine yards 
 were amply sufficient for a dress. 
 
 The design of that print is yet vivid to 
 my memory. The background was a pale 
 blending of violet with white ; the fore- 
 ground was dotted with violets of a deep 
 purple color. I bought the same day a 
 plain brown straw hat, paying one hundred 
 dollars for it, and a half quire of small 
 white note-paper for forty dollars. A pair 
 of morocco gaiters cost one of the daugh- 
 ters three hundred and seventy-five dollars. 
 We surely will be pardoned, if we felt some 
 pride in wearing muslins that we had manu- 
 factured with our own hands, and fresh new 
 calicoes which had cost each of us one hun- 
 dred and eight dollars. 
 
 Our neighbors, as soon as it was noised 
 about in that quiet settlement (where it 
 seemed almost impossible for tidings of 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 93 
 
 the outside world to come) that we had 
 new store-bought calicoes, all paid us a visit 
 in order that they might see how a new 
 print looked amidst so much home-woven 
 cloth ; and a bit of the scraps left was given 
 each visitor. I sent a small scrap of my 
 new calico — our war-time calicoes, as we 
 then and afterward called them — in a let- 
 ter to my relatives in Georg ' 
 
 any one was so fortunate 
 
 new print, small scraps of it were sent in 
 letters to friends and relatives, so rare were 
 new calicoes. 
 
 Indeed, it was not at all uncommon for 
 friends or relatives to send small samples 
 of new homespun cloth to one another in 
 letters whenever what was thought to be a 
 particularly good pattern had been devised, 
 or the colors were exceptionally brilliant. 
 
 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, alto- 
 gether past renovating, and fine white lint 
 cotton. The silk was all ripped up, and 
 cut into narrow strips, which were all rav- 
 eled and then mixed with the lint cot- 
 ton and passed through the cotton cards 
 
94 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 two or three times, so as to have the mix- 
 ture homogeneous. It was then carded 
 and spun very fine, great pains being 
 taken in the spinning to have no uneven- 
 ness in the threads. Our neighbor man- 
 aged 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 service- 
 able 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. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 95 
 
 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 va- 
 rious 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 de- 
 signs, 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 
 
9 6 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 car- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 97 
 
 pets of wool, dyed a variety of bright colors, 
 were woven on our common house-loom ; 
 and larg;e 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 remem- 
 bered 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 civ- 
 ilized 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 
 
98 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 stop- 
 ping 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 dis- 
 tance, sometimes mistaken for sealskin. 
 So much for the ingenuity of the women 
 of southern Alabama. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 99 
 
 Soon after we had finished our self-im- 
 posed task of carding and spinning the 
 warp and woof for our four dresses, and it 
 had been noised far and wide in our neigh- 
 borhood 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 home- 
 spun 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 im- 
 patient 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, 
 
100 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 home- 
 spun 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 pal- 
 atable 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 de- 
 clared 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 oc- 
 casions, and then only as an extract, so to 
 speak, for flavoring substitutes for coffee. 
 
 There were those who planted long rows 
 
102 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 of the okra plant on the borders of their cot- 
 ton 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 obtain- 
 able. 
 
 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 sub- 
 stitutes were raspberry leaves. Many dur- 
 ing 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. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 103 
 
 Each household made its own starch, 
 some of the bran of wheht 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 
 
104 A BLOCKADED family. 
 
 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 tablespoon- 
 ful of flour ; it was then, while warm, ap- 
 plied to whatever need there' was. This 
 paste, when it had become hardened, re- 
 mained 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 obso- 
 lete. 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 al- 
 most as transparent as wax candles. When 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 105 
 
 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 shal- 
 low 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 
 
106 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 coun- 
 try. 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 bedquilts were do- 
 nated ; wool scarfs, knitted on long oak or 
 hickory - wood needles, were sent for our 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 107 
 
 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 at- 
 tached 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. Some- 
 times 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 to- 
 gether in a closer union, a tenderer feeling 
 
108 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 hum- 
 ble 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 regi- 
 ment, which was ordered to Island No. io, 
 in the Mississippi River ; and soon sur- 
 rounded 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 re- 
 sources 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 daugh- 
 ters 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 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 09 
 
 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] ; my- 
 self 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 to- 
 gether, telling our trials, and even laugh- 
 ing 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.” 
 
no 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 I 1 1 
 
 as happily as Adam and Eve in the Gar- 
 den of Eden before they tasted the forbid- 
 den fruit. We used to say, “ How can we 
 be subdued, when we have so cheerfully 
 and uncomplainingly given up every lux- 
 ury, 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 begin- 
 ning 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 
 
1 12 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 hot crown our 
 armies. 
 
IX. 
 
 It may excite some amusement to re- 
 cord the fact that among the thousand and 
 one industries and makeshifts which blos- 
 somed into life in southern Alabama dur- 
 ing 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 war- 
 ranted, 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 
 
I 14 a BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 with homespun thread, three or four 
 strands double, but not twisted, piecing 
 the steels, when necessary. An old hoop- 
 skirt 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 open- 
 ings 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 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. I 1 5 
 
 complete so far as the- weaving was con- 
 cerned. 
 
 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 hus- 
 band and son were fighting for our cause. 
 
 It was really ridiculous, our way of mak- 
 ing raids upon what remained of our fine 
 bed-linen, pillow-shams, and slips, for gar- 
 ments 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 
 
Il6 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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-tick- 
 ing, 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 em- 
 broider 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 home-spun, 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 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 1 7 
 
 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 them- 
 selves from the bolls that were the long- 
 est 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 
 
1 1 8 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 stores. One of my pupils, who is yet liv- 
 ing 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 stock- 
 ings. 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 ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Another article which we learned how 
 to produce was “ hair oil.” We had plenty 
 of roses, fragrant ones too, which we gath- 
 ered, 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 ; 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. I I g 
 
 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, know- 
 ing 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 val- 
 ley 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 af- 
 ternoons, 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 
 
120 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 la- 
 borer 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 them- 
 selves 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 eight- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 1 2 I 
 
 een 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 at- 
 tention. One or the other watched him 
 day and night (for he was a very valuable 
 boy) and gave the medicine. One Satur- 
 day 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 uncom- 
 mon 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 pla- 
 cing 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. 
 
122 
 
 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 bar- 
 becue 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, pep- 
 per, 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 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 23 
 
 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 barbecu- 
 ing 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, bast- 
 ing 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 foli- 
 age, together with the savory smoke rising 
 from the pits, enhanced the strangeness of 
 the fete. 
 
 When the morrow came, two or three 
 
124 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 south- 
 ern part of the Southern States, and which 
 imparts to the trees in that section an as- 
 pect strikingly patriarchal. 
 
 The tables would be weighted with the 
 flesh of the ox, mutton, pork, an'd 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 in- 
 voked 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 be- 
 came innumerable, and then the full moon 
 would deluge the whole scene with its shin- 
 ing flood of light. Or perhaps it would be 
 in the deepening twilight, when the heav- 
 ens 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 in- 
 frequently 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 dis- 
 tance the negro plowmen were returning 
 homeward chanting their “corn song.” 
 Ah ! but those old “ corn songs ” had mel- 
 ody then ! They lent enchantment to all 
 
126 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 re- 
 frain 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 per- 
 formance with his rude singing. He would 
 seem almost transported with ecstacy, as 
 he used to stand with head thrown back, 
 eyes shut, and foot vigorously keeping 
 time ; and often as he drew forth his art- 
 less 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 sol- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 27 
 
 diers 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 be- 
 gan 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 al- 
 most 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,” 
 
128 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 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 descend- 
 ing. 
 
 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 possi- 
 bly 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, disap- 
 pointed 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. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. I 29 
 
 Here and in all the surrounding neigh- 
 borhood, 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 wit- 
 nessed 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 econ- 
 omy, 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 east- 
 ern half of our Confederacy, we had no 
 communication whatevever 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 
 
130 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 the Mississippi. We were caged up like 
 a besieged city. There was neither egress 
 nor ingress for men or means. Our sol- 
 diers from the west had to share what 
 little provisions were grown in our circum- 
 scribed limit. They also shared what cloth- 
 ing could be manufactured in the more and 
 more straitened condition of the South. 
 
 If a soldier from the west drew a fur- 
 lough he could not get to his home. Those 
 who had relatives or friends east of the Mis- 
 sissippi 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 sol- 
 dier 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 Tennes- 
 see, 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 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 3 I 
 
 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 de- 
 barred 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 ; 
 
132 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 and all the negro laborers of the large rice 
 plantations, as well as those lying con- 
 tiguous 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 bur- 
 dened 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 perish- 
 able were worthless for our soldiers or pris- 
 oners, so limited were our means of trans- 
 portation. 
 
 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 knowl- 
 edge 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 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. I 33 
 
 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 narrow- 
 ing space of territory left to raise provi- 
 sions on, and were decoying off the laborers 
 and destroying and laying waste the coun- 
 try through which they marched ; every 
 means we had to feed either our army or 
 the Northern prisoners was disabled. 
 
 My brothers wrote home (without mur- 
 mur 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 ber- 
 ries 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 fora 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 
 
134 A blockaded family. 
 
 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 some- 
 thing to eat, but at last the sight of our hol- 
 low-eyed and ragged, emaciated soldiers ap- 
 pealed 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 govern- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 35 
 
 merit’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 unfortu- 
 
136 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 nate prisoners among us, as to have our 
 soldiers in the ranks of our army again, 
 there never would have been an Anderson- 
 ville. 
 
XI. 
 
 Leaving a broken home circle, I re- 
 turned to southern Alabama, where every- 
 thing 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 expedi- 
 ents were still being devised or improved 
 upon. There was no diminution of pa- 
 tience 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 gather- 
 ings. Nowand 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 
 
138 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 as I had had more than enough work card- 
 ing 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, be- 
 sides discharging my school duties faith- 
 fully. I thus made two yards of cloth 
 clear, as the thread was furnished for what- 
 ever 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 men- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 39 
 
 tioned dyed blue with our home-made in- 
 digo, 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 but- 
 tons were made of gray thread, over- 
 cast 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. 
 
140 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 Thread was often spun, both wool and 
 cotton, with the band crossed, so as to 
 knit and crochet with single thread. The 
 wheel-band was crossed only in twisting 
 thread for sewing or knitting purposes. 
 In spinning the single strand the band was 
 always uncrossed, unless we wanted to 
 knit or crochet something very fine and 
 soft, and did not want it double and twisted. 
 Then it was spun with the band of the 
 wheel crossed, so that in crocheting or 
 knitting it would not become untwisted. 
 The cotton thread was bleached by placing 
 it on a line in the yard, where it hung for 
 two or three weeks in the sun and dew. 
 It was a common thing to see long rows of 
 hanks of cotton thread hanging on a line 
 out in the yards or gardens of all the 
 dwellers of our settlement. Such thread 
 would bleach almost as white as snow. 
 
 Now and then the stern fruits of war 
 were forced upon our community by the 
 home-coming of some Confederate soldier 
 seriously or fatally wounded ; or by the 
 arrival of the corpse of some one of our 
 soldiers whom we had seen quit the neigh- 
 borhood in the flush of health and con- 
 fident that the demands of the South would 
 soon be allowed. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 141 
 
 On one occasion I wept with a widow 
 bereft of her only son and child, who had 
 died in a hospital near Richmond, from 
 wounds received in battle. She told us 
 that when he had left for the front, in the 
 midst of her terrible grief, her last words 
 to him as she held his hand had been, 
 
 “ My son, remember it is just as near 
 heaven in Virginia as it is here in our 
 home in Alabama.” Years after the young 
 man had been buried, I happened one Sun- 
 day to be attending divine service in Ham- 
 ilton, Georgia, and in the course of his 
 sermon the Rev. William Boothe, a godly 
 Methodist minister, enforced his text by 
 relating an incident. He told how a young 
 man native of Alabama, wounded in bat- 
 tle, lay dying in a hospital near Rich- 
 mond. The minister, in visiting that hos- 
 pital, speaking words of cheer and comfort 
 to the sick, was touched by the sight of 
 the young man, who, it was plain to see, 
 was in immediate danger of death. Taking ' 
 the hand of the dying boy, Mr. Boothe had 
 said in a kindly, fatherly way, “ My son, is 
 there any message or word you would like 
 me to send, or, perhaps, that I can bear 
 myself to your people, wherever they may 
 
142 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 live ? ” A glad smile lighted up the pale 
 face of the soldier, who quickly replied, 
 “ I am so thankful that some kind friend 
 will bear a message to my mother, who is 
 a widow living down in Alabama. I am 
 her only son and child. Please say to her 
 from me these words : ‘ Remember that it 
 is just as near heaven in Virginia as it is 
 in our home in Alabama.’ There has never 
 been a night on the tented field, or when 
 entering into battle, when those words, my 
 mother’s words, and spoken as I left her, 
 have not been with me.” So speaking, the 
 soldier’s face was lighted up by a seraphic 
 smile, and he expired. 
 
 We were fighting hard at home to keep 
 the upper hand of the difficulties which 
 hedged us in ; we were working and fast- 
 ing and praying that victory might reward 
 all our sacrifices and sufferings, yet day 
 by day the newspapers brought news of 
 defeat after defeat ; day by day they told 
 'us of the inexorable advance of the Federal 
 troops ; day by day the conviction strength- 
 ened with us that, struggle as we would, 
 we were on the losing side, and ours was 
 to go down to history as “the lost cause.” 
 Our soldiers were living on parched corn, 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 143 
 
 as they had been for a year ; they were 
 going into battle ragged and barefoot and 
 half-starved — in vain. 
 
 What a fearful day it was for us, when, 
 in April, 1865, word came into our placid 
 valley that the Northern army was almost 
 at our doors ! I could not begin to de- 
 scribe our chagrin and terror. In life one 
 is likely to remember always the exact cir- 
 cumstances under which the first shock of 
 bad news was received. I know that the 
 first tidings of the approach of the Yankee 
 forces came to me as I was about to open 
 the gate leading out on to the public road 
 
 from Mr. G ’s homestead. I was on 
 
 my way to the school, when a man rode 
 up, and halting an instant said, “General 
 Grierson and his army are marching from 
 Mobile to Eufaula, and they will probably 
 reach Eufaula to-night, or early to-morrow 
 morning ! ” 
 
 As Mr. G lived near the main high- 
 
 way, he did not expect to escape the in- 
 vading army. Now, it seemed, we were to 
 be awakened from the even tenor of our 
 way, perhaps to know another meaning for 
 “ hard times.” Fear was depicted on every 
 face, for who could tell but that the mor- 
 
144 A blockaded family. 
 
 row’s sun would cast its beams upon a heap 
 of smoking ruins, and we be bereft of all 
 the property we had. 
 
 Teaching school was not to be thought 
 of until our suspense was over. The blue 
 heavens, so vast and serene, seemed no 
 longer to clasp, mildly and lovingly, our 
 quiet home in all-embracing arms, nor to 
 smile upon us in peace and love. “ Now,” 
 thought we, “ we shall realize in part, per- 
 haps fully, what ‘ Old Virginia ’ and the 
 Border States have passed through for four 
 years, while with us, in the blockaded in- 
 terior, all has been so quiet and undis- 
 turbed.” 
 
 How vividly I remember that day of sus- 
 pense, as the courier heralded from house 
 to house his unwelcome message, “ The 
 Yankees are coming!” The explosion of 
 a bomb in each one’s yard could not have 
 created greater excitement. Planters has- 
 tily fled to the swamps and the deep, un- 
 frequented woods, with their stock and 
 valuables. At intervals throughout the 
 day, droves of cattle and hogs were driven 
 past my employer’s residence to hiding- 
 places in the woods ; and wagons and car- 
 riages, filled with whatever valuables could 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 145 
 
 be quickly gotten together, were also pass- 
 ing by. 
 
 It was amusing, as well as sad, to see a 
 feather-bed protruding at least a quarter of 
 its length from a carriage window. In our 
 great anxiety, appearances were not re- 
 garded. The single thought of the people 
 was to protect themselves and their prop- 
 erty as expeditiously and securely as pos- 
 sible. In the mean time we were confused 
 and distracted by conflicting rumors. At 
 one time the report would be, “ The army 
 is not a mile off ; ” then we imagined we 
 heard guns firing. Again it would be, 
 “ They are not coming this way at all.” 
 Then, “ They are only half a mile off,”' 
 and we were sure we saw the smoke from 
 some burning dwelling or gin-house. 
 
 It was a day of unceasing flurry and ex- 
 citement, and as the lengthening shadows 
 gave warning that night was drawing on, 
 with troubled feelings we looked from face 
 to face, for no one was left to meet the 
 Federal army, should it pass by on our 
 road, save women and children and the 
 
 negro slaves. Mr. G was in a deep 
 
 swamp, about half a mile from his dwell- 
 ing, with all the stock and what was most 
 
146 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 valuable. His presence with us would 
 have done no good, for if the enemy had 
 come, he might have been hung before 
 our eyes ; or he might have been tortured 
 to make him tell where his gold and silver 
 were hidden. Men were so treated in 
 many instances. 
 
 There were some comical places thought 
 of in which to hide gold, silver, jewelry, and 
 other valuables. A lady of our settlement 
 wrapped her watch and chain, bracelets, 
 and a valuable breast - pin, together with 
 some other jewelry, in an old faded rag, 
 and tossed it into the middle of a large 
 rose-bush in her front yard. There it re- 
 mained secure, although the house and 
 yard were filled with Yankee soldiers, who 
 searched the house, turning up beds and 
 mattresses, pulling the clothing out of the 
 wardrobe and bureaus ; and yet that rose- 
 bush kept its secret. 
 
 Another young woman took her father’s 
 bag of gold and silver, and ran to the hen- 
 house and put it beneath the nest of a set- 
 ting hen. An old lady put all her jewelry 
 in a small jar, cemented the top tightly on, 
 placed it in an old bucket, and let it down 
 into her well. When all things had settled 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 47 
 
 down quietly, and it was safe to draw the 
 jar from the well, nothing was found to be 
 soiled or injured in the least. Another 
 filled an old ash-hopper with bacon, cov- 
 ered it with a cloth, put ashes over that 
 about half a foot deep, then with straw 
 built a hen’s nest or two, and placed some 
 eggs in them ; and of course the Yankee 
 soldiers cared nothing for that insignificant 
 ash-hopper and its hen’s nest. 
 
 As darkness closed in, we sat with folded 
 hands and bated breath, listening for the 
 tramp of the mighty Northern host, with 
 the unexpressed thought, “ Woe is me, 
 that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in 
 the tents of Kedar ! ” In the midst of silent 
 reveries around the fire, for the night was 
 chill, and a fire had been kindled, in part 
 to dispel the gloom and dread of our feel- 
 ings, one of the daughters turned to her 
 cousin and said, “ Annie, what will you do 
 if the Yankees come?” “Ooo-oo-o!” 
 with hands upraised, was the reply. Then 
 cousin Annie turned to her cousin, after a 
 long pause, and asked, “ Marie, what will 
 you do if they come ? ” “ Umph-mph-ph,” 
 
 with eyes dilated, was Marie’s reply. Never 
 a word was spoken save that question, 
 
148 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 followed by an inarticulate exclamation. 
 Finally it seemed so ludicrous that we all 
 broke forth into merry peals of laughter, 
 which served as a safety-valve to our gen- 
 uine depression. 
 
 A married daughter of Mr. G ’s was 
 
 living in a small cottage near her father’s, 
 built so that he might have his daughter 
 under his care while her 'husband was 
 away in our army. The married daughter 
 did not feel disposed to leave her house 
 exposed, but was too much alarmed to 
 remain alone that night with her two small 
 children. So she urged me to stay with 
 her, as her mother would have the cousin 
 and two older daughters. As I was go- 
 ing down the colonnade steps, with the 
 two young girls, aged between nine and 
 
 eleven, Mrs. G called to me, “Miss 
 
 A , if the Yankees come, I shall be sure 
 
 to send Martha (the colored nurse girl) to 
 tell you.” “All right,” I replied, “you’ll 
 see how fast I shall get to you.” 
 
 In painful apprehension we sat long on 
 the porch. It was one of those half-moon- 
 lit nights, so calm that the stillness was op- 
 pressive. But exhausted nature demanded 
 her tribute, and finally we sought rest from 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 49 
 
 the day’s worry and suspense in sleep, un- 
 easy though it might be. God only knows 
 how fervent and plaintive was the prayer 
 that ascended that April night in southern 
 Alabama, from hundreds of dwellings peo- 
 pled only by women, children, and negro 
 slaves. As I pillowed my head, I called up 
 soul-comforting passages from the Bible, 
 none bringing greater solace than, “ The 
 angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
 them that fear Him.” The ninety-first 
 Psalm, that I had committed to memory 
 in Sabbath-school, now came to mind like 
 a great wave of consolation. 
 
 I was just bordering upon the edge of 
 sleep, when I was suddenly startled by a 
 loud and hurried knocking on the door, 
 and immediately recognized the voice of 
 the negro girl, who was excitedly crying 
 
 out, “ Miss A , missis say come down 
 
 dar quick, de Yankees coming.” I sprang 
 with a sudden bound into the middle of 
 the room, gathered up shoes and stockings 
 in one hand, dress and other garments in 
 the other, and dashed out in the shadowy 
 night, with the two little girls, who had just 
 as hastily left their bed, and now clung 
 on either side of me in their long white 
 
150 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 night-robes. A dark cloud skurried across 
 the moon and obscured its light for a mo- 
 ment, making the night darkish, but in 
 another instant all the clouds had rolled 
 by, and left the moon clear, so that the 
 shadows of the great oaks were distinctly 
 outlined, quivering beneath our feet as we 
 flew past. One of the little girls tripped, 
 but managed to gather herself up quickly, 
 without ever letting go of me, to whom 
 she clung with the grip of the Old Man of 
 the Sea. 
 
 As we reached the side entrance of the 
 main yard, and passed through the gate, 
 we found the yard swarming with the 
 negro slaves ; passing the kitchen, which 
 was detached from the main dwelling- 
 house (as at all Southern homes in those 
 days), Uncle Ben and Aunt Phillis were 
 standing in the doorway. They craned 
 their necks, shaded their eyes with their 
 hands, and peered forth at us in the dark- 
 ness, as we passed swiftly by. “ Well 
 I ’clare fore God ” — The rest of the 
 sentence was lost in our hurried flight. 
 We jammed against Aunt Jemimah, the 
 regular washerwoman, who held in her 
 hands a pair of cotton-cards, and on whose 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 151 
 
 arm was hanging a wisp of white cotton 
 rolls. She threw up her arms at sight of 
 us, the wisp of rolls floating lightly away 
 on the night breeze. When she recog- 
 nized us, she exclaimed, “ Lors, chilluns, 
 I did just tink you was ghosses.” 
 
 We entered the house by the back door, 
 just in time to find all in great confusion, 
 caused by a false alarm. The home guards, 
 composed of old men and young boys of 
 the county, had that afternoon disbanded 
 in the city of Eufaula, knowing that Gen- 
 eral Grierson would arrive that night or 
 the next morning, and that resistance 
 would be useless. So they deemed discre- 
 tion just then the better part of valor, and 
 here they were, returning home by the 
 road on which my employer’s plantation 
 lay, their expectation being that the Fed- 
 eral commander would march his column 
 into Eufaula by a road on the other side of 
 our settlement. 
 
 When the horses’ hoofs struck the 
 bridge that spanned a large creek, three 
 
 or four hundred yards from Mr. G ’s 
 
 mansion, the sounds, borne on the still 
 night air with startling distinctness, were 
 naturally mistaken by lone women and chil- 
 
152 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 dren for the advance of the terrible Yan- 
 kees. When the Babel-like confusion had 
 ceased we presented a droll tableau, for, 
 acting on the impulse of the moment, no 
 one had paused to think of personal ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 When asked what she was going to do 
 with the cotton-cards and wisp of rolls, 
 Aunt Jemimah’s reply was, “Oh, lor bless 
 yer, honeys, I did n’t know I had ’em.” It 
 had been usual to allow the negroes the 
 use of the wheels and cotton-cards, and 
 cotton was given them, in case they wished 
 to spin their own stocking-yarn or sewing- 
 thread at night. 
 
 The negroes, too, had been expecting 
 the Yankee army, and hearing a great 
 clashing of horses’ hoofs on the bridge, 
 thought with the rest of us, “ They are 
 coming now.” So large and small left the 
 “quarter” and came over to “ Marster’s,” 
 as they called the dwelling-house and yard, 
 to see the Federal troops. Perhaps some 
 may have come with the design of going 
 with the Yankees. The cottage of the 
 married daughter and the negroes’ quarter 
 were about equally distant from my em- 
 ployer’s residence, but in opposite direc- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 153 
 
 tions, so that by the time I had reached 
 the yard of the dwelling, I found myself in 
 a surging mass of black humanity. 
 
 In calling to mind the scenes of that 
 night, I have often thought that had the 
 Federal army really come, and the two lit- 
 tle girls and I dashed into view in our long 
 white robes, fleeing as if on the wings of 
 the wind, we should have caused the mov- 
 ing host to halt. And oft as memory 
 recalls those scenes I rub my eyes and 
 ask, “ Can it be that on that long April 
 night in 1865, while the Federal army was 
 marching into Eufaula by another road, 
 we women and children, surrounded by 
 negro slaves, were the sole occupants of 
 that exposed house ?” Yet so in truth it 
 was. We felt no fear of the slaves. The 
 idea of any harm happening through them 
 never for one instant entered our minds. 
 
 But now, not for my right hand would I 
 be situated as I was that April night of 
 1865. Now it would by no means be safe, 
 for experience is showing us that in any 
 section where the negro forms any very 
 great part of the population, white men or 
 women are in danger of murder, robbery, 
 and violence. 
 
XII. 
 
 When the morning came after that mis- 
 erable night, another courier passed through 
 our settlement, ending our state of uncer- 
 tainty with the information that the North- 
 ern army was in Eufaula. We had been 
 entirely passed by, after all our tumult 
 and apprehension. How thankful we were, 
 Heaven only knows ! 
 
 Mr. G came in towards night with 
 
 all his stock, saying he hoped he should 
 never have to spend another night in that 
 uncanny dark swamp, with its tall trees all 
 festooned with gray moss, almost reaching 
 to the ground, and swaying to and fro, as 
 a shiver of moaning wind would stir the 
 air. The hooting of owls, and croaking 
 of frogs would sound at intervals, the un- 
 rest and stamping of the tied-up stock, to- 
 gether with the terrible suspense of how it 
 would fare with his family and his belong- 
 ings, if the opposing army should pass his 
 plantation, made it anything but pleasant, 
 it may well be imagined. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. I55 
 
 Yet in our great rejoicing that we had 
 been passed by, our hearts went out in 
 sympathy to our less fortunate neighbors, 
 many of whom were despoiled of every- 
 thing valuable. I knew families that were 
 bereft of everything ; who had not so much 
 left as would furnish one meal of vic- 
 tuals ; whose dwelling-houses, gin-houses, 
 and bales of cotton were all left in smoking 
 ruin. In many instances women and chil- 
 dren would have to stand by helpless, and 
 see their trunks, bureaus, and wardrobes 
 kicked open. Whatever struck the soldier’s 
 fancy was appropriated ; to the rest of the 
 contents, as apt as not, a match would 
 be applied, and the labor of years would 
 swirl up in smoke. 
 
 Amid this pillage and plunder, some ab- 
 surd incidents now and then occurred, one 
 or two of which I will mention. 
 
 Many of the planters, large and small, 
 had turned their attention to stock-raising, 
 among other industries needful and en- 
 forced by the blockade. One man said, 
 as bacon was so scarce and high priced, he 
 was going to raise a herd of goats to help 
 along. He got a few to begin with, and 
 as he had a good range of piney woods for 
 
156 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 them to graze in, he soon had a fine herd. 
 These the invading army passed by as ut- 
 terly unworthy of their attention. 
 
 When the war closed there were some 
 fine young colts, two and three years old, 
 coming on in the South. A planter who 
 lived near us had several, which I remem- 
 ber were named after Lee, “ Stonewall ” 
 Jackson, and other popular leaders. This 
 planter was very fond of his young daugh- 
 ter, who usually accompanied him when he 
 walked out to his pasture-lot. He used to 
 say to the little girl, when admiring his 
 young colts, “These are papa’s fine stock.” 
 When the Federal army came, it so hap- 
 pened that this planter got the news only 
 in time to be just disappearing down a hill 
 near his house, with all his horses and 
 mules, as the Yankees approached ; his 
 young colts being left in their pasture. 
 Finding no stock in the lot or outbuildings, 
 the soldiers threatened to shoot a little ne- 
 gro boy who was in the yard, if he did not 
 tell them where the stock were hidden. 
 Hearing the threat, the planter’s daughter 
 said, in the innocence of her heart, “ Papa’s 
 fine stock is over there,” pointing to the 
 field where the young colts were grazing. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. I 57 
 
 Away dashed the soldiers, sure of a rich 
 prize. Meantime the planter had had time 
 to flee with his stock to a secure hiding- 
 place, chosen for the occasion which had 
 now arrived. 
 
 Great was the surprise of the soldiers, 
 after making a sweep of the field, to find 
 only a few small colts quietly feeding, un- 
 mindful that they were “ papa’s fine stock.” 
 The soldiers returned furious with disap- 
 pointment, and played sad havoc with all 
 the buildings, burned the gin-house and 
 barns, ransacked the dwelling from cellar 
 to attic, broke up furniture, and appro- 
 priated whatever was valuable that could 
 be easily carried with them. It really 
 seemed as if the wreck was a greater blow 
 than the loss of the stock would have been, 
 and for a few days there was sore grief 
 in that household. But they soon roused 
 themselves, on reflection that they yet 
 had their stock left to plow the already 
 planted crop, and a roof over their heads, 
 while many were left without stock to tend 
 their crop, or house to rest in. 
 
 A disabled soldier of our Confederacy, 
 who lived in the southern part of Ala- 
 bama, near the Choctawhatchee River, 
 
158 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 with his wife and five small children was 
 visiting relatives in our neighborhood. 
 They had driven through in their own 
 carriage, to which two fine horses were 
 hitched. They had packed in their car- 
 riage what was most useful and valuable 
 to them as wearing apparel, all their valu- 
 ables in jewelry and plate, bed - quilts, 
 counterpanes, a feather - bed' and pillows, 
 bandboxes, hatboxes, trunks, and many 
 other articles of value. I saw the carriage 
 unpacked, and stood amazed that such a 
 quantity of stuff could be stowed in such 
 a small space. They had been careful to 
 take all the best belongings of their house, 
 because it was expected that the Federal 
 army would come directly through their 
 settlement, as they were not far from Mo- 
 bile, and on the route to Eufaula. In our 
 neighborhood, it was not believed at first 
 that the enemy would find us, hence they 
 left their own home to visit the relatives 
 who lived near us. But rumors began to 
 fly thick and fast when it was known posi- 
 tively that General Grierson was on the 
 march from Mobile, and then it was be- 
 lieved that he would surely come by on 
 our road. 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. I 59 
 
 So the disabled Confederate soldier and 
 his family packed their carriage again, and 
 left our settlement. They made for the 
 public road which, according to their the- 
 ory, would be the one General Grierson 
 would be least likely to choose to march 
 into Eufaula by. They proceeded seven 
 or eight miles undisturbed by anything, 
 and were congratulating themselves on be- 
 ing so fortunate as to flank the enemy, 
 when just as they turned a bend of the 
 road that led into another, alack -a -day! 
 there was one moving mass of “ blue,” up 
 the road and down the road, as far as the 
 eye could see. 
 
 They had driven altogether unexpect- 
 edly right into the midst of the Yankee 
 soldiers. I am sorry to say they were 
 called to a halt immediately; their horses 
 were cut (not unhitched) from the carriage. 
 The wife begged to be spared the horses, 
 but finding pleading of no avail, she let 
 loose her tongue in such a way that one of 
 the soldiers raised his gun and threatened 
 to shoot her if she did not keep quiet. 
 She stood fair and fearless, and told him to 
 shoot. He was not so heartless, however, 
 as to put his threat into execution. Noth- 
 
160 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 ing was taken, except the horses. The 
 wife and children had to remain in the 
 open pine barrens, while the husband 
 walked several miles before he could get 
 assistance to drag the carriage to the near- 
 est house. And after all, when this man 
 reached his own home again, he found that 
 it had not been molested, inasmuch as the 
 Federal army had passed him by, by sev- 
 eral miles. But one could never tell, in 
 the midst of innumerable conflicting asser- 
 tions, what it was best to do. 
 
 About six months before General Robert 
 E. Lee’s surrender, business called Mr. 
 
 G to Columbus, Georgia, and while 
 
 there he found a gentleman so embar- 
 rassed by debt that he was forced to sell 
 
 some of his slaves. Mr. G bought 
 
 two young negro men, Jerry and Miner by 
 name, paying six thousand five hundred 
 
 dollars apiece for them. Mr. G would 
 
 always look on the bright side, and would 
 never give in to the idea that the South 
 would, or could, be conquered, — high- 
 toned, generous old Virginia gentleman 
 that he was ! What a laugh we all had 
 when he came home and said, “ Well, I ’ve 
 got two negroes now, who must be good 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 6 1 
 
 for something if the price has anything to 
 do with them ; I 've paid thirteen thousand 
 for two young negro boys.” His amiable 
 and gentle wife rebuked him for his indis- 
 cretion in buying negroes at that time, as 
 we believed that they would soon have 
 an opportunity of leaving, if they chose to 
 do so. But he pooh-poohed her, saying, 
 “ Wait till you get to the bridge before you 
 cross the river.” 
 
 In a very short time the surrender came ; 
 the South was overrun by Federal soldiers ; 
 and I smile even now, when I recall one 
 morning at breakfast, when Aunt Phillis 
 came in from the kitchen to the dining- 
 room, with a waiter of hot biscuits just 
 from the oven, — for no one thought of 
 finishing breakfast without a relay of hot 
 biscuits toward the middle or end of the 
 meal, — and said, as she handed the bis- 
 cuits round, “Jerry and Miner done gone 
 back to. Columbus ! ” I marveled much 
 
 at Mr. G ’s philosophical remark, as 
 
 he paused with cup suspended, “ Humph ; 
 that ’s the dearest nigger hire I ever paid ! 
 Six thousand five hundred dollars apiece 
 for six months,” sipping his coffee and pla- 
 cing the cup back in the saucer. 
 
1 62 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 I looked at him closely. There was not 
 even the tinge of bitterness in his remark, 
 and I thought, “ Here is philosophy that 
 would shame the Stoics.” It had not been 
 a twelvemonth back that, when it became 
 necessary for him to leave the plantation 
 for a day only, he had given orders that 
 Jim be well cared for; for if Jim died, he 
 would lose more than a thousand dollars 
 in gold. Now he had lost in all about 
 eighty or one hundred thousand dollars, all 
 gold value, gone like the lightning’s flash, 
 — who can doubt but that a kind Provi- 
 dence tempered the resignation with which 
 we met the inevitable ? 
 
 I remained some years after the war in 
 that settlement, and never a bitter or harsh 
 word, no, not one, did I ever hear my em- 
 ployer utter against the opposing army, 
 or section of States, that had caused all 
 the turn-round of affairs in the South; 
 that, metaphorically speaking, had caused 
 riches to take to themselves wings and fly 
 away. 
 
 The same cannot be said of all the peo- 
 ple of the South, but it is pleasing to think 
 that all can now recall the history of those 
 days, when the opposing army was march- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 163 
 
 ing through the South, leaving a desert 
 waste behind them, without feeling the 
 bitterness we then felt, standing in the 
 midst of our desolation ; and God knows 
 that we give heart and hand in cordial 
 welcome to the soldiers of that Northern 
 host which so despoiled us, as well as to the 
 people of the Northern States when they 
 make choice, as many are now doing, of 
 our sunny clime for their own home. 
 
XIII. 
 
 The return of our soldiers after the sur- 
 render, in their worn and ragged gray, as 
 they tramped home by twos, threes, and 
 sometimes in little squads of half a dozen 
 or more, was pitiable in the extreme. 
 
 Some were entirely without shoes or 
 hats ; others had only an apology for shoes 
 and hats. They were coming home with 
 nothing ; and we could almost say, coming 
 home to nothing ; for many verily found, 
 when they reached the spot that had been 
 to them a happy home, nothing save a 
 heaped - up mass of ruins left to them. 
 Often as I sit in the twilight and drift 
 back into the past, it is not easy to re- 
 strain tears, as memory views those sol- 
 diers in their worn gray, marching home, 
 sad and depressed, with the cause they 
 had so warmly espoused, lost. 
 
 Though not coming rejoicing, as did 
 the Athenians and Spartans from the bat- 
 tle of Plataea, they were just as dear to 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 165 
 
 the hearts of their kindred at their ruined 
 homes, as if they had come marching in 
 triumph, with olive - wreaths encircling 
 their brows. 
 
 Need there be wonder if, fora few weeks, 
 it seemed as though we w r ere petrified, — 
 scarcely knowing which way to turn, to re- 
 store order out of such chaos ! Another 
 day of fasting and prayer was called in our 
 adversity that our spirits might be tem- 
 pered to bear the result. But our thoughts 
 soon turned resolutely from the gloomy 
 picture, the more readily when we re- 
 membered how the South had met emer- 
 gencies during the war, until she was so 
 environed and crippled by opposing forces 
 that she had to yield. The same energy, 
 perseverance, and economy, with the help 
 of an overruling Providence, would yet 
 make the South smile with peace and 
 plenty. 
 
 Our returned soldiers lost no time in 
 making themselves useful in every sphere 
 of honorable work that then opened. Many 
 of those who returned in April planted corn 
 and cotton, late as it was, and made fair 
 crops of both. There was great bother 
 for awhile as to plow stock, for most of 
 
1 66 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 our valuable animals had been carried off 
 by the invading army. 
 
 Three brothers whom I knew, natives of 
 Georgia, owned not one foot of land nor an 
 animal of any kind, when the war closed. 
 They reached home among the first of our 
 returning soldiers. They rented a good 
 piece of farming land, managed to get an 
 ox and an old broken-down army mule, and 
 set to work in earnest on their rented 
 land. They “ put in ” every hour of the 
 sun, and the greater part of the light of 
 the moon. Neighboring farmers said that 
 at whatever hour of the night you passed 
 where the brothers farmed, if the moon 
 shone you would hear them “gee-hawing,” 
 plowing their crop at night, or the clash- 
 ing of their hoes in their corn, cotton, or 
 peas. They are now prosperous farmers, 
 owning broad acres of land and fine stock. 
 Hundreds of similar cases might be pointed 
 out. 
 
 When our soldiers returned we were al- 
 ways deeply interested in hearing them re- 
 count, when we met them at social gather- 
 ings at some neighbor’s house, the straits 
 to which they were reduced toward the 
 last days of the war, and on the home 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 67 
 
 march after the surrender. A brother-in- 
 law of mine, who became bare as to pants, 
 and had no way of getting any in his then 
 distressed state, had recourse to his army 
 blanket, and having no scissors with which 
 to cut the blanket, he used his pocket- 
 knife for that purpose. He sharpened a 
 stick with his knife to make holes in each 
 half of the blanket, which he tied up sep- 
 arately with the raveling of the blanket: 
 making each leg of the pants separately. 
 They were tied around his waist with a 
 string. He managed to get on for quite a 
 while with his blanket pants, but met a 
 comrade more fortunate than the rest of 
 the soldiers of our cause, in that, beside 
 having a passable pair of pants, he had 
 rolled up under his arm a half worn os- 
 naburg pair of pants, also. These my 
 brother-in-law bought of him for four hun- 
 dred dollars. He wore them home after 
 the surrender, and that same half -worn, 
 four-hundred-dollar pair of osnaburg pants 
 did service for some time on the farm af- 
 ter the war. 
 
 When one of my brothers, who was 
 taken prisoner at Appomattox during the 
 last days of fighting in Virginia, and who 
 
1 68 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 was sent to Point Lookout in Maryland, 
 was paroled with many others, and sent 
 by steamer to Savannah, Georgia, he and 
 they had to “foot it” the greater part 
 of the way to Columbus, Georgia, where 
 most of them lived, inasmuch as the Fed- 
 eral army had torn up the railroads and 
 burnt all the bridges. They were all more 
 or less lacking as to clothing, but one of 
 the comrade’s clothing was in such bad 
 plight that he could scarcely make a de- 
 cent appearance on the road, much less 
 appear in his own settlement. As they 
 were nearing Columbus, they stopped and 
 advised together as how to overcome the 
 deficiency in their comrade’s wardrobe. 
 One of the soldiers happened to have a 
 silver dime (a thing quite rare in those 
 days), which he gave his needy comrade to 
 buy a pair of pants with. They had the 
 good luck to get a half worn pair of jeans 
 pants at a small farm-house in the piney- 
 woods, for the ten cents, and these the 
 soldier wore home. 
 
 Five or six years after the war, these 
 two comrades, the one who had given the 
 silver dime and the one who had bought 
 the pants with it, met in Columbus, Geor- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 69 
 
 gia. They had been together in camp, in 
 prison, and on that long walk home from 
 Savannah to Columbus, through the grand 
 stretches of piney-woods, covered with the 
 green luxuriant wire-grass of southwestern 
 Georgia, and they recognized each other 
 immediately. One drew from his pocket 
 a crisp five-dollar bill and handed it to the 
 giver of the silver piece, saying, “Take 
 this, old fellow, in grateful acknowledg- 
 ment for that silver dime I bought those 
 pants with ; for I might almost say, ‘ I was 
 naked and ye clothed me.’ ” 
 
XIV. 
 
 Just as soon as the railroads could be 
 repaired and bridges builded anew, I made 
 haste to get to my father’s again to find 
 how all had gone with them while our 
 foes were marching through Georgia. I 
 had tried for three months or more to get 
 a letter or message of some sort to them, 
 as they had to me, but all communication 
 for the time being was completely broken 
 up. I had spent many sad hours think- 
 ing of those at home, and was almost afraid 
 to hear from them ; but as soon as a train 
 ran to Columbus, I ventured forth. 
 
 I had traveled over the same road time 
 and again, on my way to and from home, 
 but now as I beheld the ruins of grim-vis- 
 aged war, whichever way I cast my eyes, I 
 must confess to a somewhat rebellious and 
 bitter feeling. There are moments in the 
 experience of every human being when the 
 heart overflows like the great Egyptian 
 river, and cannot be restrained. “O thou 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 171 
 
 great God of Israel ! ” I cried, “ why hast 
 thou permitted this dire calamity to befall 
 us ? Why is it that our homes are so de- 
 spoiled ? ” And I marveled not at the 
 captive Hebrews’ mournful plaint, as by 
 the rivers of Babylon they hung their 
 harps on the willows. 
 
 As the train slowed up on the Ala- 
 bama side of the Chattahoochee River, I 
 looked eagerly over to the opposite bank, 
 where the home of my father was situated. 
 For a few seconds my pulse must have 
 ceased to throb, as I beheld the ruins of 
 the city of Columbus. With others I 
 took my seat in an omnibus and was 
 driven to the river’s edge, there to await 
 the coming of the ferry-boat which had 
 been built since all the bridges on the river 
 had been burned by the hostile army. 
 The scene seemed so unreal that like 
 Abou Hassan, the caliph of fiction, I was 
 thinking of biting my fingers to make sure 
 I was really awake. Had I not had my 
 coin in my hand to pay the ferryman, I 
 should have imagined we were all shades, 
 flitting about on the shore of the Styx ! 
 
 In musing silence, I could but say, O 
 swift-flowing Chattahoochee, is it thus I 
 
172 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 behold thee ? Thou flowest in almost pris- 
 tine loveliness. Where are your huge 
 bridges, that linked the green hills of Ala- 
 bama with the beautiful city of cottages 
 and flowers ? Where are the cotton mills 
 and machine-shops that lined your banks, 
 — mills which from early morn until the 
 sun set sent forth an incessant hum ? Is it 
 thus that I behold thee, city of my fathers ? 
 
 My reverie was broken when the ferry- 
 boat reached her landing ; but things all 
 still seemed so strange that I could scarcely 
 believe I was not dreaming. I realized 
 everything better when I saw soldiers in 
 blue moving hither and thither. I had 
 heard while on the train, how General 
 Willson had ravaged, pillaged, and burnt, as 
 he passed through Alabama. Here were 
 his soldiers who had laid Columbus in 
 ruins ; here were they of whom I had been 
 told that their route from Columbus to the 
 city of Macon, one hundred miles, could be 
 plainly traced by the curling smoke arising 
 from burning dwellings, gin-houses, barns, 
 bridges, and railroad ties. 
 
 I was not long in getting to my father’s 
 after I had left the city of Columbus. And 
 there was a joyous surprise in every re- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 73 
 
 spect, for nothing had been disturbed at 
 his residence save some corn, fodder, and 
 other food, which had been appropriated 
 by raiding soldiers. I found both of my 
 brothers home. The one who had been 
 carried to Point Lookout had arrived only 
 two days before. The one who had been 
 taken prisoner about three months before 
 the surrender managed to make his es- 
 cape the night following the day he was 
 captured. It was a dark, sleety night, 
 my brother said, and he had found it quite 
 easy to elude the sentinel. First he went, 
 as he supposed, about a mile from the 
 camp ; then he lay down on the frozen 
 ground with his army blanket, not daring 
 to light a fire, for fear of recapture. When 
 the sun rose he took his bearings, and 
 began his long tramp for home. This 
 journey had occupied many weeks, as all 
 traveling had to be done at night, and 
 often he was in imminent danger of being 
 recaptured, as the whole country through 
 which he was passing was filled with Fed- 
 eral cavalrymen. Creeks and rivers had 
 to be waded or swum ; deep and almost 
 impenetrable swamps had to be passed. 
 Once in the thick woods he had come near 
 
174 A blockaded family. 
 
 running into what he supposed to be a de- 
 serters’ camp, from the surroundings he 
 descried by the pale glare of the pine-knot 
 camp-fire, but what really was a camp of 
 Northern soldiers. He subsisted on roots 
 and leaves, sometimes calling at a house 
 after dark to beg a few ears of corn, which 
 he parched and a,te ; sometimes he enjoyed 
 a rare dessert in the berries of the haw- 
 thorn bush. 
 
 One blustering March night, just as the 
 clock had told the hour of two, the watch- 
 dog at my father’s was heard baying furi- 
 ously at the front gate. There was some 
 one at the gate speaking to the dog, as if 
 trying to quiet him. My father arose, 
 opened the door, and when he could make 
 his voice heard, he called out, “ What ’s 
 
 wanting?” “It’s N ‘Drive’ (the 
 
 dog’s name) won’t let me come in.” At 
 
 the name “N ,” our mother sprang 
 
 from the bed with a loud and joyful shout 
 that he who had been mourned as dead 
 was alive and home again. My sisters, who 
 were sleeping up-stairs, were also aroused 
 by the furious barking of the dog. They 
 arose and raised the window-sash just in 
 time to hear, “It’s N .” Their win- 
 
A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 1 75 
 
 dovv dropped like a flash of lightning, and 
 then such a getting down-stairs as there 
 was ! One or two chairs were knocked 
 over in the scramble for the head of the 
 staircase, and one toppled the whole flight 
 of steps, making a great racket, in the 
 middle of the night, as it thumped the 
 steps one by one. The candle, which some 
 one had managed to light while the sash 
 was being raised, was let fall when about in 
 the middle of the flight of steps, and in the 
 then utter darkness one of my sisters stum- 
 bled over the chair that had preceded her to 
 the bottom of the stairs, and all came pell- 
 mell into the dark hall. My brother told 
 me afterward that he could not move for 
 some time, he was so tightly pinioned when 
 finally taken to his mother’s heart. 
 
 What a change from 1861, when all were 
 so buoyant and full of fiery patriotism, with 
 never a thought of being overcome ! Now 
 our cause was lost, all our homes more or 
 less despoiled, the whole South seemingly 
 almost hopelessly ruined, every little town 
 and village garrisoned by the troops who 
 had overcome us by great odds, 
 x Yet after all our great and sore afflic- 
 
176 A BLOCKADED FAMILY. 
 
 tions, I found only cheerfulness and Chris- 
 tian resignation at the end of these troub- 
 lous war times, and the hope that we might 
 yet rise above our misfortunes. 
 
 In closing, I must say that I know that 
 the people of the Southern States are now 
 loyal to the Union ; their reverence for 
 the stars and stripes is strong and pure ; 
 and it pierces like a sword, our ever being 
 taunted and distrusted. Accepting all the 
 decisions of the war, we have built and 
 planted anew amid the ruins left by the 
 army who were the conquerors. We are 
 still poor ; but we believe firmly that in 
 our new life, under God, we are destined 
 to a brilliant career of prosperity and 
 glory. Come, happy day ! 
 

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