The Progress., 1898-11-12

the revolution of 1776. We have pre-
served in our family a Boston news
paper of that year. 1t in mourning,
and across the top are little cuts of
cofins-seventeen black collins, with
the names under them of those who
fell in Lexington. My great-grand-
fathers name is there, and I am proud
of it, and we veterans believe that the
cause for which we fought was just as
holy as that. This is our faith.
And now I am pleased to see that
my friend, DR.. Catching, Of Atlanta,
has been inspired to write book of
Confederate memories-not his own
memories, but those of other people
veterans and their wives or widows.
It is not to be the lamentations Of
Jeremiah, but an entertaining and
instructive compendium of how we
lived and got along during the latter
part of the war, when the blockade
was on us, and we had eaten up and
worn out everything in all this south
ern land. He wants everybody who
was in the war and has story to tell
that is funny or fantastic or pathetic
or mixed, to write it down and send it
to him to lie put in the book. My wife
says she went through enough to make
a book of her own, and our good
nelghbor, Mrs. Akin, has long since
told us enough to make two or three
books. But Of course they must make
selections and mix up smiles with
tears. Such book would be treas
ure in the family and would keep the
children quiet of winter night, as
grandpa or grandma read to them
these stories of the war.
tell you my young friends of this
generation, you don't know anything
about the poverty of our people in
1864 and 1865. It was just awful to
experience, and it was sublime to wit
ness the heroism with which our
wives and mothers and sisters endured
it. It makes me smile now to recall
the shabby genteel that hung around
female garments and children's olcthes
and cracked-up tableware and patch
ed carpets. Why, there wasn't cir
Gus nor monkey show nor pound
of sure enough coffee nor lump of
sugar nor stick Of candy nor any
store clothes in all the confederacy; no,
not even dose of castor oil to follow
up the green apples that the boys had
overloaded their stomachs with. Talk
about your tan shoes! Why, we
dident have any other sort.
Old Father jerks made shoes for
mp boys and for my wife, too, out of
calf skins that had been tanned in
tub, and the calf's hair was sticking
out in patches, but they were good, if
not pretty. never see pair Of red
shoes now but they remind me of the
war and of poverty. I wouldn't wear
them. [ made boat in January,
1865, that didn't have nail in it, for
there were no nails. I bored holes
with q brace and bit and pegged 1t
together with wooden pins, and it
never leaked drop. DeFoe wrote
Robinson Crusoe and DR.. Goulding
wrote the Young Marooners, and they
are excellent books, but authors had to !
strain their minds to make fiction read
like facts.
But DR.. Catching won't have to
strain anything to make facts read like
fiction. So let US all send him a
sketch from our own experience and I
have no doubt he will give us de-
lightful book. It is to be a labor of
love with him, for he says he has no
idea that there is any money in it. He
has contemplated such book for a
long time, and his heart is set out on
it. Not long ago DR.. Joe Jacobs gave
us q most delightful sketch about how
the doctors and druggists had to find
substitutes for medicine during those
blockade days when pound of opium
sold for 5000 in confederate money.
BILL ARP in Atlanta Constitution.
HIGHT OF SOLDIERS.