The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-06-04
Ihe 0rssidf.
Recollections OF a Rebel Girl---Our
Aid Society.


/ was in Cleveland, not long ago, and
dear friend took down from the wellfilled
shelves of his handsome library beauti-
fully bound book, wherein was set forth,
in all the beauty of the best topographic
art and creamy tinted paper, the " doings I"
of the Cleveland Aid Association during
the late war. "This is what our women
did," says my friend, with affectionate
pride in his womankind, and l turned
over the leaves to read how the men
poured money into the women's laps, and
the women converted it into all things
needful for the soldiers in camp and field |;
how out of their fullness they gave to him
who needed and memory went bounding
back to the dreary days when the women
of the South, toe, were banded together in
aid associations all over their storm-swept
land-only we had to make our bricks
without straw, and am afraid our relief
did not always relieve, nor our aid al
ways aid.
awhile your women were spending Judi
ciously the money you gave them," said,
handing the costly record back to my
friend, eve were cutting up damask win
dow curtains into shirts, and weaving
clumsy cotton fabrics into clumsier trou.
sers, for our long.enduring boys in
motley"
Oh the garments, fearfully and won
derfully made, that we inflicted upon their
unoffending shoulders, exacting tribute
of gratitude where no doubt their hearts
were full of bitterest reprosch But l
was about to put on record the doings of
~ fatr VI
from the outset that nothing of vital i'm
portance or decided point would ever be
accomplished for the confederacy without
the universal feminine finger being in the
universal pie, so at the first move for re-
cruiting troops in our parish the women
Of the parish were thrown into state of
yeasty commotion. Meetings were called,
in and out of season, at every one of which
we vaguely resolved that we must do
something, and do it very promptly. Two
ideas held universal sway. Lint was one
of those ideas; wooden comforters the
other. Wherever two or three women
were gathered together, innumerable little
balls of lint were sure to be forthcoming,
eand in multitudes of counsels we invaria-
bly, found an overplus of wooden comfort
ers. One might have fallen into the error
of supposing that we supposed the dangers
our boys were going into were exclusively
throat perils. Well, the time came when
our restless desire to do something crys.
tallized into an aid association, with reg
ularly constituted officers, bylaws, and all
the rest of it. And, such is the strength
that comes with union, we boldly declared
ourselves equal to the task of equipping
the first company that was to be sent out.
And we informed the proper authorities.
1 we'll remember the thrill of nervous
pride that shot through our body corpo-
rate when the officer in command wrote
genteel note of thanks, accepting our Of
fer to uniform his men.
1.-THE material" he informed US, " for
the jackets and trousers of the men had
been kindly donated by philosophical
merchant of the place, but to know that
it had been converted into wearing ap.
parel by the fair fingers of wives, sweet
hearts and sisters, who relinquished their
own ease to serve them, would no doubt
warm the heart-pulses and strengthen the
arms OF the wearers in the hour of danger"
That note was written before wearing !
1t made no difference that perhaps not
one in ten of us had ever before grappled
with the problem of a coat or trousers.
We had promised, and we were in for it |
Our president issued call for meet.
ing of special Importance. And we all
went, armed with scissors and thimbles.
Speaking of our president, / don't know
how men decide such matters, but think
we elected our chief officer on purely hui
manitarian principles; that is, she was
very old, and we were afraid that it
would hurt her feelings if we elected any
one else over her. But we built great
hopes on her in this tailoring emergency
into which we found ourselves suddenly
plunged She had been the mother of
six sons, and if that did not re.eminently
fit woman for discriminating use of
shears and goose, what could 2
To add to our CONSERVATION, the one
hundred and fifty-six jackets and pairs of
trousers we had rashly undertaken were
to be completed by certain date, on
which date the men were to appear in
their new uniforms, and there was to be a
flag presentation and farewell banquet,
and plenty of wet handkerchiefs and low
ing adieux, and all the condiments of emo
tion, patriotism, brass buttons, and flies |
The old courthouse, which was the
only building in town large enough to
hold the women and the machines and the
diyecta membra of gray wooden trousers
and jackets that thickened the air, fairly
buzzed with the frenzied energy of fifty
women and half as many machines.
There were skeptics among US whose
brows grew anxious and whose hearts
sank within them as they observed the
primitive modus operandi of our cutter
out (being no other than our president,
the aforesaid mother of six wearers of
bifurcated garments). 1t was a sort of
Procrustean arrangement, so to speak.
Three old newspaper patterns, yellow with
age and creased with many folding and
unfolding, did duty for the one hundred
and fifty-six soldierly forms entrusted to
our tender mercies.
"You know, girls" said our president,
peering wisely at us over her specs, a
man amt nothing but man after all,
and they're all made in the image of their
Maker, 80 there amt no good reason why
the pants pattern that I've fitted my old
man by for nearly twenty years, and these
other two that fits my smallest and my
biggest boys, shouldn't, with occasional
enlargings and besmallings of the seams,
hit the average of this company. Beside"
eliminating with lofty scorn of small
matters, "who wants to see a soldier look
as if he'd just stepped out of bandbox :"
u