These were my materials. I must make them serve for the support of my family.
I ripped all the lace from the evening gowns, and made it into collars and undersleeves. John found an extinct dry-goods store where clean paper boxes could be had.
My first instalment of lace collars was sent to Price's store in Richmond and promptly sold. Mr. Price wrote me that all of my articles would find purchasers. There were ladies in Richmond who could afford to buy, and the Confederate court offered opportunities for display.
Admiral Porter records the capture of a blockade-runner whose valuable goods included many commissions for "ladies at court. In the cabin of the vessel," says the admiral, "was a pile of bandboxes in which were charming little bonnets marked with the owners' names. It would have given me much pleasure to have forwarded them to their destination" (the admiral had ever a weakness for Southern ladies) "but the laws forbade our giving aid and comfort to the enemy, so all the French bonnets, cloaks, shoes, and other feminine bric-à-brac had to go to New York for condemnation by the Admiralty Court, and were sold at public auction.
"These bonnets, laces, and other vanities rather clashed with the idea I had formed of the Southern ladies, as I heard that all they owned went to the hospitals, and that they never spent a cent on their personal adornment; but human nature," sagely opines the admiral, "is the same the world over, and ladies will indulge in their little vanities in spite of war and desolation."[20] To these vanities I now found myself indebted.
The zeal with which I worked knew no pause. I needed no rest. General Wilcox, who was in the saddle until a late hour every night, said to me, "Your candle is the last light I see at night—the first in the morning."
"I should never sleep," I told him.
One day I consulted Eliza about the manufacture of a Confederate candle. We knew how to make it—by drawing a cotton rope many times through melted wax, and then winding it around a bottle. We could get wax, but our position was an exposed one. Soldiers' tents were close around us, and we scrupulously avoided any revelation of our needs, lest they should deny themselves for our sakes. Eliza thought we might avail ourselves of the absence of the officers, and finish our work before they returned. We made our candle; but that night, as I sat sewing beside its dim, glow-worm light, I heard a step in the hall, and a hand, hastily thrust out, placed a brown paper parcel on the piano near the door. It was a soldier's ration of candles!
After I had converted all my laces into collars, cuffs, and sleeves, and had sold my silk gowns, opera cloak, and point lace handkerchiefs, I devoted myself to trimming the edges of the artificial flowers, and separating the long wreaths and garlands into clusters for hats and bouquets de corsage.
Eliza and the children delighted in this phase of my work, and begged to assist,—all except Aunt Jinny.