Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1888-09-18
THE CONFEDERATE PRESS.
HOW SOUTHERN PAPERS WERE
PRINTED IN WAR TIMES.

Side by side with the reports of battles
and the records of peace commissions
congresses and legislatures, the blurred
columns of the Confederate press were
wont to TEEN with domestic recipes for
cheap dishes. directions for raising and
utilizing various vegetable products, in
structions for making much of little in
matters pertaining to every phase of
household life. Hard by list of dead
and wounded would stand recipe for
tanning dog skins for gloves; while the
paragraphs just succeeding the closing
column of the description of naval en-
gagement off Hampton roads were direc-
tions for the use of boneset as substi-
tute for quin;ne.
The journals of that day were printed
usually upon the poorest paper. made of
straw and cotton rags, and so brittle that
the slightest touch mutilated it. Tho
ink, like the paper, was of the cheapest
and commonest, and left its impression,
not only on the face of the sheet, but on
the hands no less than on the mind of the
reader. Few fonts of new type found
their way into the Confederacy during
the war, and at the end of four years the
facilities for printing had come to a low
ebb. 1t was no uncommon thing for
publishers to issue half sheets in lieu of a
complete paper, with scarcely an apology
to subscribers for the curtailment of their
literary and news rations. 1t was gen
orally understood that this happened only
through stern necessity and not from
any disposition ON the part of the news
paper men to give less than an equivalent
for the subscription price.
Sometimes the journal which on yester-
day appeared in all the glory of six
column page was today cut down to
four column half sheet, or publication
was suspended with the announcement
that the stock of materials had been ex-
hausted, and that as soon as the office
could be replenished publication would be
resumed. Eagerly as the rough sheets
were looked for and closely as they were
read, diminution of matter in them, or
failure to appear, caused only passing
comment or dissatisfaction. Mems minds
were so filed with the thousand things
that each day brought forth about them,
there were so many rumors in the air. and
news few so rapidly even without news
paper aid, rs to cause them not too greatly
to miss that which today has come to be
one of the veriest necessities of American
life-a daily journal full of all the doings
of all the world.
Sometimes even the coarse straw paper
failed the publishing fraternity when an
edition was absolutely imperative, yet in
such emergency the inventive talent never
deserted them. 1t was considered won
dcrful journalistic feat on the part of its
publishers for The Yickburg Citizen, dur
ing the siege of that city, to make it's ap-
pearance, when all other resources had
failed, upon wall paper.
Publishers of books ami sheet music oc-
cupied a scarcely less helpless condition
than tho newspaper people. Their sole
grounds of superiority consisted in the
fact that the demands upon them were
not SO urgent The girl who sang to her
soldier lover the popular songs of that
time, "Lorena," ':When This Cruel War
is Over" 1.-The Standard Bearer" or
Harp of the South" which were all duly
advertised ''at the retail price of 81 per
sheet; the trade supplied, however, at half
off, with an additional discount where 100
of one piece are ordered, did not experience
that immediate and insistent need of the
song and its music which mon and wo-
men alike felt for the spaper that
would tell them where battle had
been fought, which army "a been vic
torious, who had been promoted and who
had fallen. The fateful column might
contain evil or good report of some dear
one, and its coming was full Of interest
and apprehension. Yet the sheet music,
printed like the newspapers, in the rough
est style, upon the commonest paper,
with now and then caricatured litho-
graphic likeness of some Confederate gen.
eral on the title page, continued to be
sold and sung, even though its price ran
from 81 to 81 per sheet.
War songs and war music were the or
der of the day, and tho soldiers in the
camps and the small boys in ragged jack
cts shouted with an equal zest:
The despot's heel is on thy shorel
or
Farewell forever to the star spangled banner.
martial ballads. The little song books
cost anywhere from two and half to
five Confederate dollars, and their con-
tents, with few notable exceptions
were as mediocre as the paper on which
they were printed. The sentiment was
there, nevertheless, and this was cared
for by the singers more than the music or
the lyrical or literary excellence of the
songs.
The missionary and reli gious publish
ing houses never ceased their praise
worthy labor of printing tracts and
pamphlets for distribution among the SOL
diers, but publications of more ambi-
tious or secular standard were very few.
Now and then some adventurous firm in
Richmond or Charleston or New Orleans
would issue badly printed edition of a
new novel, reproduced from a copy snug
gled in through the lines" or brought by
the blockade runners from Nassau. Still,
even John Halifax. Gentleman, and Les
Miserables," which first appeared in the
south in this way and this dress, lost
much of their attractiveness in their Con-
federate garb of inferior ink, bad type
and worse paper.--A. c. Gordon in The
Century.