PEGGED OR SEWED?
Shoemaking machinery not having attained the present development which pastes imitation-leather uppers upon paper soles, the soldiers of the first Union Army had to trudge in the boots made with wooden pegs to hold the portions together; in wet weather the pegs swelled and held tolerably, but in dryness the assimilation failed and the upper crust yawned off the base like a crab-shell divided. As for the supposed sewed ones, they went to the sub-officers, but the thread was so poor that parting was as thorough as sudden. Mr. Lincoln wonted, as Walt Whitman says, to repeat this tale when the army contractors were swarming in his room for a bidding:
"A soldier of the Army of the Potomac was being carried to the rear among the other wounded, when he spied one of the women following the army to vend delicacies. In her basket, no doubt, were the cookies to his fancy--the tarts and pies--open or covered. So he hailed her: 'Old lady, are them pies sewed or pegged?'"