Civil War Do-It-Yourself ers
MKDrOrlD MAiL HUBUrtK. MLDrOHD, OREGON
By MERTON T. AKERS
UPI Correspondent
The Confederacy ran out of
salt, shoes and medicine in
1863.
Salt was a precious com
modity in Civil War days.
Without refrigeration, meat
could be preserved only with
salt. No salt, no meat. And
meat was the staple article of
diet along with corn meal and
sweet potatoes. Not only did
the Confederate army need
meat it never had enough
from war's start to end but
the plantations where the food
was produced needed a big
supply to feed the slaves who
did the work.
Before the war the South
consumed about six million
bushels of salt every year.
Most of it came from Europe
and the West Indies, some
from the North. The Federal
blockade cut off all this sup
ply early in the war and by
1863 the salt situation was
critical.
At the start of the war salt
sold for 75 cents a bushel.
Later it went to $12.50 and at
war's end black marketeers
were asking and getting $40 to
$50 a bushel.
Luxury Profits Higher
Salt was too bulky for
blockade runners to bring in
and, anyway, profits on lux
uries were higher and ship
captains crammed in cham
pagne and pate de fois gras
among the munition cargoes.
The profits on these were fan
tastic and often patriotism
ran a bad second to money.
Salt boiling soon became a
profitable industry and Flori
da, with its easy access to the
sea and comparative freedom
from war ravages, offered the
best facilities. By 1863 the
coves on both coasts of Flor
ida were dotted with salt boil
ers. Besides these commercial
salt works, many families
camped on the beach and
boiled a season's supply as
they vacationed.
Susan Bradford, teen-age
daughter of a plantation own
ef near Tallahassee and a
keen observer of wartime life,
recorded in her dairy one such
salt boiling expedition in
1863.
"The great big sugar kettles
were filled full of water and
fires made beneath the ket
tles. They are a long time
heating up and then they boil
merrily ... A white foam
comes at first and then the
dirtiest scum you ever saw
bubbles and dances over the
surface; as the water boils
away it seems to get thicker
and thicker, at last only a wet
Joint Boardman
Briefing Talked
Salem - IUPII - A joint ses
sion of the legislature may be
called Friday for a briefing
on progress in the Boardman
space age development proj
ect. The possibility of a special
joint session merged after
four-way talks between Gov.
Mark Hatfield, Sen. Wayne
Morse, Senate President Ben
Musa, and House Speaker
Clarence Barton.
It was revealed Saturday
that Morse had accepted Hat
field's invitation to join him
here Friday afternoon for a
discussion of the Boardman
project with the Army Corps
of Engineers.
Musa and Barton indicated
they would invite Hatfield
and Morse to address a joint
session if they felt progress
had leached a point where
details of the negotiations
should be aired before the
full legislature.
Local Insurance Men
Are Awarded Trophies
Wayne H. Safley, Medford,
was awarded the "Man of
the Year" trophy for 1962 by
the Portland Agency of the
Aetna Life Insurance com
pany for writing more than
$1,000,000 worth of life,
group and accident and health
insurance, according to
George C. Fraser, general
agent.
Curt Hopkins of the Med
ford agency was awarded the
"Man of the Year" award for
the highest group production.
He wrote in excess of $4,000.
000 of group insurance busi
ness for 1962.
mass of what looks like sand
remains. This they spread on
smooth oaken planks to dry.
In bright weather the sun
does the rest of the work of
evaporation, but if the wea
ther is bad, fires are made
just outside of a long, low
shelter where the planks are
placed on blocks of wood. The
shelter keeps off the rain and
the fires give out heat enough
to carry on the evaporation.
"The salt finished in fair
weather ij much whiter and
nicer in every way than that
dried in bad weather, but this
dark salt is used to salt meat
or to pickle pork."
Squirrel Skint Tanned
Susan also ran out of shoes
in 1863.
"I had no shoes," she wrote,
"except some terribly rough
ones . . . and Cousin Rob tan
ned some squirrel skins and
made me a pair of really beau
tiful shoes, nice enough to
wear with my one and only
silk dress (made from one of
her mother's old ones)."
Later when the squirrel
shoes wore out Susan impro
vised another pair.
"Today I have on railroad
stockings and slippers," she
wrote. "Guess what these slip
pers are made of? Whenever
I go to Uncle Richard's I see
an old black uncle hard at
work plaiting shucks and
weaving the plaits into door
mats. It seemed to me a light
er braid might be sewed into
something resembling shoes,
so I picked out the softest
shucks and soon had enough
to make one slipper. So
pleased was I that I soon had
a pair of shoes ready to wear.
They are a little rough so I
have pasted inside a lining of
velvet. Everybody laughed
but I feel quite proud."
Mary B o y k i n Chestnut,
whose dairy has become a
Civil War classic, was visit
ing her ill mother in Alabama
in 1863. Her uncle gave her a
pair of shoes.
"What a gift!" she record
ed. "For more than a year I
have had none but some
dreadful things that Armi
stead makes for me, and they
hurt my feet so. These do not
fit, but that is nothing; they
are large enough and do not
pinch anywhere. I have abso
lutely a respectable pair of
shoes!"
Makeshift shoes were fash
ioned differently in southern
Alabama. Miss Parthenia An
toinette Hague, a school teach
er, left an account of impro
vised shoes as made on a plan
tation.
"Our shoes, particularly
those of women and children
were made of cloth or knit,'
she wrote. "Some one had
learned to knit slippers, and
it was not long before most
of the women of our settle
ment had a pair of slippers on
knitting needles. They were
knit of homespun thread, ei
ther cotton or wool . . . the
slippers or shoes were lined
with cloth of suitable tex
ture . . .
"Sometimes we put on the
soles ourselves . . ripping the
soles off (of old shoes), placing
them in warm water . . . then
stitching (on) our knit slip
pers or shoes . . ."
Homemade Remedies
Medicine was barred by the
blockade. What little there
was went to the army. Women
who remained at home to run
the plantations reverted to
pioneer days for their home
made remedies.
"The woods were our drug
stores," Miss Hague recorded.
"The berries of the dog-wood
tree were taken for quinine
... A soothing and efficacious
cordial for dysentery and sim
ilar ailments was made from
blackberry roots; but ripe
persimmons, when made into
a cordial, were thought to be
far superior to blackberry
roots. An extract of the barks
of the wild cherry, dogwood,
popular, and wahoo trees
were used for chills and agues.
For coughs and all lung dis
eases a syrup made with the
leaves and roots of the mul
lein plant, globe flower, and
wild cherry bark was thought
to be infallible. Of course the
castor-bean plant was gath
ered in the wild state in the
forest, for making castor oil.
"Many also cultivated a few
rows of poppies in their gar
dens to make opium, from
which our laudanum was cre
ated; and at this time was
very needful. The manner of
extracting opium from pop
pies was of necessity crude.
PRE-INVENTORY
STOCK REDUCTION & SALE
NEW AND USED
TYPEWRITERS
Undtrwood Olivetti Royal
Smith-Cofon Rtmington
NEW ADDING MACHINES
HAND 79.50 plus tax
ELECTRIC 83.73 to 159.50
Minuhird in USA SEE THEM 1 TRY THEM AT
VOIGHT'S 8th & Grape
The heads of bulbs of the pop
pies were plucked when ripe,
the capsules pierced with a
large-sized sewing needle, and
the bulbs placed in some
small vessel for the opium
gum to exude and to become
inspissated (thickened) b y
evaporation. The soporific in
fluence of this drug was not
excelled by that of the im
ported articles."
Southern housewives also
took to the woods for their
blue dye.
'Mud' Extracted
They gathered indigo plants
and extracted "indigo mud,"
a brilliant blue coloring.
Miss Hague described an
"indigo churning":
"When the weed had ma
tured sufficiently ... the
plants were cut close to the
ground, our steeping vats
were closely packed with the
weed, and water enough to
cover the plant was poured in.
The vat was then left eight or
nine days . . . Then the plant
was rinsed out, so to speak,
and the water in the vat was
churned up and down with a
basket for quite a while: weak
lye was added as a precipitate,
which caused the indigo par
ticles held in solution to fall
to the bottom of the vat: the
water was poured off, and the
'mud' was placed in a sack
and hung up to drip and dry."
wi:V ijj- vvniLii
Pan-American Notes
Increase in Earnings
New York Pan-American
World Airways report
ed last week that 1962 earn
ings rose 62.6 per cent and
revenues reached the half
billion - dollar mark for the
first time last year.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11. 1963 J
History Is Repeated In Roman Gravel Pit
New York - (UPI) - Several . ercd an ancient plaque in La-
years ago Trans World air
lines workmen in Rome were
under instructions to dig grav
el for ballast for piston-engine
Constellations from one cen
tral pit in an effort to stop
spoiling the site with a multi
tude of holes.
tin which, loosely translated,
was an admonition to Roman
workmen from their super
visor instructing them to dig
gravel for ballast for Roman
ships from one central pit
rather than the area with
While digging they discov-1 a multitude of holes.
PEOPLE IMPROVISED Jn early 1863
the South began to run out of things such
as salt, shoes and medicine, and the people
of the Confederacy began to improvise. Salt
was boiled out of sea water, shoes were made
from hides and corn shucks and the woods
became drug stores. Other items had to be
fashioned in the homes, too. There was no
shortage of cotton, just of manufactured
cotton cloth. Old hand looms and spinning
wheels were pressed into service. Here, in
an etching by Adalbert J. Volch, Southern
women are shown making cloth for the
troops' uniforms. The etching is from the
Library of Congress collection. (UPI)
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