A Blockaded Family: Life in Southern Alabama during the Civil War

by Parthenia Antoinette Hague

As no muslin could be bought for summer 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 homespun thread; and the fact that it was made of this thread added not a little to its excellence in our estimation.

In the weaving of all heavy, thick cloth, whether plain or twilled, two threads, sometimes 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. 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 daughter 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 centre 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 mistaken for the genuine imported muslins.

Soon after completing and wearing our 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 notions. 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 English 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 morocco shoes, lined with red and deep blue leather, laced high and scalloped around 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, plaiting, 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 foreground 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 daughters three hundred and seventy-five dollars. We surely will be pardoned, if we felt some pride in wearing muslins that we had manufactured with our own hands, and fresh new calicoes which had cost each of us one hundred and eight dollars.

Our neighbors, as soon as it was noised about in that quiet settlement (where it seemed almost impossible for tidings of 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 letter to my relatives in Georgia. Whenever any one was so fortunate as to secure a 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, altogether past renovating, and fine white lint cotton. The silk was all ripped up, and cut into narrow strips, which were all raveled and then mixed with the lint cotton and passed through the cotton cards two or three times, so as to have the mixture homogeneous. It was then carded and spun very fine, great pains being taken in the spinning to have no unevenness in the threads. Our neighbor managed 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 serviceable 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.