Daily Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1882-1893, 1883-12-15
BEAUTY IN HoMESPUN.
what Southern Women Wore During
the War;. Curious Makeshtfts EN-
ployed IN Contriviny Costumes.


pioyed In Centrivinx Costumes.
MARY W. Early in Philadelphia Times,l
Several histories and numberless
sketches have been written describing
the military straits to which Our men
were brought during the late war, but
] do not know of any chron;cler who has
depicted the straits for clothes to which
the women and girls of the southern
Confederate were reduced during the
blockade. Oar dry goods merchants
had pretty good stock on hand at the
opening Of the war, and this. with the
supply We had our selves, enabled us to
get on without pressing Inconvenience
for the first year of the war. Then We
resurrected from old chests and closets
all the heirlooms we could lind in the
shape Of ancient garments belonging to
our mothers and our grandmothers,
in which We looked very much
like set Of grown-up "Kate Greena-
way" figures. We began also to resort
freely to the dyer. feeling the force Of
Goldsmith's line, slightly altered:
"The only refuge is to dye" Fortunate
~ there was wooden factory in Rich
mond during the war (the Crenshaw
mills that turned out very soft, good
wooden cloth. There was also one, l
believe, at Scottsville, little town
seventy miles from Richmond, on the
James river and Kanawha canal, and
one ut Bousack's, in southeastern Vir-
ginia. These two latter factories,
though they by no means furnished
dainty fabrics, were still of great assist
ance in clothing the people Of Virginia.
There were several cotton cloth farto-
ries in operation in North Carolina
during the war. and from these We
drew large part Of the cotton cloth
used in Virginia then.
In the country we had to resort to the
loom, which on all old Virginia planta
tons was used for supplying the negroes
partially, if not entirely with clothing.
Elderly negro women were set apart to
spin and weave for the others. They
carried on their work generally in o
cellar, their wild. sweet, mournful
hymns mingling with the sound of the
shuttle or the monotonous hum of the
wheel. 1t was not music of SO high an
order as Schubert's or Gounod's "Spin.
ning.wheel Song, but it had distinctive
character and charm of its own, and
was filled with weird and plaintive
sweetness, the like of which / have
never heard except in the singing of to-
bacco factory hands. During the war
homespun dresses were good
deal used by the Virginia country
ladies for everyday wear, and have
seen some of these dresss that looked
really pretty and jaunty on fresh young
girls. The dyes Gas well as the cloth
were home production. Ivy leaves,
set with alum, made q pretty gray;
sumsc leaves and chinquapin bark made
black; maple bark made bright pur-
pie, and beech bark made green dye.
Speaking of homespun reminds me of
o homespun ball given by one Of the
Richmond bellies, not during the war,
as some might reasonably suppose, but
year or two before, and said to be one
OF the most charming and successful
entertainments ever given in Richmond.
On this occasion all the young ladies'
appeared in costumes Of homespun.
made up in hundred pretty, fanciful
and picturesque styles.
The men Of the Confederacy, those in
the army, at least, Jared much better
with respect to clothes than the women
did, the government providing them
with uniforms imported from abroad
through the blockade. Occasionally
too, women would get . prize in the
shApe Of q trunk or o box Of new
clothes struggled through the blockade,
in which case her toilet would be the
envy and admiration of all her feminine
friends. Persons who had friends or
relatives in Baltimore, Philadelphia or
other northern cities would sometimes
be favored with o box of "store Clothes"
/ remember such box being sent from
Philadelphia TO scquaintances Of mine
in Richmond, who became, in conse-
quence, "the glass Of fashion and the
mould Of form" A plaid ribbon in
this box was lent by turns to various
friends, who looked on IL rs rare and
dainty ornament, something almost
equal TO the ribbon of the order Of the
garter. The writer wore IL 10 an ele-
giant entertainment in Rich ond the
last winter Of the war.