, 1888-10-19
SUGAR AND MoLAssEs.
The Part Filled by Sorghum Down South
During the War.

The Part Filled by Sorghum Down South
During the War.
At home and abroad sorghum came to
take the place of the vanished sugar.
h children at home ate it in their gin
ger cakes, and the soldiers in camp
drank it In their rye coffee. The mo-
lasses and sugar of Louisiana were pro-
durable in degree till the fall of Vicks-
burg; but the spirit of independence was
rife, and each state desired and deter
mined to rely as much as possible
on its own products. The theory
of state sovereignty was extended
-exen-to-sorghum; -and-its-iHtre
duction was hailed everywhere as one
of the greatest boons of a ~benefcent
Providence. The juice of the cane,
extracted in a primitive fashion by crush
ing he stalks between wooden rollers
revolving upon wooden cogs and impelled
by horse-and-little-darky power, was
caught in an ordinary trough, boiled
down into proper consistency in preserv-
ing kettles, kitchen pots, or whatever
might be utilized for the purpose, and
barreled for use as sorghum molasses.
The syrup thus produced was quite a
palatable one, with a slightly acidulous
and not disagreeable flavor, but with an
uhPlONhodLlI bCl1NlCLlCl W lldhS IIlS IlOlUll
sore. 1t was known as ''long sweeten-
ing" in contradistinction to its prede-
cessor, ''short s~weetening," the sugar
that was scarce.
From its use in the place of sugar sor-
ghum soon leaped into high repute as an
almost universal food staple. 1t was
warranted to cure any case of hunger in
man or beast. Writers in the suggestive
daily press undertook in elaborate and
exhaustive essays to show that sorghum
syrup was nearly as nutritious as meat
and an exceedingly good substitute for it,
while the seed of the sorghum cane was
capable of being ground into a meal that
made a most excellent and wholesome
brown bread. They claimed that the
problem of blockaded existence had been
solved in the discovery of a plant which
produced in itself meat and bread for
the human family and %provender for
cattle. Yet the average denizen of the
Confederacy, whether at home or in the
army, while rendering due credit to the
ingenuity and skill with which the cause
of the flood staple" was advocated by
its champions, appealed to the higher ar
bitrument of his own digestion; and
though willing to accord sorghum its
real merit as serviceable and useful in
the place of something better, he was
always ready to exchange it for the more
certain and familiar nutriment of bacon
and ''corn pone." To see it fulfill the
functions of sugar in the latest recipe for
Confederate coffee and tea was well
enough; but quietly to submit to its
usurpation of the high places Of pork and
corn was more Thar the appetite of
hungry rcbcldom would endure.
There was Il secondary use to which
sorghum vas Put, il which it met with
decided favor from a select few.S This
was It's use in the manufacture Of black
ing. The manuscript recipe books of
that day say that "wonderful shoe black
ing, as good as Mason's best" can be
made of sorghum molasses, pincwood
SCOT, meats foot oil and vinegar.
Yet, on The theory of the survival of
the fttcst, the average Confederate must
have been right and the theoretic writers
in the newspapers wrong about the value
of sorghum. for bacon and corn bread
have long since regained their wonted
ascendency in the south, and sorghum
has vanished entirely from the fields
where it once flourished, save, perhaps,
where here and there some man and
brother Cultivates it vet III his little
truck patch" making ''Iong sweeten-
ing" for the consumption of his family
in as primitive q method as that in which
he helped his quondam owner to make it
''endurin' O. the wah."
In the hardest times of the war period,
when provisions were the scarcest, the
latch to the larder Of every southern
housekeeper hung out to each southern
soldier, no matter how ragged or humble.
For him the best viands about the place
were always prepared; and his was the
high p~rerogative of receiving the last cup
of real coffee, sweetened with the solitary
remnant of sugar. With compassionate
pity the women recognized the hardships
in the army life of the Confederate soldiey,
and were always ungrudgingly ready 90
mitigate its seventies in every possible
manner.-A. G. Gordon in The Century.