Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-12-14
CoNFEDERACY,s HARD DAYS.
What the People Eat, Drank and
Wore,

From Senator Vdnce's Boston Lecture.
A rigid blockade OF our coast at a very
early day shut off our hopes of supplies
from abroad, and yet that blockade was
not 80 successfully maintained but that
needed articles crept IN in considerable
quantities though itfully. A long legged
steamer which | purchased in the CLYDE
for the State Of North Carolina made
eleven round trips from the Bermldas
into the port OF Wilmington, carving out
cotton and bringing back supplies OF
those things which could not be produced
Rt home, especially grain scythes. card
cOtting for the factories, hand cards for
old-fashioned looms and medicines, with
large Quantities OF shoes, blankets and
army cloth. she often entered the port in
broad daylight in the face OF the block ad-
ing feet. The situation called into active
nee all the mechanical talent of our
people; the village or cross-road black
smith returnished his shop and made
tools and agricultural implements for lis
peigbbors; the shoemaker, the cooper,
the WheeiWrlght, the tauner-all sprang
Into sudden importance. Even the drug
gist compounded from the wondrous
fora OF the country substitutes for nearly
all the druge OF com merce, which, il not
so eticacious, were at least more harm
vices and eXpedients adopted in all the
Industries, the social and domestic de-
partments OF our daily life, were often
tie most ingenious, though sometimes
ludicrOus. Here the subtle cOntrivngs
OF the female sex became most conspicu.
Gus.
The silks, merinos, alpacas and other
dress goods OF our women folk, known as
''store clothes" which were on hand wnen
"a In "a a
carefully reserved for weddings and otner
occasions o! Dign state. For calico prints
were substituted the colored plaids manu-
featured in our cotton mills or woven in
the hand looms of the old plantation. In
the way OF eating and drinking we did
well. Our farm productions, always
abundant and good, were made still more
30 by the tact that there was no sale for
our great staples--cotton and to-
bacco-and our fields were therefore
devoted to edible products. or alco-
hOl and liquors we had too much.
Corn WHISKY and apple brandy were
both abundant and cheap. On the mat
ter Of tea, coffee and sugar we were very
badly of. Whilst our small! stock on hand
lasted. divers and sundry eXpedents
were adopted TO prolonk its existence by
mixtures with various substances; pow
dered rye, corn meal, chestnuts, Ochra
and sweet potato were mingled with small
quantities OF coffee in the rooster, in the
hope that the royal berry would assert It's
superiority Ivy imparting ut least a por-
ton of its flavor to the ignOble compound.
But his proved a delusion and snare.
The linked sweetness refused to be long
drawn out. Nature abhOred the bibulous
miscegenation, and the throes OF
deathly thirst alone rendered It suffer-
able. A Yag cnce recommended that
st be roasted with popcorn, Tor the reason
that in the process of roasting the pop
corn would all jump out OF the pan leav-
ing the original coffee as good az ever.
But when the last grain Of coffee had been
used, and The last pound Of sugar which
could be obtained from captured Louisiana
had gone with IL, then, and not till then,
did we realize that the crisis Of our fate
bad come, and black despair had settled
down upon the Southern cause. Without
the flavor or the shadow OF q pretense OF
coffee, we were reduced to the homes
truth in the shape OF parched rye sweet
ened with sorghum mOlassesl With q
cheerful melancholy this was spoken o
as ofiee, in Difference to the customs o
antiquity. II might with Dropriety bG