“What poor woman, for miles around, knew not the brightness of her coming? Some of her own children had been taken from her—that deep anguish she knew it all—and the children of her neighbors, even the humblest, had died in her lap; herself had washed and shrouded them.
“To feed, to clothe, to teach, to guide, to comfort, to nurse, to provide for and to watch over a great household, and keep its complex machinery in noiseless order—those were the woman’s rights which she asserted, and there was none to dispute that this was her mission, and none ever dared to question it.”
Have you any just idea of the burdens and cares of the Southern women in the last two or three years of the war? Take the vivid description given by Mrs. Mary Rhodes, of Alabama, as an illustration:
“We not only had to furnish clothes for our own immediate soldiers, but there were others belonging to the company whose friends were entirely out of reach, and we clothed them to the end. The clothing for the negroes was a heavy item, and all supplies of that kind was cut off, and we could only give them what was made at home. On every plantation, and almost in every house, were heard the constant hum of the wheels and click of the looms. The soldiers’ clothes were a constant care. As soon as one suit was sent another was made, for they often lost their clothing, and it had to be ready to send at a moment’s notice.
“We wore homespun dresses, which were really very pretty. At a little distance they looked like gingham, and we were very proud of our work. We dyed them very prettily, and were more anxious to learn a new process of dyeing than we ever had been to learn a new stitch in crochet or worsted work. We knitted all the undershirts the soldiers wore, also socks and gloves, besides those required at home. We often knitted until midnight, after all the day’s work was done, and ladies knitted as they rode in their carriages. Indeed, we were very busy, and in the constant employment found our greatest comfort. I heard one woman say: ‘I never go to bed until I am too tired and worn out to think.’
“And through all the trials, and trouble, and work, the love of the South kept us up. We never would listen to the thought that we might fail. We fully realized what defeat meant, and dreaded it so much that we were willing to risk our all rather than submit to it. We had the hardest lot. The men were moving about—to-day a fight, or looking forward to one, the constant excitement keeping them up; and even when not on duty the camp seldom failed to provide amusement. We at home had to sit still and wait.
“Now in those last two years all our medicines were exhausted, and we had to go to the woods for bark, and roots and herbs. We made quinine of dogwood and poplar, boiled to a strong decoction, and then to paste. We had to do the work of a chemist, without his laboratory. We made our own mustard and opium and castor oil. This last, with all the refining that we were capable of, was a terrible dose, and only used in extreme cases.”
There was a host of queer devices. Shoe blacking was made from the China berry, and it unfortunately happened, once at least, that a bottle of it which was sent, with a quantity of edibles, to a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute was applied internally instead of externally. The comment of the cadet who swallowed it was that “the catsup was rather insipid.”