Slike strani
PDF
ePub

364

LINCOLN

[1864

copy had been in bronze; the nose is thin and lengthened by the emaciation of the cheeks; the mouth is fixed like that of an archaic statue; a look as of one on whom sorrow and care had done their worst without victory, is on all the features; the whole expression is of unspeakable sadness and all-sufficing strength.'

We of the North maintain that, after Sumter was fired upon, the war was unavoidable and just, but the summer of 1864 carries this lesson: given our system of government with its division of powers between the nation and the States and its partition of authority at Washington; given our frequent elections; given the independence and individuality of our people, it is clear that we are but poorly equipped? for making war. The genius of the American Common

wealth lies in peace.1Tine

1 This chapter is based on III, p. 555 et seq.; Chapters XIX, IV, XXVII, V; and on Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions during the Civil War.

CHAPTER XII

CONDITIONS in the Southern Confederacy were novel in that the community was cut off by the blockade from any extensive intercourse with the outer world. As the North was the stronger naval power the blockade was clearly obvious and was proclaimed by the President one week after the firing on Sumter. Although at first not thorough it gradually increased in efficiency and proved one of the important agencies in deciding the war. But Lincoln and Grant saw plainly that peace could not be had until the Southern armies had been fought to a finish of destruction or surrender. To this end the patient work of the navy in blockading the Southern ports was a grateful and necessary aid to Grant and Sherman in their decisive operations. But the blockade of itself might have been maintained even unto the crack of doom if Lee's and Johnston's armies remained intact, living in a fertile country cultivated by a mass of negro non-combatants, clothed from an excess supply of cotton and a limited supply of wool. The relation between our army and navy during the Civil War was the same as between the British army and navy in 1914 when the English fleet had effectually blockaded the German ports and kept the German fleet in a safe harbor. Said the London Times, "The Navy [is] our shield, the Army our sword." 1

1 Sept. 9. "Though the Navy can protect our shores, only an army and a well-trained army can bring a war to an end." Spectator, Sept. 12, 1914.

366

scarce.

DISCOMFORT AT THE SOUTH

[1862

The blockade was a source of acute discomfort to the Southern people, cutting them off from most luxuries and many necessaries. Salt, coffee, tea, soap, candles, matches, glue advanced enormously in price and were extremely The blockade taught lessons of economy, causing highly bred young women of Charleston to dress in homespun and Richmond gentlemen to wear last year's clothes. Brooms, chairs, baskets, brushes, pails, tubs, kegs, slate pencils and knitting needles were scarce. Ink began to be made in the home by a crude process. In the news columns of the Charleston Courier, it was announced that a man in Caswell County (N. C.) was manufacturing writing ink which he would furnish in any quantity to those who would provide their own bottles. A Richmond apothecary advertised that he could not fill prescriptions unless persons requiring medicines should bring their own phials. But many common medicines were hard to get. The medical purveyor at Richmond appealed to the ladies of Virginia to cultivate the poppy so that opium might be had for the sick and wounded of the army. Various things were popularly suggested to take the place of quinine and other medicines. The surgeon-general sent out officially a formula for a compound tincture of dried dogwood, poplar and willow bark and whiskey "to be issued as a tonic and febrifuge and substitute as far as practicable for quinine." Quinine and morphia were articles greatly desired in the trade with the North. All possible means were used to obtain these and other drugs and a large amount of smuggling was at one time carried on from Cincinnati by men and women devoted to the Confederate cause. In October, 1862, when General Sherman was in command at Memphis, an imposing funeral headed by a handsome city hearse, with pall and plumes, was allowed by the guards to pass

CH. XII]

LACK OF TEA AND COFFEE

367

through the Union lines: the coffin which was borne by the hearse contained a lot of well-selected medicines for the Confederate army. A large doll filled with quinine was brought through the lines in a trunk from New Orleans; when it was scrutinized, the owner declared with tears in her eyes that the doll was for a poor crippled girl; this ruse was likewise successful in passing it through without the discovery of its precious burden.

ང ༠

No deprivation was felt so keenly as the lack of tea and coffee. “Tea is beyond the reach of all save the most opulent," said the Charleston Courier in April, 1862. "I have not tasted coffee or tea for more than a year," is an entry of Jones on February 4, 1864. Rich people even abstained from the use of tea in order that the small supply should be saved for those who were ill. The hospitals procured coffee for a while, but on December 2, 1863, the surgeon-general ordered its discontinuance "as an article of diet for the sick. In consequence of the very limited supply," he added, "it is essential that it be used solely for its medicinal effects as a stimulant." People resorted to all kinds of substitutes. Parched rye, wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, chestnuts, peanuts, chicory and cotton seed took the place of the Arabian berry, but all agreed "that there was nothing coffee but coffee." For tea a decoction of dried currant, blackberry and sage leaves, of sassafras root or blossoms was drunk and some tried to make themselves believe that the substitute was as good as China tea. Fremantle, during his travels through the South, tasted no tea from April 6 to June 17, 1863, when some "uncommonly good" was offered him at President Davis's house.

In 1862, may be noted a scarcity of salt and anxiety as to a future supply, especially for the army, as salt meat was a large part of the army ration. The governor of

368

SALT FAMINE - LACK OF PAPER

[1862

Mississippi wrote to Davis that "the destitution of salt is alarming," and the governor of Alabama, in a letter to the Secretary of War, said, "The salt famine in our land is most lamentable." The "earthen floors of smokehouses, saturated by the dripping of bacon, were dug up and boiled" that no salty material be left unused. Sea-water was to a large extent utilized to provide for the deficiency, but a more valuable source of supply was the saline springs of southwestern Virginia. The commonwealth of Virginia embarked on the manufacture of salt and made regulations for its distribution to the public. Other States followed her example so that the salt famine was to some extent mitigated.

Another serious hardship arose from the scarcity of paper. Many of the newspapers were gradually reduced in size and were finally printed on half sheets. Sometimes one sheet would be brown, another wall paper. Even the white paper was frequently coarse; and this, together with inferior type, made the news sheet itself a daily record of the waning material fortunes of the Confederacy. The Richmond Examiner said that the editorials of the journals were written on "brown paper, waste paper, backs of old letters and rejected essays, unpaid bills, bits of foolscap torn from the copy books of youth and the ledgers of the business men." An Alabama editor used a shingle; when one editorial was set up he would wipe it out and write another. Another editor employed in a similar way his schoolboy slate. An advertisement in the Charleston Courier ran that no more orders for Miller's Almanac for 1863 could be filled unless forty or fifty reams of printing paper could be purchased. Mrs. MacGuire could not get a blank-book in which to continue her diary and was obliged to use wrapping paper for the vivid account of her daily

« PrejšnjaNaprej »