HOME LIFE IN THE SOUTH.–

3. March 2009 by admin.

“There are many little things in which our daily life is changed,” said the wife of a Confederate officer,–”many luxuries cut off from the table which we have forgotten to miss. Our mode of procuring necessaries is very different and far more complicated. The condition of our currency has brought about many curious results; for instance, I have just procured leather, for one negro-shoes, by exchanging tallow for it, of which we had a quantity from some fine beeves, fattened and killed upon the place.

“I am now bargaining, with a factory up the country, to exchange pork and lard, with them, for blocks of yarn, to weave negro clothes; and not only negro-clothing I have woven, I am now dyeing thread to weave homespun for myself and daughters. I am ravelling up, or having ravelled, all the old scraps of fine worsteds and dark silks, to spin thread for gloves, for the General and self, which gloves I am to knit. These home-knit gloves and these homespun dresses will look much neater and nicer than you would suppose. My daughters and I being in want of under garments, I sent a quantity of lard to the Macon factory, and received in return fine unbleached calico,–a pound of lard paying for a yard of cloth. They will not sell their cloth for money. This unbleached calico my daughters and self are now making up for ourselves. You see some foresight is necessary to provide for the necessaries of life.

“If I were to describe the cutting and altering of old things to make new, which now perpetually go on, I should far outstep the limits of a letter,–perhaps I have done so already,–but I thought this sketch would amuse you, and give you some idea of our Confederate ways and means of living and doing. At Christmas I sent presents to my relations in Savannah, and instead of the elegant trifles I used to give at that season, I bestowed as follows: several bushels of meal, peas, bacon, lard, eggs, sausages, soap (home-made_, rope, string, and a coarse basket! all which articles, I am assured, were most warmly welcomed, and more acceptable than jewels and silks would have been. To all of this we are so familiarized that we laugh at these changes in our ways of life, and keep our regrets for greater things.

“The photographs of your children I was so happy to see. You would have smiled to have heard my daughters divining the present fashion from the style of dress in the likenesses. You must know that, amid all the woes of the Southern Confederacy, her women still feel their utter ignorance of the fashions, whenever they have a new dress to make up or an old one to renovate. I imagine that when our intercourse with the rest of mankind is revived we shall present a singular aspect; but what we shall have lost in external appearance I trust we shall have gained in sublmer virtues and more important qualities.”

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