Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-12-17
The Country Home
Timely Topics
CONDUCTED BY MRS. W. H. FELTON,
RoW THE WOMEN TonED 11t
CIVIL WAR

CIVIL WAR
In reading over the amount OIL
garments made tor the war with
| Germany and the number now on
hand that will not be used or turned
over to the government as surplus
stock, my mind went back to the
struggles that southern women made
to clOthe their own kinspeOple, who
| looked mainly to the women at home
| Tor coats, pants, shirts and socks.
After the blockade was established,
it was impossible to buy such things
and nearly every household kept a
loom and spinning wheels in con-
slant service. Sometimes the sol
diers lost everything they had in
raids and forced marches. My moth
er sent suit after suit TO my young
brother while he was in the noun
tainS of West Virginia. Every time
| they broke camp they had it seemed
to retreat, during the long, severe
winter of 1S61-62. She suffered
agonieS to know that her boy barely
| sixteen was without a tent to sleep
| in with deep snow on the ground.
When she started a better jeans suit
| to him she began to get ready for
| another one. She could not enjoy
her meals, when she thought of him
so far away, and with scant supplies
| of beef and bareback. She was al
ways busy helping her poorer neigh
| bors who wove cloth for her and she
! helped make clothes for their boys,
/ too.
There were no Red Cross supplies.
| Hospitals were poorly equipped with
| no sanitary precautions. 1t was pitt
full to see those hospitals where the
| badly wounded were constantly dy-
| ing. After the battle of RiSola
visited the Atlanta hospital a num-
Der of times carrying good things
| to eat that my mother and sister
| nFanarad altar fold
| that eighteen of the badly wounded
were carried out to their graves from
one large rom that we were interested
in. These women worked unceasing-
| ly day in and day out giving their
time, strength, supplies and money
to relieve suffering that was distress
ing to contemplate. And there were
four years of it-long, hard, bloody
years-everything growing scarcel
and dearer from start to finish.
The Cotton Situation
The cotton growers in my section
are not happy over the violent cot
| ton fluctuations. There seems tC
be methods in them that will keeT
down the price until the producers
will go up. The people who claim
to know, advise the farmers to hold
their cotton. Those who are buying
are predicting it will go lower. There
you are! Maybe 1T is all gamble
and nobody knows.
After the Civil war some cottoT
sold for fifty cents a pound. CalicC
brought fifty cents a yard, in green
backs. The Confederate government
forbade the raising of cotton for sew
eral years, and the plea was mad,
that provisions would not be raised
if cotton was grown. But the trade
was brisk on the lines and Yank'
were glad to buy and Rebs were keeI
to sell-at blockade prices.
We had a fearful time to again
commence raising cotton. In 1866 We
paid three dollars a bushel for cot
ton seed, paid big wages for whit,
labor. and cattle were so near starV
ing that they jumped fences. We
put the seed in the ground. and hoet
it to a stand. and then had it bodily
eaten up, before it reached blooming
time.
Fertilizers were a fearful price II
1918. 1t may be that there will bC
a short cotton crop in 1919, because
there will be so many hindrances tha
a short crop is all that can be de
pended upon.