Part 2 — CHAPTER IV (continued 2)

The legislature of 1864 appropriated $5,000,000 for soldiers’ families,[541] and made a special appropriation of $180,000 for the poor in the counties of Cherokee, De Kalb, Morgan, St. Clair, Marshall, and Blount, which were overrun by the enemy.[542] The probate judge of Cherokee County was authorized to act for De Kalb because the probate judge of that county had been carried off by the Federals.[543] In Lawrence County the Federals raided the probate judge’s office, and took $3000 belonging to the destitute, and the agent was robbed of $3887.50 while trying to carry it to Moulton. Both losses were made good by the state.[544]

Statutes were repeatedly passed, prohibiting the distilling of grain for the purpose of making alcoholic liquors. The state placed this industry under the supervision of the governor, and alcohol and whiskey were distributed among the counties where most needed, to be sold at a moderate price for medicinal purposes, and the profit given to the poor, or to be given away upon physicians’ prescriptions. Later the prohibition was extended to include potatoes, peas, and even molasses and sugar. This prohibition was not a temperance measure, but was designed to preserve as foodstuffs the grain, molasses, peas, and potatoes.[545]

The county commissioners usually had charge of the destitute, and looked after the collection of the special taxes which were levied for the benefit of the poor. They also distributed the supplies, purchased or collected by the tax-in-kind, among the needy people after investigating the merits of each case. In those portions of the state overrun by the enemy or liable to repeated invasion, the probate judge of the county was authorized to take charge of all matters relating to the relief of the destitute. Many thousand dollars’ worth of supplies were furnished the northern counties when they were within the Federal lines or between the hostile lines. Many of the supplies sent there fell into the hands of tories or Federals, and many undeserving persons obtained assistance. Confederate sympathizers within the Federal lines had a struggle to live, and numbers, completely ruined by the ravages of the Federals and tories, had to flee to the central and southern counties.

The quartermaster-general of the state had charge of the state distribution among the counties, and among the Confederate soldiers. There was an agent of the state whose business it was to look after claims for pay and bounty due the families of deceased soldiers. It is safe to say that little was ever collected on this account.[546] The Confederate soldiers, as plentiful as paper money was, were rarely paid. Much of their supplies came from home. The Confederate government could not supply them even with blankets and shoes. This the state undertook to do and with some degree of success. And at one time, however (1862), after impressing all the leather and shoes in the state, only one thousand pairs could be secured.[547] Agents were sent with the armies going north into Kentucky and Maryland to buy supplies of blankets, shoes, woollen clothing, and salt, for the state. Blankets could not be obtained except by capture, running the blockade, or purchase through the lines, as there was not a blanket factory in the Confederacy in 1862. In the following year the carpets in the state capitol were torn up and sent to the Alabama soldiers to be used as blankets.[548] In 1863 the legislature asked Congress to exempt from payment of the tax-in-kind the people of that part of north Alabama which was subject to the invasions of the enemy. This was done. Congress was also asked to exempt from the payment of this tax those families of soldiers whose support was derived from white labor.[549] As a result of economic conditions the taxation fell upon the slave owners of central and south Alabama. But the suffering was much greater among the people whose supplies came from white labor. These were the people assisted by the state and county appropriations. Yet when they were able to pay the tax-in-kind, they, at times, almost rebelled against it.

It has been estimated that from the latter part of 1862 to the close of the war at least one-fourth of the white population of the state was supported by the state and counties. This estimate does not include the soldiers.[550] A letter written in April, 1864, to the governor, from Talladega County discloses the following facts in regard to that county: With a white population of 14,634, it had furnished up to April, 1864, 27 companies of volunteers, not counting those who volunteered in other regiments or who furnished substitutes or were enrolled in the reserves or militia. The citizens of the county pledged the soldiers that they would raise $20,000 annually, if necessary, for the support of the soldiers’ families. In May, 1861, 30 persons received aid from the county; in April, 1864, 3799. In 1863, the county received about $80,000 from the state for the poor, and 25 pounds of salt for each member of needy families of soldiers. In addition to this the people of the county raised in that year, for the poor, $7276 in cash, 2570 bushels of corn, 102 bushels of wheat, and 16 sacks of salt. The county bought 21,755 bushels of corn at $3 a bushel, and sold it at 50 cents a bushel to the poor; 920 bushels of wheat at $10 a bushel and sold it at $2 a bushel; 233 sacks of salt at $80 per sack, and sold it at $20 per sack. The destitute families were those of laborers who had joined the army. They lived mostly in the hill country, where they suffered much from the tories. Many were refugees from north Alabama.[551] In May, 1864, 1600 soldiers’ families in Randolph County were supported by the state and county. Many thousand bushels of corn brought from middle Alabama had to be hauled 40 miles from the railway. Eight thousand people, or one-third of the population, were destitute. The same condition existed in other white counties.[552] Colonel Gibson, probate judge of Lawrence County, relates an experience of his in caring for the destitute. He went in person to Gadsden for 100 sacks of salt. He found the sacks in a very bad condition, and repaired the whole lot with his own hands so as to preserve the precious contents. This judge, with his own money, bought cotton cards for the poor people of his county as well as salt, which at that time cost $100 a barrel.[553] The people who had supplies gave to those who had none, and thus supplemented the work of the state. They felt it a duty to divide to the last with the deserving families of the poorer soldiers.[554]

Early in the war, in order to provide against famine, the authorities, state and Confederate, began to urge the people to plant food crops only. They were asked to plant no cotton, except for home needs. Corn, wheat, beans, peas, potatoes, and other farm produce and live stock were essential.[555] During the winter of 1862-1863 there was much distress among the poor people in the cities and towns, and the next spring the senators and representatives of Alabama united in an address to the people, asking them to stop raising cotton and raise more foodstuffs and live stock. Governor Shorter begged the people to raise food crops to keep the soldiers from starving. The planters were asked as a patriotic duty to raise the largest possible quantities of supplies. The Confederate Congress also urged the people to raise provision crops instead of cotton.[556] Though hard to convince that cotton was not king, the people in 1863 and 1864 turned their attention more to food crops, and had transportation facilities been good in 1864 and 1865, there need not have been any suffering in the state, and the armies could have been fed better.[557]

Because of the few railways, and the bad roads, often people in one section of the state would be starving when there was an abundance a hundred miles away. In the upper counties, when the soldiers’ families failed to make a crop, and when supplies were hard to get, the probate judges would give the women certificates, and send them down into the lower country for corn. Women whose husbands were at home hiding to escape the conscript officer or the squad searching for deserters, young girls, and old women came in droves into the central counties both by railway and by boat, for free passage was given them, getting off at every landing and station. With large sacks, these “corn women,” as they were called, scoured the country for corn and other provisions. Something was always given them, and these supplies were sent to the station or landing for them. Money was sometimes given to them, and a crowd of “corn women” on their way home would have several hundred dollars and quantities of provisions. These women were usually opposed to the war, and hated the army and every one in it; the negro they especially disliked. The “corn women” became a nuisance to the overseers and planters’ wives on the plantations.[558]

When there was plenty in the country, the towns and the armies were often in want. Speculators controlled the prices on whatever found its way to the market. In 1861 Governor Moore issued a proclamation condemning the extortion of tradesmen, who were buying up the necessaries of life for the purposes of speculation. Such, he declared, was unpatriotic and wicked.[559] The legislature made such an action a penal offence, and to buy up provisions and clothing on the false pretence of being a Confederate agent was “felony.”[560] In 1862 some officers of the Quartermaster’s Department were found guilty of speculation in food supplies.[561] To prevent extortion the legislature afterwards enacted that on all goods for sale or speculation, except medicine and drugs, a profit of 15 per cent only could be made. All over that amount was to be paid into the state treasury.[562] Millers were not to take more than one-eighth for toll.[563]

At times it was unlawful to buy corn or other grain for shipment and sale in another part of the state or in other states. The military authorities in charge of the railroads sometimes prohibited the shipment of grain or supplies away from the regions where the armies were likely to camp or to march. In December, 1862, it was enacted that no one except the producer or miller should sell corn without a license from the judge of probate, which license limited the sale to one county for one year at a profit of not more than 20 per cent.[564] However, in 1863 the legislature authorized T. B. Bethea of Montgomery to sell corn bought in Marengo County in any market in the state.[565]

Distress was produced in south Alabama by General Pemberton’s order prohibiting shipment by private individuals from Mississippi to Alabama on the railways.[566]

In each state and later in each congressional district there were price commissioners appointed, whose duty it was to fix schedules of prices at which the articles of common use and necessity were to be sold by the owners or paid for by the government when impressed. These prices were fixed for the whole state, were usually for a term of three months, and were often below the real market value. Consequently this had no effect except to make the people hide their supplies from the government.[567] Prices necessarily varied greatly in the different sections of the state, and what was a reasonable value in central Alabama was unreasonably low in north Alabama or at Mobile. In 1863 a Confederate quartermaster in north Alabama insisted that the price commissioners must raise their prices or he would be unable to buy for the army. He wrote that wool and woollen and leather goods sold at Mobile in December, 1863, for from three to five times as much as the scheduled prices of November 1, 1863. Prices in north Alabama, he added, must be made higher than in south Alabama because there was barely enough in that section for the people themselves to live on.[568]

For months after the end of the war the inhabitants of the hill and mountain districts of north Alabama and of the pine barrens of south Alabama were on the verge of starvation, and a number of deaths actually occurred. The Black Belt fared better, and recovered more quickly from the devastation of the armies.

Sec. 5. The Negro during the War

Military Uses of Negroes

The large non-combatant negro population was not wholly a source of military and economic weakness to the state. In many respects it was a source of strength to the military authorities, who employed negroes in various capacities, thus relieving whites for military service. They were employed as teamsters, cooks, nurses, and attendants in the hospitals, laborers on the fortifications at Mobile, Montgomery, and Selma, around the ordnance factories at Selma, in the salt works of Clarke County, and at the nitre works of central and southern Alabama. Half as many whites could be released for war as there were negroes employed in military industries. The negroes employed by the authorities were usually chosen because trustworthy, and they were as devoted Confederates as the whites, all in all, perhaps, more so. They were efficient and faithful, and rarely deserted to the enemy or allowed themselves to be captured, though many opportunities were offered in north Alabama.[569]

After the secession of the state and before the formation of the Confederacy numerous offers of the services of negro men were made by their masters. The legislature passed an act to regulate the use of men so proffered.[570] Where the negroes were employed in great numbers by the government they worked under the supervision, not of a government overseer, but of one appointed by the master who supported the negroes, and who was paid or promised pay for their work. In the early part of the war the white soldiers wanted to fight, but not to dig trenches, cook, drive teams, or play in the band. Congress authorized, in 1862, the employment of negroes as musicians in the army, and the enlistment of four cooks, who might be colored, for each company.[571] In the same year the state legislature authorized the governor to impress negroes to work on the fortifications.[572] The state government impressed numbers of negroes as laborers in the various state industries, such as nitre and salt working, building railroads, and hauling the tax-in-kind. The legislature, in August, 1863, declared that negroes ought to be placed in all possible positions in the workshops and as laborers, and the white men thus released should be sent to the army.[573]

Most of the impressment of blacks was done by the Confederate government. The Confederate Impressment Act of March 26, 1863, provided that no farm slave should be impressed before December 1. On February 17, 1864, free negroes were made liable to service in the army as laborers and teamsters. Before the passage of this act free negroes had often been hired as substitutes, and sent to the army as soldiers in place of those who preferred the comforts of home.[574] Bishop-General Polk made a general impressment of negroes in north Alabama to work on the defences in his department, and many protests were made by the owners. A public meeting was held in April, 1864, in Talladega County to protest against further impressment of negroes. This county, in December, 1862, sent 90 negroes to the fortifications; in January, 1863, 120 more were sent; in February, 1863, 160; in March, 1863, 160; and so on. Talladega was one of the counties that had to furnish supplies to the destitute mountain counties, and the loss of labor was severely felt. Randolph and other north Alabama counties made similar protests. From north Alabama 2500 negroes were taken at one time to work on the fortifications in the Tennessee valley; this frequently occurred. Central and south Alabama and southeast Mississippi furnished many negroes to work on the fortifications at Selma, Montgomery, and Mobile. After Farragut passed the forts at Mobile, 4500 negroes were at once set to throwing up earthworks and soon had the city in safety.[575] The lines of earthworks then made by the negroes still stretch for miles around the city, through the pine woods, almost as well defined as when thrown up.

When the crack regiments of young men from the black counties went to Virginia, early in 1861, nearly every soldier had with him a negro servant who faithfully took care of his “young master” and performed the rough tasks that fell to the soldier—splitting wood, digging ditches about the camp, hauling, and building. The Third Alabama regiment of infantry, one of the best, left Alabama a thousand strong in rank and file and several hundred strong in negro servants. Two years later there were no negro servants; they had been sent home when their masters were killed, or because they were needed at home, or they had been sold and “eaten up” by the youngsters, who now had to do their own work.[576] Only the officers kept body-servants after the first year or two. These servants were always faithful, even unto death. The old Confederate soldiers have pleasant recollections of the devotion of the faithful black who “fought, bled, and died” with him for four years in dreary camp and on bloody battle-field. The old soldier-servants who survive tell with pride of the times when with “young master” and “Mass Bob Lee” they “fowt the Yankees in Virginny” or at “Ilun 10.” Many a bullet was sent into the northern lines by the slaves secretly using the white soldiers’ guns. When capture was imminent, the negro servant would take watches, papers, and other valuables of the master, and, making his way through the enemy’s lines, return to the old home with messages and directions from his master, then in prison. In battle the slave was close at hand to aid his master when wounded or exhausted. With a pine torch at night he searched among the wounded and dead for his master. Finding him wounded, he cared for him faithfully, bore him to hospital or friendly house, or carried him a long journey home. Finding him dead, the devoted slave performed the last duties and alone often buried his master, and then went sadly home to break the news. Sometimes he managed to carry home his master’s body, that it might lie among kindred in the family burying-ground. If he could not do that, he carried to his mistress his master’s sword, horse, trinkets, and often his last message.[577]

The negroes were more willing to serve as soldiers than the whites were for them to serve. The slave owner did not like the idea of having the negro fight, because it was felt that fundamentally the black was the cause of strife. Others were sensitive about using slave property to fight the quarrels of free men. As the years went on opinion was more and more favorable to negro enlistment, but it was too late before the Confederate government took up the matter.[578]

The average white person and the private soldiers generally were opposed to the enlistment of the negroes. The white soldier thought it was a white man’s duty and privilege to serve as a soldier and that the fight was a white man’s fight. To make a negro a soldier was to grant him military equality at least. To enlist negroes meant to abolish slavery, sooner or later: negro soldiers would be emancipated at once; the rest would be freed gradually. The non-slaveholders were more opposed to such a scheme than the slaveholders. The negro would have made a good soldier under his master, but he was worth almost as much to the Confederacy to raise supplies and perform labor.[579]

The free negro population, though less than 3000 in number, were devoted supporters of the Confederacy, and nearly all free black men were engaged in some way in the Confederate service. Some entered the service as substitutes, others as cooks, teamsters, and musicians. In Mobile they asked to be enlisted as soldiers under white officers. The skilful artisans usually stayed at home at the urgent request of the whites, who needed their work, but, nevertheless, they contributed. All accounts agree that they never avoided payment of the tax-in-kind, and other contributions. One of the best-known of the free negroes was Horace Godwin (or King)[580] of Russell County. He was a constant and liberal contributor to the support of the Confederacy. He also furnished clothes and money to the sons of his former master who were in the army, and erected a monument over the grave of their father.

Negroes on the Farms

During the war the greater part of the farm labor in the white counties was done by old men, women, and children, and in the Black Belt by the negroes. Usually the owner, who was perhaps entitled to exemption under the “twenty-negro” law, went to war and left his family and plantation to the care of the blacks. In no known instance was the trust misplaced. There was no insubordination among the negroes, no threat of violence. The negroes worked contentedly, though they were soon aware that if the war went against their masters their freedom would result.[581] Under the direction of the mistress, advised once in a while by letter from the master in the army, the black overseer controlled his fellow-slaves, planted, gathered, and sold the crops, paid the tax-in-kind (under protest), and cared for the white family.[582] In a day’s ride in the Black Belt no able-bodied white man was to be found.[583] When raiders came, the negroes saved the family valuables and concealed the farm cattle in the swamps, and though often mistreated by the plundering soldiers because they had hidden the property, they were faithful. Women and children felt safer then, when nearly all the white men were away, than they have ever felt since among free negroes.[584] The Black Belt could never again send out one-half as many whites to war, in proportion, as in 1861-1865.

Fidelity to Masters

The negroes had every opportunity to desert to the Federals, except in the interior of the state, but desertions were infrequent until near the close of the war. In the Tennessee valley many were captured and carried off to work in the Federal camps. Numbers of these captives escaped and gladly returned home. As the Federal armies invaded the neighboring states, negroes from Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and Mississippi were sent into the state to escape capture. In many instances the refugee slaves were in charge of one of their own number—the overseer or driver. The invading armies in 1865 found numbers of negro refugees doing their best to keep out of the way of the Federals. As a rule only the negroes of bad character or young boys deserted to the enemy or gave information to their armies. The young negroes who followed the Federal raiders did not meet with the treatment expected, and were glad enough to get back home. Most of the negroes disliked and feared the invaders until they came as intensely as the whites did.[585]

The devotion and faithfulness of the house-servants and of many of the field hands where they came in contact with the white people at “the big house” cannot be questioned.[586] On the part of these there was a desire to acquit themselves faithfully of the trust imposed in them.[587] It is one of the beautiful aspects of slavery. Yet this will not account for the good behavior of the blacks on the large plantations where a white person was seldom seen. They were as faithful almost as the house-servants. It was the faithfulness of trained obedience rather than of love or gratitude, for these were fleeting emotions in the soul of the average African.[588] On the other hand, the negro did not harbor malice or hatred. Constitutionally good-natured, the negroes were as faithful to a harsh and strict master as to one who treated them as men and brothers. Where one would expect a desire and an effort for revenge, there was nothing of the sort. Not so much love and fidelity, but training and discipline, made insurrection impossible among the blacks. Moreover, the negro lacked the capacity for organization under his own leaders. Had there been strong leaders and agitators, especially white ones, it is likely that there would have been insurrection, and a negro rising in Marengo County would have disbanded the Alabama troops. But the system of discipline prevented that.

The good church people maintain that one of the strongest influences to hold the negro to his duty was his religion. He had often been carefully instructed by preachers, black and white, and by his white master, and his religion was a real and living thing to him. Invariably the influence of the sturdy old black plantation preacher was exerted for good. This influence was strongly felt on the large plantations, where the negroes seldom held converse with white men.[589]

The negroes were frightened, during the last months of the war, at possible capture by the Federals and forced enlistment or deportation to freedom and work in camps. They had somewhat the small white child’s idea of a “Yankee” as some kind of a thing with horns. When the end was at hand and the bonds of the social order were loosening, the negro heard more of the freedom beyond the blue armies, and some of them hoped for and welcomed the invaders. When the armies came at last, most of the negroes helped, as before, to save all that could be saved from the plunderers. At the worst, the negro celebrated freedom by quitting work and following the armies. Much stealing was done by them with the encouragement of their deliverers, but the behavior of the blacks was always better than that of the invaders. Many rode off the plantation stock in order to be able to follow the army to freedom and no work. Some burned buildings, etc., because the army did. Most of the former house-servants remained faithful to the whites until it was no longer safe for a black man to be the friend of a native white.

On the whole the behavior of the slaves during the war, whatever may be the causes, was most excellent. To the last day of bondage the great majority were true against all temptations. With their white people they wept for the Confederate slain, were sad at defeat, and rejoiced in victory.[590]

Sec. 6. Schools and Colleges; Newspapers and Publishing Houses

Schools and Colleges

During the first year of the war the higher institutions of learning kept their doors open and the common schools went on as usual. The strongest educational institution was the University of Alabama, which was supported by state appropriations. In 1860 a military department was established at the university under Captain Caleb Huse, U.S.A., who afterwards became a Confederate purchasing agent in Europe. This step was not taken in anticipation of future trouble with the United States, but had been contemplated for years. The student body had been rather turbulent and hard to control, and for the sake of order they were put under a strict military discipline similar to the West Point system. Many students resigned early in 1861 and went into the Confederate service. Others, proficient in drill, were ordered by the governor to the state camps of instruction to drill the new regiments. There were no commencement exercises in 1861; but the trustees met and conferred degrees upon a graduating class of fifty-two, the most of whom were in the army.

The fall session of 1861 opened with a slight increase of students, but they were younger than usual,—from fourteen to seventeen years, and not as well prepared as before the war. Parents sent young boys to school to keep them out of the army; many went to get the military training in order that they might become officers later; the state needed officers and encouraged military education. The university was required to furnish drill-masters to the instruction camps without expense to the state. As soon as the boys were well drilled they usually deserted school and entered the Confederate service. This custom threatened to break up the school, and in 1862 all students were required to enlist as cadets for twelve months, and were not permitted to resign. Yet they still deserted in squads of two, three, and four, and went to the army. Recruiting officers would offer them positions as officers, and they would accept and leave the university. The students refused to study seriously anything except military science and tactics. Numbers refused to take the examinations in order that they might be suspended or expelled, and thus be free to enlist.

In 1862-1863, 256 students were enrolled,—more than ever before,—but mostly boys of fourteen and fifteen. The majority of them were badly prepared in their studies, and it was necessary to establish a preparatory department for them. In 1863-1864 there were 341 boys enrolled—younger than ever. At the end of this session the first commencement since 1860 was held, and degrees were conferred on a few who had enlisted and on one or two who had not. The enrolment during the session of 1864-1865 was between 300 and 400—all young boys of twelve to fifteen. The cadets were called out several times during this session to check Federal raids. Little studying was done; all were spoiling for a fight. When Croxton came, one night in 1865, the long roll was beaten, and every cadet responded. Under the command of the president and the commandant they marched against Croxton, whose force outnumbered theirs six to one. There was a sharp fight, in which a number of cadets were wounded, and then the president withdrew the corps to Marion in Perry County, where it was disbanded a few days later. It was now the end of the war. Croxton had imperative orders to burn the university buildings, and they were destroyed. There was a fine library, and the librarian, a Frenchman, begged in vain that it might be spared. The officers who fired the library saved one volume—the Koran—as a souvenir of the occasion.[591]

The Hospital for the Deaf and Dumb at Talladega and the Insane Asylum were continued throughout the war by means of state aid, and after the collapse of the Confederacy were not destroyed by the Federals.[592] La Grange College, a Methodist institution at Florence, in north Alabama, lost its endowment during the war, and after the occupation of that section by the Federals was closed. After the war it was given to the state, and is now one of the State Normal Colleges. In 1861, Howard College, the Baptist institution at Marion, sent three professors and more than forty students to the army. Soon there was only one professor left to look after the buildings; the rest of the faculty and all of the students had joined the army. The endowments and equipment of the college were totally destroyed. Nothing was left except the buildings.

The Southern University at Greensboro kept its doors open for three years, but had to close in 1864 for want of students and faculty. Most of its endowment was lost in Confederate securities. After two years of war the East Alabama College at Auburn suspended exercises. The buildings were then used as a Confederate hospital. The endowment was totally lost in Confederate bonds, and after the war the property was given to the state for the Agricultural and Mechanical College, now the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. The Catholic College at Spring Hill near Mobile, the Judson Institute at Marion, a well-known Baptist College for women, and the Methodist Woman’s College at Tuskegee managed to keep going during the war.[593] The student body at both male and female colleges was composed of younger and younger students each successive year. In 1865 only children were found in any of them.

In 1860 there were many private schools throughout the state. Every town and village had its high school or academy. For several years before the war military schools had been springing up over the state. State aid was often given these in the form of supplies of arms. Several were incorporated in 1860 and 1861. Private academies were incorporated in 1861 in Coffee, Randolph, and Russell counties, with the usual provision that intoxicating liquors should not be sold within a mile of the school. Charters of several schools were amended to suit the changed conditions. These schools were all destroyed, with the exception of Professor Tutwiler’s Green Springs School, which survived the war, though all its property was lost,[594] and two schools in Tuscaloosa. One of these, known as “The Home School,” was conducted by Mrs. Tuomey, wife of the well-known geologist, and the other by Professor Saunders in the building later known as the “Athenæum.”[595]

The only independent city public school system was that of Mobile, organized in 1852, after northern models. The Boys’ High School in this city was kept open during the war, though seriously thinned in numbers. The lower departments and the girls’ schools were always full.[596] The state system of schools was organized in 1855 on the basis of the Mobile system. It was not in full operation before the war came, though much had been done.

During the first part of the war public and private schools went on as usual, though there was a constantly lessening number of boys who attended. Some went to war, while others, especially in the white counties, had to stop school to look after farm affairs as soon as the older men enlisted. Teachers of schools having over twenty pupils were exempt,[597] but as a matter of fact the teachers who were physically able enlisted in the army along with their older pupils. The teaching was left to old men and women, to the preachers and disabled soldiers; most of the pupils were small girls and smaller boys. The older girls, as the war went on, remained at home to weave and spin or to work in the fields. In sparsely settled communities it became dangerous, on account of deserters and outlaws, for the children to make long journeys through the woods, and the schools were suspended. The schools in Baldwin County were suspended as early as 1861.[598]

Legislation for the schools went on much as usual. After the first year few new schools were established, public or private. Appropriations were made by the legislature and distributed by the county superintendents. When the Federals occupied north Alabama, the legislature ordered that school money should be paid to the county superintendents in that section on the basis of the estimates for 1861.[599] The sixteenth section lands were sold when it was possible and the proceeds devoted to school purposes.[600] A Confederate military academy was established in Mobile and conducted by army officers. The purpose of this institute was to give practical training to future officers and to young and inexperienced officers.

Few, if any, of the schools were entirely supported by public money. The small state appropriation was eked out by contributions from the patrons in the form of tuition fees. These fees were paid sometimes in Confederate money, but oftener in meat, meal, corn, cloth, yarn, salt, and other necessaries of life. The school terms were shortened to two or three months in the summer and as many in the winter. The stronger pupils did not attend school when there was work for them on the farm; consequently the summer session was the more fully attended. The school system as thus conducted did not break down, except in north Alabama, until the surrender, though many schools were discontinued in particular localities for want of teachers or pupils.

The quality of the instruction given was not of the best; only those taught who could do little else. The girls are said to have been much better scholars than the boys, whose minds ran rather upon military matters. Often their play was military drill, and listening to war stories their chief intellectual exercise.[601]

Some rare and marvellous text-books again saw the light during the war. Old books that had been stored away for two generations were brought out for use. Webster’s “blue back” Speller was the chief reliance, and when the old copies wore out, a revised southern edition of the book was issued. Smith’s Grammar was expurgated of its New Englandism and made a patriotic impression by its exercises. Davies’s old Arithmetics were used, and several new mathematical works appeared. Very large editions of Confederate text-books were published in Mobile, and especially in Richmond; South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia also furnished Confederate text-books to Alabama. Mobile furnished Mississippi.[602] I have seen a small geography which had crude maps of all the countries, including the Confederate States, but omitting the United States. A few lines of text recognized the existence of the latter country. Another geography was evidently intended to teach patriotism and pugnacity, to judge from its contents. Here are some extracts from W. B. Moore’s Primary Geography: “In a few years the northern states, finding their climate too cold for the negroes to be profitable, sold them to the people living farther south. Then the northern states passed laws to forbid any person owning slaves in their borders. Then the northern people began to preach, to lecture, and to write about the sin of slavery. The money for which they had sold their slaves was now partly spent in trying to persuade the southern states to send their slaves back to Africa.... The people [of the North] are ingenious and enterprising, and are noted for their tact in ‘driving a bargain.’ They are refined and intelligent on all subjects but that of negro slavery; on this they are mad.... This [the Confederacy] is a great country! The Yankees thought to starve us out when they sent their ships to guard our seaport towns. But we have learned to make many things; to do without others.

“Q. Has the Confederacy any commerce?

“A. A fine inland commerce, and bids fair, sometime, to have a grand commerce on the high seas.

“Q. What is the present drawback to our trade?

“A. An unlawful blockade by the miserable and hellish Yankee nation.”[603]

In some families the children were taught at home by a governess or by some member of the family. This was the case especially in the Black Belt, where there were not enough white children to make up a school. Many mistresses of plantations were, however, too busy to look after the education of their children, and the latter, when old enough, would be sent to a friend or relative who lived in town, in order to attend school.[604] Sometimes a planter had a school on his plantation for the benefit of his own children. To this school would be admitted the children of all the whites on the plantation, and of the neighbors who were near enough to come.[605]

Newspapers

In 1860 there were ninety-six periodicals of various kinds published in Alabama. About twenty-five of these suspended publication during the war and were not revived afterwards. Numbers of others suspended for a short time when paper could not be secured or when being moved from the enemy. The monthly publications—usually agricultural—all suspended. The so-called “unionist” newspapers of 1860 went to the wall early in the war or were sold to editors of different political principles.[606] In spite of the existence of war, the circulation decreased. Most of the reading men were in the army; the people at home became less and less able to pay for a newspaper as the war progressed, and many persons read a single copy, which was handed around the community. People who could not read would subscribe for newspapers and get some one to read for them. An eager crowd surrounded the reader. Papers left for a short time in the post-office were read by the post-office loiterers as a right. Few war papers are now in existence, there were so many uses for them after they were read.

It is said that the newspaper men did more service in the field in proportion to numbers than any other class. At the first sound of war many of them left the office and did not return until the struggle was ended. Often every man connected with a paper would volunteer, and the paper would then cease to be issued. There were instances when both father and son left the newspaper office, and one or both were killed in the war. Colonel E. C. Bullock of the Alabama troops was a fine type of the Alabama editor. The law exempted from service one editor and the necessary printers for each paper. But little advantage was taken of this; few able-bodied newspaper men failed to do service in the field.[607]

Sometimes in north Alabama publication had to cease because of the occupation of the country by the Federal forces, which confiscated or destroyed the printing outfits. It was difficult to get supplies of paper, ink, and other newspaper necessaries. No new lots of type were to be had at all during the whole war. Some papers were printed for weeks at a time on blue, brown, or yellow wrapping-paper. The regular printing-paper was often of bad quality and the ink was also bad, so that to-day it is almost impossible to read some of the papers. Others are as white and clean as if printed a year ago. A bound volume presents a variegated appearance—some issues clear and white and strong, others stained and greasy from the bad ink. The type was often so worn as to be almost illegible. In some instances, when the sense could be made out, letters were omitted from words, and even words were omitted, in order to save the type for use elsewhere.

The reading matter in the papers was not as a rule very exciting. Brief summaries were given of military operations, in which the Confederates were usually victorious, and of political events, North and South. One of the latest war papers that I have seen chronicles the defeat of Grant by Lee about April 10, 1865. Letters were printed from the editor in the field; former employees also wrote letters for the paper, and items of interest from the soldiers’ letters were published. New legislation, state and Confederate, was summarized. The governor’s proclamations were made public through the medium of the county newspapers. It was about the only way in which the governor could reach his people. The orders and advertisements of the army commissaries and quartermasters and conscript officers were printed each week; there were advertisements for substitutes, a few for runaway negroes, and a very few trade advertisements. If a merchant had a stock of goods, he was sure to be found without giving notice. Notices of land sales were frequent, but very few negroes were offered for sale. The price of slaves was high to the last, a sentimental price. Many papers devoted columns and pages to the printing of directions for making at home various articles of food and clothing that formerly had been purchased from the North—how to make soap, salt, stockings, boxes without nails, coarse and fine cloth, substitutes for tea, coffee, drugs, etc.

Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, and Tuscaloosa were the headquarters of the strongest newspapers. The Mobile Tribune and the Register and Advertiser were suppressed when the city fell; the material of the latter was confiscated. Both had been strong war papers. In April, 1865, the Montgomery Advertiser sent its material to Columbus, Georgia, to escape destruction by the raiders, but Wilson’s men burned it there. In Montgomery the newspaper files were piled in the street by Wilson and burned; and when Steele came, with the second army of invasion, the Advertiser, which was coming out on a makeshift press, was suppressed, and not until July was it permitted to appear again. The Montgomery Mail, edited by Colonel J. J. Seibels, who had leanings toward peace, began early in 1865 to prepare the people for the inevitable. Its attitude was bitterly condemned by the Advertiser and by many people, but it was saved from destruction by this course.[608]

Publishing Houses

Most of the people of Alabama had but little time for reading, and those who had the time and inclination were usually obliged to content themselves with old books. The family Bible was in a great number of homes almost the only book read. Most of the new books read were published in Atlanta, Richmond, or Charleston, though during the last two years of the war Mobile publishers sent out many thousand volumes. W. G. Clark and Co., of Mobile, confined their attention principally to text-books, but S. H. Goetzel was more ambitious. His list includes text-books, works on military science and tactics, fiction, translations, music, etc. The best-selling southern novel published during the war was “Macaria,” by Augusta J. Evans of Mobile. It was printed by Goetzel, who also published Mrs. Ford’s “Exploits of Morgan and his Men,” which was pirated or reprinted by Richardson of New York. Evans and Cogswell of Charleston published Miss Evans’s “Beulah.” Both “Macaria” and “Beulah” were reprinted in the North. Goetzel bound his books in rotten pasteboard and in wall-paper. Goetzel was also an enterprising publisher of translations. In 1864 he published (on wrapping-paper) a four-volume translation, by Adelaide de V. Chaudron, of Muhlbach’s “Joseph II and His Court.” He published other translations of Miss Muhlbach’s historical novels,—her first American publisher. Owen Meredith’s poem, “Tanhauser,” was first printed in America in Mobile. An opera of the same name was also published. Hardee’s “Rifle and Infantry Tactics,” in two volumes, and Wheeler’s “Cavalry Tactics” were printed in large editions by Goetzel for the use of Alabama troops.

Lieutenant-Colonel Freemantle’s book, “Three Months in the Southern States,” was published in Mobile in 1864, and in the same year the works of Dickens and George Eliot were reprinted by Goetzel. An interesting book published by Clark of Mobile was entitled “The Confederate States Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge.” It appeared annually to 1864 in Mobile and Augusta, and resembled the annual cyclopædias and year-books of to-day. Small devotional books and tracts were printed in nearly every town that had a printing-press. It is said that the church societies published no doctrinal or controversial tracts. Hundreds of different tracts, such as Cromwell’s “Soldier’s Pocket Bible,” were printed for distribution among the soldiers. But not enough Bibles and Testaments could be made. The northern Bible societies “with one exception” refused to supply the Confederate sinners. The American Bible Society of New York gave hundreds of thousands of Bibles, Testaments, etc., principally for the Confederate troops. At one time 150,000 were given, at another 50,000, and the work was continued after the war. In 1862 the British and Foreign Bible Society gave 310,000 Bibles, etc., for the soldiers, and gave unlimited credit to the Confederate Bible Society.[609]

After the surrender the material of the newspapers and publishing houses was confiscated or destroyed.

Sec. 7. The Churches during the War

Attitude of the Churches toward Public Questions

The religious organizations represented in the state strongly supported the Confederacy, and even before the beginning of hostilities several of them had placed themselves on record in regard to political questions. As a rule, there was no political preaching, but at conferences and conventions the sentiment of the clergy would be publicly declared.

The Alabama Baptist Convention, in 1860, declared, in a series of resolutions on the state of the country, that though standing aloof for the most part from political parties and contests, yet their retired position did not exclude the profound conviction, based on unquestioned facts, that the Union had failed in important particulars to answer the purpose for which it was created. From the Federal government the southern people could no longer hope for justice, protection, or safety, especially with reference to their peculiar property, recognized by the Constitution. They thought themselves entitled to equality of rights as citizens of the republic, and they meant to maintain their rights, even at the risk of life and all things held dear. They felt constrained “to declare to our brethren and fellow-citizens, before mankind and before our God, that we hold ourselves subject to the call of proper authority in defence of the sovereignty and independence of the state of Alabama and of her sacred right as a sovereignty to withdraw from this Union, and to make any arrangement which her people in constituent assemblies may deem best for securing their rights. And in this declaration we are heartily, deliberately, unanimously, and solemnly united.”[610] Bravely did they stand by this declaration in the stormy years that followed. A year later (1861) the Southern Baptist Convention adopted resolutions sustaining the principles for which the South was fighting, condemning the course of the North, and pledging hearty support to the Confederate government.[611] Like action was taken by the Southern Methodist Church, but little can now be found on the subject. One authority states that in 1860 the politicians were anxious that the Alabama Conference should declare its sentiment in regard to the state of the country. This was strongly opposed and frustrated by Bishops Soule and Andrew, who wanted to keep the church out of politics.[612] From another account we learn that in December, 1860, a meeting of Methodist ministers in Montgomery declared in favor of secession from the Union.[613]

In 1862 a committee report to the East Liberty Baptist Association urged “one consideration upon the minds of our membership: the present civil war which has been inaugurated by our enemies must be regarded as a providential visitation upon us on account of our sins.” This called forth warm discussion and was at once modified by the insertion of the words, “though entirely just on our part.”[614]

In 1863 the Alabama ministers—Baptist, Methodist Episcopal South, Methodist Protestant, United Synod South, Episcopal, and Presbyterian—united with the clergy of the other southern states in “The Address of the Confederate Clergy to Christians throughout the World.” The address declared that the war was being waged to achieve that which it was impossible to accomplish by violence, viz. to restore the Union. It protested against the action of the North in forcing the war upon the South and condemned the abolitionist policy of Lincoln as indicated in the Emancipation Proclamation. It made a lengthy defence of the principles for which the South was fighting.[615]

By law ministers were exempt from military service.[616] But nearly all of the able-bodied ministers went to the war as chaplains, or as officers, leading the men of their congregations. It was considered rather disgraceful for a man in good physical condition to take up the profession of preaching or teaching after the war began. Young men “called to preach” after 1861 received scant respect from their neighbors, and the government refused to recognize the validity of these “calls to preach.” The preachers at home were nearly all old or physically disabled men. Gray-haired old men made up the conferences, associations, conventions, councils, synods, and presbyteries. But to the last their spirit was high, and all the churches faithfully supported the Confederate cause. They cheered and kept up the spirits of the people, held society together against the demoralizing influences of civil strife, and were a strong support to the state when it had exhausted itself in the struggle. They gave thanks for victory, consolation for defeat; they cared for the needy families of the soldiers and the widows and orphans made by war. The church societies incorporated during the last year of the war show that the state relief administration had broken down. Some of them were, “The Methodist Orphans’ Home of East Alabama,” “The Orphans’ Home of the Synod of Alabama,” “The Samaritan Society of the Methodist Protestant Church,” “The Preachers’ Aid Society of the Montgomery Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.” The Episcopal Church was incorporated in order that it might make provision for the widows and orphans of soldiers.[617]

In 1861 the Presbyterian, Cumberland Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Methodist churches in Huntsville sent their bells to Holly Springs, Mississippi, and had them cast into cannon for a battery to be called the “Bell Battery of Huntsville.” Before they were used the cannon were captured by the Federals when they invaded north Alabama in 1862.[618]

Each command of volunteers attended church in a body before departing for the front. On such occasions there were special services in which divine favor was invoked upon the Confederate cause and its defenders. Religion exercised a strong influence over the southern people. The strongest denominations were the Methodists and the Baptists. Nearly all the soldiers belonged to some church, the great majority to the two just named. The good influence of the chaplains over the undisciplined men of the southern armies was incalculable. To the religious training of the men is largely due the fact that the great majority of the soldiers returned but little demoralized by the four years of war.[619]

Not only was the southern soldier not demoralized by his army life, but many passed through the baptism of fire and came out better men in all respects. The “poor whites,” so-called, arrived at true manhood, they fought their way into the front of affairs, and learned their true worth. The reckless, slashing temper of the young bloods disappeared. All were steadied and sobered and imbued with greater self-respect and respect for others. And the work of the church at home and in the army aided this tendency; its democratic influences were strong.

The white congregations at home were composed of women, old men, cripples, and children. Among the women the religious spirit was strongest; it accounts in some degree for their marvellous courage and constancy during the war. They were often called to church to sanctify a fast. The favorite readings in the Bible were the first and second chapters of Joel. They worked and fasted and prayed for protection and for victory.[620] The Bible was the most commonly read book in the entire land. The people, naturally religious before the war, became intensely so during the struggle.[621]

The Churches and the Negroes

After the separation of the southern churches from the northern organizations the religious instruction of the negroes was conducted under less difficulties, and greater progress was made. There was no longer danger of interference by hostile mission boards controlled by antislavery officials.[622] The mission work among the negroes was prospering in 1861, and while the white congregations were often without pastors during the war, the negro missions were always supplied.[623] Many negro congregations were united to white ones and were thus served by the same preacher; others were served by regular circuit riders. Some of the best ministers were preachers to the blacks, and were most devoted pastors. One winter a preacher in the Tennessee valley, when the Federals had burned the bridges, swam the river in order to reach his negro charge. The faithful blacks were waiting for him and built him a fire of pine knots. He preached and dried his clothes at the same time.[624]

The fidelity of the slave during these trying times called forth expressions of gratitude from the churches, and all of them did what they could to better his social and religious condition.[625] Often when there was no white preacher, the old negro plantation preacher took his place in the pulpit and preached to the white and black congregation.[626] The good conduct of the slaves during the war was due in large degree to the religious training given them by white and black preachers and by the families of the slaveholders. The old black plantation preacher was a tower of strength to the whites of the Black Belt.[627] The missions were destroyed by the victorious Unionists, and the negro members of the southern churches were encouraged to separate themselves from the “rebel” churches; and never since have the southern religious organizations been able to enter successfully upon work among the blacks.

The Federal Armies and the Southern Churches

With the advance of the Federal armies came the northern churches. Territory gained by northern arms was considered territory gained for the northern churches. Ministers came, or were sent down, to take the place of southern ministers, who were prohibited from preaching. The military authorities were especially hostile to the Methodist Episcopal Church South,[628] and to the Protestant Episcopal Church, annoying the ministers and congregations of these bodies in every way. They were told that upon them lay the blame for the war; they had done so much to bring it on. There were very few “loyal” ministers and no “loyal” bishops, but the Secretary of War at Washington, in an order dated November 30, 1863, placed at the disposal of Bishop Ames of the northern Methodist Church, all houses of worship belonging to the southern Methodist Church in which a “loyal” minister, appointed by a “loyal” bishop, was not officiating. It was a matter of the greatest importance to the government, the order stated, that Christian ministers should by example and precept support and foster the “loyal” sentiment of the people. Bishop Ames, the order recited, enjoyed the entire confidence of the War Department, and no doubt was entertained by the government but that the ministers appointed by him would be “loyal.” The military authorities were directed to support Bishop Ames in the execution of his important mission.[629] A second order, dated January 14, 1864, directed the military authorities to turn over to the American Baptist Home Mission Society all churches belonging to the southern Baptists. Confidence was expressed in the “loyalty” of this society and its ministers.[630] Other orders placed the Board of Home Missions of the United Presbyterian Church in charge of the churches of the Associate Reformed Church, and authorized the northern branches of the (O. S. and N. S.) Presbyterians to appoint “loyal” ministers for the churches of these denominations in the South.

Lincoln seems to have been displeased with the action taken by the War Department, but nothing more was done than to modify the orders so as to concern only the “churches in the rebellious states.”[631]

Under these orders churches in north Alabama were seized and turned over to the northern branches of the same denomination. In some of the mountain districts this was not opposed by the so-called “union” element of the population. But in most places bitter feelings were aroused, and controversies began which lasted for several years after the war ended. The northern churches in some cases attempted to hold permanently the property turned over to them during the war. In central and south Alabama, where the Federal forces did not appear until 1865, these orders were not enforced.

In the section of the country occupied by the enemy, the military authorities attempted to regulate the services in the various churches. Prayer had to be offered for the President of the United States and for the Federal government. It was a criminal offence to pray for the Confederate leaders. Preachers who refused to pray “loyal” prayers and preach “loyal” sermons were forbidden to hold services. In Huntsville, in 1862, the Rev. Frederick A. Ross, a celebrated Presbyterian clergyman, was arrested by General Rousseau, and sent North for praying a “disloyal” prayer in which he said, “We pray Thee, O Lord, to bless our enemies and to remove them from our midst as soon as seemeth good in Thy sight.” He seems to have been released, for in February, 1865, General R. S. Stanley wrote to General Thomas’s adjutant-general protesting against the policy of the provost-marshal in Huntsville, who had selected a number of prominent men to answer certain test questions as to “loyalty.” If not answered to his satisfaction, the person catechized was to be sent beyond the lines. Among other prominent citizens two ministers—Ross and Bannister—were selected for expulsion. These, General Stanley said, had never taken part in politics, and he thought it was a bad policy. However, he stated that General Granger wanted the preachers expelled.[632]

Throughout the war there was a disposition on the part of some army officers to compel ministers of southern sympathies to conduct “loyal” services—that is, to preach and pray for the success of the Federal government. It was especially easy to annoy the Episcopal clergy, on account of the formal prayer used, but other denominations also suffered. In one instance, a Methodist minister was told that he must take the oath (this was soon after the surrender) and pray for the President of the United States, or he must stop preaching. For a time he refused, but finally he took the oath, and, as he said, “I prayed for the President; that the Lord would take out of him and his allies the hearts of beasts and put into them the hearts of men, or remove the cusses from office. The little captain never asked me any more to pray for the President and the United States.”[633]

In the churches the situation at the close of the war was not promising for peace. Some congregations were divided; church property was held by aliens supported by the army; “loyal” services were still demanded; the northern churches were sending agents to occupy the southern field; the negroes were being forcibly separated from southern supervision; the policy of “disintegration and absorption” was beginning. Consequently the church question during Reconstruction was one of the most irritating.[634]

Sec. 8. Domestic Life

Society in 1861

During the early months of 1861 society was at its brightest and best. For several years social life had been characterized by a vague feeling of unrest. Political questions became social questions, society and politics went hand in hand, and the social leaders were the political leaders. The women were well informed on all questions of the day and especially on the burning sectional issues that affected them so closely. After the John Brown episode at Harper’s Ferry, the women felt that for them there could be no safety until the question was settled. They were strongly in favor of secession after that event if not before; they were even more unanimous than the men, feeling that they were more directly concerned in questions of interference with social institutions in the South. There was to them a great danger in social changes made, as all expected, by John Brown methods.[635]

Brilliant social events celebrated the great political actions of the day. The secession of Alabama, the sessions of the convention, the meeting of the legislature, the meeting of the Provisional Congress, the inauguration of President Davis—all were occasions for splendid gatherings of beauty and talent and strength. There were balls, receptions, and other social events in country and in town. There was no city life, and country and town were socially one. Enthusiasm for the new government of the southern nation was at fever heat for months. At heart many feared and dreaded that war might follow, but had war been certain, the knowledge would have turned no one from his course. When war was seen to be imminent, enthusiasm rose higher. Fear and dread were in the hearts of the women, but no one hesitated. From social gayety they turned to the task of making ready for war their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sweethearts. They hurriedly made the first gray uniforms and prepared supplies for the campaign. When the companies were fitted out and ready to depart, there were farewell balls and sermons, and presentations of colors by young women. These ceremonies took place in the churches, town halls, and court-houses. Speeches of presentation were made by young women, and of acceptance by the officers. The men always spoke well. The women showed a thorough acquaintance with the questions at issue, but most of their addresses were charges to the soldiers, encouragement to duty. “Go, my sons, and return victorious or fall in the cause of the South,” or a similar paraphrase, was often heard. One lady said, “We confide [to you] this emblem of our zeal for liberty, trusting that it will nerve your hearts and strengthen your hands in the hour of trial, and that its presence will forbid the thought of seeking any other retreat than in death.” Another maiden told her soldiers that “we who present this banner expect it to be returned brightened by your chivalry or to become the shroud of the slain.” “The terrors of war are far less to be feared than the degradation of ignoble submission,” the soldiers were assured by another bright-eyed girl. The legends embroidered or woven into the colors were such as these: “To the Brave,” “Victory or Death,” “Never Surrender.”[636]

There were dress parades, exhibition drills, picnics, barbecues; and then the soldiers marched away. After a short season of feverish social gayety, the seriousness of war was brought home to the people, and those left behind settled down to watch and wait and work and pray for the loved ones and for the cause. It was soon a very quiet life, industrious, strained with waiting and listening for news. For a long time the interior country was not disturbed by fear of invasion. Life was monotonous; sorrow came afresh daily; and it was a blessing to the women that they had to work so hard during the war, as constant employment was their greatest comfort.

Life on the Farm

The great majority of the people of Alabama lived in the country on farms and plantations. They had been dependent upon the North for all the finer and many of the commoner manufactured articles. The staple crop was cotton, which was sold in exchange for many of the ordinary necessaries of life. Now all was changed. The blockade shut off supplies from abroad, and the plantations had to raise all that was needed for feeding and clothing the people at home and the soldiers in the field. This necessitated a change in plantation economy. After the first year of war less and less cotton was planted, and food crops became the staple agricultural productions. The state and Confederate authorities encouraged this tendency by advice and by law. The farms produced many things which were seldom planted before the war, when cotton was the staple crop. Cereals were cultivated in the northern counties and to some extent in central Alabama, though wheat was never successful in central and south Alabama. Rice, oats, corn, peas, pumpkins, ground-peas, and chufas were grown more and more as the war went on. Ground-peas (called also peanuts, goobers, or pindars, according to locality) and chufas were raised to feed hogs and poultry. The common field pea, or “speckled Jack,” was one of the mainstays of the Confederacy. It is said that General Lee called it “the Confederacy’s best friend.” At “laying by” the farmers planted peas between the hills of corn, and the vines grew and the crop matured with little further trouble. Sweet potatoes were everywhere raised, and became a staple article of food.

Rice was stripped of its husk by being beaten with a wooden pestle in a mortar cut out of a section of a tree. The threshing of the wheat was a cause of much trouble. Rude home-made flails were used, for there were no regular threshers. No one raised much of it, for it was a great task to clean it. One poor woman who had a small patch of wheat threshed it by beating the sheaves over a barrel, while bed quilts and sheets were spread around to catch the scattering grains. Another placed the sheaves in a large wooden trough, then she and her small children beat the sheaves with wooden clubs. After being threshed in some such manner, the chaff was fanned out by pouring the grain from a measure in a breeze and catching it on a sheet.

Field labor was performed in the Black Belt by the negroes, but in the white counties the burden fell heavily upon the women, children, and old men. In the Black Belt the mistress of the plantation managed affairs with the assistance of the trusty negroes. She superintended the planting of the proper crops, the cultivation and gathering of the same, and sent to the government stores the large share called for by the tax-in-kind. The old men of the community, if near enough, assisted the women managers by advice and direction. Often one old gentleman would have half a dozen feminine planters as his wards. Life was very busy in the Black Belt, but there was never the suffering in this rich section that prevailed in the less fertile white counties from which the white laborers had gone to war. In the latter section the mistress of slaves managed much as did her Black Belt sister, but there were fewer slaves and life was harder for all, and hardest of all for the poor white people who owned no slaves. When few slaves were owned by a family, the young white boys worked in the field with them, while the girls of the family did the light tasks about the house, though at times they too went to the field. Where there were no slaves, the old men, cripples, women, and children worked on the little farms. All over the country the young boys worked like heroes. All had been taught that labor was honorable, and all knew how work should be done. So when war made it necessary, all went to work only the harder; there was no holding of hands in idleness. The mistress of the plantation was already accustomed to the management of large affairs, and war brought additional duties rather than new and strange problems; but the wife of the poor farmer or renter, left alone with small children, had a hard time making both ends meet.

Home Industries; Makeshifts and Substitutes

Many articles in common use had now to be made at home, and the plantation developed many small industries. There was much joy when a substitute was found, because it made the people independent of the outside world. Farm implements were made and repaired. Ropes were made at home of various materials, such as bear-grass, sunflower stalks, and cotton; baskets, of willow branches and of oak splints; rough earthenware, of clay and then glazed; cooking soda from seaweed and from corn-cob ashes; ink from nut-galls or ink balls, from the skin of blue fig, from green persimmons, pokeberries, rusty nails, pomegranate rind, and indigo. Cement was made from wild potatoes and flour; starch from nearly ripe corn, sweet potatoes, and flour. Bottles or gourds, with small rolls of cotton for wicks, served as lamps, and in place of oil, cotton-seed oil, ground-pea or peanut oil, and lard were used. Candles made of wax or tallow were used, while in the “piney woods” pine knots furnished all the necessary illumination. Mattresses were stuffed with moss, leaves, and “cat-tails.” No paper could be wasted for envelopes. The sheet was written on except just enough for the address when folded. In other instances wall-paper and sheets of paper with pictures on one side and the other side blank were folded and used for envelopes. Mucilage for the envelopes was made from peach-tree gum. Corn-cob pipes with a joint of reed or fig twig for a stem were fashionable. The leaves of the China tree kept insects away from dried fruit; the China berries were made into whiskey and were used as a basis for “Poor Man’s” soap. Wax myrtle and rosin were also used in making soap. Beer was made from corn, persimmons, potatoes, and sassafras; “lemonade” from may-pops and pomegranates. Dogwood and willow bark were mixed with smoking tobacco “to make it go a long way.” Shoes had to be made for white and black, and backyard tanneries were established. The hides were first soaked in a barrel filled with a solution of lye until the hair would come off, when they were placed in a pit between alternate layers of red oak bark and water poured in. In this “ooze” they soaked for several months and were then ready for use. The hides of horses, dogs, mules, hogs, cows, and goats were utilized, and shoes, harness, and saddles were made on the farm.

All the domestic animals were now raised in larger numbers, especially beef cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs. Sheep were raised principally for their wool. The work of all was directed toward supplying the army, and the best of everything was sent to the soldiers.

Home life was very quiet, busy, and monotonous, with its daily routine of duty in which all had a part. There were few even of the wealthiest who did not work with their hands if physically able. Life was hard, but people soon became accustomed to makeshifts and privation, and most of them had plenty to eat, though the food was usually coarse. Corn bread was nearly always to be had; in some places often nothing else. After the first year few people ever had flour to cook; especially was this the case in the southern counties. When a family was so fortunate as to obtain a sack or barrel of flour, all the neighbors were invited in to get biscuits, though sometimes all of it was kept to make starch. Bolted meal was used as a substitute for flour in cakes and bread. Most of the meat produced was sent to the army, and the average family could afford it only once a day, many only once a week. When an epidemic of cholera killed the hogs, the people became vegetarians and lived on corn bread, milk, and syrup; many had only the first.[637] Tea and coffee were very scarce in the interior of Alabama, and small supplies of the genuine were saved for emergencies. For tea there were various substitutes, among them holly leaves, rose leaves, blackberry and raspberry leaves; while for coffee, rye, okra seed, corn, bran, meal, hominy, peanuts, and bits of parched or roasted sweet potatoes were used. Syrup was made from the juice of the watermelon, and preserves from its rind. The juice of corn-stalks was also made into syrup. In south Alabama sugar-cane and in north Alabama sorghum furnished “long sweetening.” The sorghum was boiled in old iron kettles, and often made the teeth black. In south Alabama syrup was used instead of sugar in cooking. In grinding sugar-cane and sorghum, wooden rollers often had to be made, as iron ones were scarce. However, when they could be obtained, they were passed from family to family around the community.

Clothes and Fashions

Before the war most articles of clothing were purchased in the North or imported from abroad. Now that the blockade shut Alabama off from all sources of supply, the people had to make their cloth and clothing at home. The factories in the South could not even supply the needs of the army, and there was a universal return to primitive and frontier conditions. Old wheels and looms were brought out, and others were made like them. The state government bought large quantities of cotton and wool cards for the use of poor people. The women worked incessantly. Every household was a small factory, and in an incredibly short time the women mastered the intricacies of looms, spinning-wheels, warping frames, swifts, etc. Negro women sometimes learned to spin and weave. The whites, however, did most of it; weaving was too difficult for the average negro to learn. The area devoted to the cultivation of cotton was restricted by law, but more than enough was raised to supply the few factories then operating, principally for the government, and to supply the spinning-wheels and hand looms of the people.

As a rule, each member of the family had a regularly allotted task for each day in spinning or weaving. The young girls could not weave, but could spin;[638] while the women became expert at weaving and spinning and made beautiful cloth. All kinds of cotton goods were woven, coarse osnaburgs, sheetings, coverlets, counterpanes, a kind of muslin, and various kinds of light cloth for women’s dresses. Wool was grown on a large scale as the war went on, and the women wove flannels, plaids, balmorals, blankets, and carpets.[639] Gray jeans was woven to make clothing for the soldiers, who had almost no clothes except those sent them by their home people. A soldier’s pay would not buy a shirt, even when he was paid, which was seldom the case. Nearly every one wove homespun, dyed with home-made dyes, and it was often very pretty. The women took more pride in their neat homespun dresses than they did before the war in the possession of silks and satins. And there was friendly rivalry between them in spinning and weaving the prettiest homespun as there was in making the whitest sugar, the cleanest rice, and the best wheat and corn. But they could not make enough cloth to supply both army and people, and old clothes stored away were brought out and used to the last scrap. When worn out the rags were unravelled and the short threads spun together and woven again into coarse goods. Pillow-cases and sheets were cut up for clothes and were replaced by homespun substitutes, and window curtains were made into women’s clothes. Carpets were made into blankets. There were no blanket factories, and the legislature appropriated the carpets in the capitol for blankets for the soldiers.[640] Some people went to the tanyards and got hair from horse and cow hides and mixed it with cotton to make heavy cloth for winter use, which is said to have made a good-looking garment. Once in a long while the father or brother in the army would send home a bolt of calico, or even just enough to make one dress. Then there would be a very proud woman in the land. Scraps of these rare dresses and also of the homespun dresses are found in the old scrap-books of the time. The homespun is the better-looking. No one saw a fashion plate, and each one set the style. Hoop-skirts were made from the remains of old ones found in the garrets and plunder rooms. It is said that the southern women affected dresses that were slightly longer in front than behind, and held them aside in their hands. Sometimes fortunate persons succeeded in buying for a few hundred dollars some dress material that had been brought through the blockade. A calico dress cost in central Alabama from $100 to $600, other material in proportion. Sewing thread was made by the home spinners with infinite trouble, but it was never satisfactory. Buttons were made of pasteboard, pine bark, cloth, thread, persimmon seed, gourds, and wood covered with cloth. Pasteboard, for buttons and other uses, was made by pasting several layers of old papers together with flour paste.[641]

Sewing societies were formed for pleasure and to aid soldiers and the poor. At stated intervals great quantities of clothing and supplies were sent to the soldiers in the field and to the hospitals. All women became expert in crocheting and knitting—the occupations for leisure moments. Even when resting, one was expected to be doing something. Many formed the habit of knitting in those days and keep it up until to-day, as it became second nature to have something in the hands to work with. Many women who learned then can now knit a pair of socks from beginning to end without looking at them. After dark, when one could not see to sew, spin, or weave, was usually the time devoted to knitting and crocheting, which sometimes lasted until midnight. Capes, sacks, vandykes, gloves, socks and stockings, shawls, underclothes, and men’s suspenders were knitted. The makers ornamented them in various ways, and the ornamentation served a useful purpose, as the thread was usually coarse and uneven, and the ornamentation concealed the irregularities that would have shown in plain work. The smoothest thread that could be made was used for knitting. To make this thread the finest bolls of cotton were picked before rain had fallen on them and stained the fibre.

The homespun cloth had to be dyed to make it look well, and, as the ordinary dye materials could not be obtained, substitutes were made at home from barks, leaves, roots, and berries. Much experimentation proved the following results: Maple and sweet gum bark with copperas produced purple; maple and red oak bark with copperas, a dove color; maple and red walnut bark with copperas, brown; sweet gum with copperas, a nearly black color; peach leaves with alum, yellow; sassafras root with copperas, drab; smooth sumac root, bark, and berries, black; black oak bark with alum, yellow; artichoke and black oak, yellow; black oak bark with oxide of tin, pale yellow to bright orange; black oak bark with oxide of iron, drab; black oak balls in a solution of vitriol, purple to black; alder with alum, yellow; hickory bark with copperas, olive; hickory bark with alum, green; white oak bark with alum, brown; walnut roots, leaves, and hulls, black. Copperas was used to “set” the dye, but when copperas was not to be had blacksmith’s dust was used instead. Pine tree roots and tops, and dogwood, willow bark, and indigo were also used in dyes.[642]

Shoes for women and children were made of cloth or knitted uppers or of the skins of squirrels or other small animals, fastened to leather or wooden soles. A girl considered herself very fortunate if she could get a pair of “Sunday” shoes of calf or goat skin. There were shoemakers in each community, all old men or cripples, who helped the people with their makeshifts. Shoes for men were made of horse and cow hides, and often the soles were of wood. A wooden shoe was one of the first things patented at Richmond. Carriage curtains, buggy tops, and saddle skirts furnished leather for uppers, and metal protections were placed on leather soles. Little children went barefooted and stayed indoors in winter; many grown people went barefooted except in winter. Shoe blacking was made from soot mixed with lard or oil of ground-peas or of cotton-seed. This was applied to the shoe and over it a paste of flour or starch gave a good polish.

Old bonnets and hats were turned, trimmed, and worn again. Pretty hats were made of cloth or woven from dyed straw, bulrushes, corn-shucks, palmetto, oat and wheat straw, bean-grass, jeans, and bonnet squash, and sometimes of feathers. The rushes, shucks, palmetto, and bean-grass were bleached by boiling and sunning. Bits of old finery served to trim hats as well as feathers from turkeys, ducks, and peafowls, with occasional wheat heads for plumes. Fans were made of the palmetto and of the wing feathers and wing tips of turkeys and geese. Old parasols and umbrellas were re-covered, but the majority of the people could not afford cloth for such a purpose. Hair-oil was made from roses and lard. Thin-haired unfortunates made braids and switches from prepared bark.

The ingenious makeshifts and substitutes of the women were innumerable. They were more original than the men in making use of what material lay ready to hand or in discovering new uses for various things. The few men at home, however, were not always of the class that make discoveries or do original things. In an account of life on the farms and plantations in the South during the war, the white men may almost be left out of the story.

Drugs and Medicines

After the blockade became effective, drugs became very scarce and home-made preparations were substituted. All doctors became botanical practitioners. The druggist made his preparations from herbs, roots, and barks gathered in the woods and fields. Manufacturing laboratories were early established at Mobile and Montgomery to make medical preparations which were formerly procured abroad. Much attention was given to the manufacture of native preparations, which were administered by practitioners in the place of foreign drugs with favorable results. Surgeon Richard Potts, of Montgomery, Alabama, had exclusive charge of the exchange of cotton for medical supplies, and when allowed by the government to make the exchange, it was very easy for him to get drugs through the lines into Alabama and Mississippi. But this permission was too seldom given.[643]

Quinine was probably the scarcest drug. Instead of this were used dogwood berries, cotton-seed tea, chestnut and chinquapin roots and bark, willow bark, Spanish oak bark, and poplar bark. Red oak bark in cold water was used as a disinfectant and astringent for wounds. Boneset tea, butterfly or pleurisy root tea, mandrake tea, white ash or prickly ash root, and Sampson’s snakeroot were used in fever cases. Local applications of mustard seed or leaves, hickory leaves, and pepper were used in cases of pneumonia and pleurisy, while sumac, poke root and berry, sassafras, alder, and prickly ash were remedies for rheumatism, neuralgia, and scrofula. Black haw root and partridge berry were used for hemorrhage; peach leaves and Sampson’s snakeroot for dyspepsia and sassafras tea in the spring and fall served as a blood medicine. The balsam cucumber was used for a tonic, as also was dogwood, poplar, and rolled cherry bark in whiskey. Turpentine was useful as an adjunct in many cases. Hops were used for laudanum; may-apple root or peach tree leaf tea for senna; dandelion, pleurisy root, and butterfly weed for calomel. Corks were made from black gum roots, corn-cobs, and old life preservers. Barks were gathered when the sap was running, the roots after the leaves were dead, and medicinal plants when they were in bloom.[644] Opium was made from the poppy, cordials from the blackberry, huckleberry, and persimmon, brandy from watermelons and fruits, and wine from the elderberry.[645] Whiskey made in the hills of north Alabama, in gum log stills, formed the basis of nearly all medicinal preparations. The state had agents who looked after the proper distribution of the whiskey among the counties. The castor beans raised in the garden were crushed and boiled and the oil skimmed off.[646]

Social Life during the War

Life in the towns was not so monotonous as in the country. In the larger ones, especially in Mobile, there was a forced gayety throughout the war. Many marriages took place, and each wedding was usually the occasion of social festivities. In the country “homespun” weddings were the fashion—all parties at the wedding being clad in homespun. Colonel Thomas Dabney dined in Montgomery in November, 1864, with Mr. Woodleaf, a refugee from New Orleans. “They gave me,” he said, “a fine dinner, good for any time, and some extra fine music afterwards, according to the Italian, Spanish, and French books, for we had some of each sort done up in true opera fashion, I suppose. It was a leetle too foreign for my ear, but that was my fault, and not the fault of the music.”[647] The people were too busy for much amusement, yet on the surface life was not gloomy. Work was made as pleasant as possible, though it could never be made play. The women were never idle, and they often met together to work. There were sewing societies which met once a week for work and exchange of news. “Quiltings” were held at irregular intervals, to which every woman came armed with needle and thimble. At other times there would be spinning “bees,” to which the women would come from long distances and stay all day, bringing with them in wagons their wheels, cards, and cotton. When a soldier came home on furlough or sick leave, every woman in the community went to see him, carrying her work with her, and knitted, sewed, or spun while listening to news from the army. The holiday soldier, the “bomb-proof,” and the “feather bed” received little mercy from the women; a thorough contempt was the portion of such people. “Furlough” wounds came to receive slight sympathy.[648] The soldiers always brought messages from their comrades to their relatives in the community, which was often the only way of hearing from those in the army. Letters were uncertain, the postal system never being good in the country districts. Postage was ten to twenty cents on a letter, and one to five cents on small newspapers. Letters from the army gave news of the men of the settlement who were in the writer’s company or regiment, and when received were read to the neighbors or sent around the community. Often when a young man came home on furlough or passed through the country, there would be many social gatherings or “parties” in his honor, and here the young people gathered. There were parties for the older men, too, and dinners and suppers. Here the soldier met again his neighbors, or rather the feminine half of them, anxious to hear his experiences and to inquire about friends and relatives in the army. The young people also met at night at “corn shuckings” and “candy pullings,” from which they managed to extract a good deal of pleasure. At the social gatherings, especially of the older people, some kind of work was always going on. Parching pindars to eat and making peanut candy were amusements for children after supper.

The intense devotion of the women to the Confederate cause was most irritating to a certain class of Federal officers in the army that invaded north Alabama. They seemed to think that they had conquered entrance into society, but the women were determined to show their colors on all occasions and often had trouble when boorish officers were in command. A society woman would lose her social position if seen in the company of Federal officers. When passing them, the women averted their faces and swept aside their skirts to prevent any contact with the hated Yankee. They played and sang Confederate airs on all occasions, and when ordered by the military authorities to discontinue, it usually took a guard of soldiers to enforce the order. The Federal officers who acted in a gentlemanly manner toward the non-combatants were accused by their rude fellows and by ruder newspaper correspondents of being “wound round the fingers of the rebel women,” who had some object to gain. When the people of a community were especially contemptuous of the Federals, they were sometimes punished by having a negro regiment stationed as a garrison. Athens, in Limestone county, one of the most intensely southern towns, was garrisoned by a regiment of negroes recruited in the immediate vicinity.[649]

For the negroes in the Black Belt life went on much as before the war. More responsibility was placed upon the trusty ones, and they proved themselves worthy of the trust. They were acquainted with the questions at issue and knew that their freedom would probably follow victory by the North. Yet the black overseer and the black preacher, with their fellow-slaves, went on with their work. The master’s family lived on the large plantation with no other whites within miles and never felt fear of harm from their black guardians. The negroes had their dances and, ’possum hunts on Saturday nights after the week’s work was done. There was preaching and singing on Sunday, the whites often attending the negro services and vice versa. Negro weddings took place in the “big house.” The young mistresses would adorn the bride, and the ceremony would be performed by the old white clergyman, after which the wedding supper would be served in the family dining room or out under the trees. These were great occasions for the negroes and for the young people of the master’s family. The sound of fiddle and banjo, songs, and laughter were always heard in the “quarters” after work was done, though Saturday night was the great time for merrymaking. In July and August, after the crops were “laid by,” the negroes had barbecues and picnics. To these the whites were invited and they always attended. The materials for these feasts were furnished by the mistress and by the negroes themselves, who had garden patches, pigs, and poultry. The slaves were, on the whole, happy and content.

The clothes for the slaves were made under the superintendence of the mistress, who, after the war began, often cut out the clothes for every negro on the place, and sometimes assisted in making them. Some of the negro women had spinning-wheels and looms, and clothed their own families, while others spun, wove, and made their clothes under the direction of the mistress. But most of them could not be trusted with the materials, because they were so unskilful. It took a month or two twice a year to get the negroes into their new outfits. The rule was that each negro should have two suits of heavy material for winter wear and two of light goods for summer. To clothe the negroes during the war time was a heavy burden upon the mistress.

To those negroes who did their own cooking rations were issued on Saturday afternoon. Bacon and corn meal formed the basis of the ration, besides which there would be some kind of “sweetening” and a substitute for coffee.[650] Special goodies were issued for Sunday. The negroes in the Black Belt fared better during the war than either the whites or the negroes in the white counties. When there were few slaves or in the time of great scarcity, the cooking for whites and blacks was often done in the house kitchen by the same cooks. This was done in order to leave more time for the negroes to work and to prevent waste. Where there were many slaves, there was often some arrangement made by which cooking was done in common, though there were numbers of families that did their own cooking at home all the time. When meat was scarce, it was given to the negro laborers who needed the strength, while the white family and the negro women and children denied themselves.

As the Confederate government did not provide well for the soldiers, their wives and mothers had to supply them. The sewing societies undertook to clothe the soldiers who went from their respective neighborhoods. Once a week or once a month, a box was sent from each society. One box sent to the Grove Hill Guards contained sixty pairs of socks, twenty-five blankets, thirteen pairs of gloves, fourteen flannel shirts, sixteen towels, two handkerchiefs, five pairs of trousers, and one bushel of dried apples. Other boxes contained about the same. Hams and any other edibles that would keep were frequently sent and also simple medicine chests. When blankets could not be had, quilts were sent, or heavy curtains and pieces of carpet. With the progress of the war, there was much suffering among the soldiers and their destitute families that the state could do but little to relieve, and the women took up the task. Besides the various church aid societies, we hear of the “Grove Hill Military Aid Society” and the “Suggsville Soldiers’ Aid Society,” both of Clarke County; the “Aid Society of Mobile”; the “Montgomery Home Society” and the “Soldiers’ Wayside Home,” in Montgomery; the “Wayside Hospital” and the “Ladies’ Military Aid Society” of Selma; the “Talladega Hospital”; the “Ladies’ Humane Society” of Huntsville,[651] and many others. The legislature gave financial aid to some of them. Societies were formed in every town, village, and country settlement to send clothing, medicines, and provisions to the soldiers in the army and to the hospitals. The members went to hospitals and parole camps for sick and wounded soldiers, took them to their homes, and nursed them back to health. “Wayside Homes” were established in the towns for the accommodation of soldiers travelling to and from the army. Soldiers on sick leave and furlough who were cut off from their homes beyond the Mississippi came to the homes of their comrades, sure of a warm welcome and kind attentions. Poor soldiers sick at home were looked after and supplies sent to their needy families.