Show WAR TIME MAKESHIFTS SOME OF THE EXPEDIENTS FOR SUPPLYING SUP-PLYING NATURES WANTS rood and Clothing in the War Period In the Southern States Vero Difficult t to Get The Mother of Invention Piled Her Wits i RALEIGH N C May 16 One of the most curious features of the late war in the south was the variety of expedients to which the people resorted re-sorted t supply thor wants which b Not until communication came pressing untl communiction t t with the north had been cut off did the people recognize the fact and fully realize it that too south had been actually dependent upon the northern manufacturer for hundreds I hun-dreds of articles in daily use Factories were I few and t ese in the main made only the I commoner kinds of tobacco and cotton cloths Every article found in a store in 1SG1 was sure to bo of northern manufacture and with that always higher appreciation of other peoples handiwork or talents a held in I higher esteem than anything homo made Each Christmas in those days shoes were given the negroes A common question was gen made dein shoes Dey want made would be the reply dey come outen do store By the close of 1801 home made goods gs came into use mainly from pure necessity Ihe latter being the mother of invention it speedily followed that in North Carolina Inventors In-ventors and clever inventions became quickly t numerous and varied Salt shoes clothing and hats were prime necessities The demand i for salt was very great There were two I sources of supply the sea and tho salt works in Virginia But these could do little toward supplying the demand at first though later I their output was larger A sack of salt which at firs > t sold for 2 rose t 30 in gold and even then L it was a privilege to obtain it Many families I in the interior made salt from the earth in then smoke houses This earth had gathered In tho course of years much salt from the J meats which were smoked in such houses in those days I was dug up and leached in a rude ash hopper just as ashes are leached for lye A biine with mom or less strength was obtained This was concentrated by boiling and then allowed to crystallize It was not the best article in the world but it was undeniably un-deniably sl which was the one thing needful The government later took charge of the salt works and employed specially trained men m largo numbers in the manufacture of that necessity Its price was regulated by military mili-tary rules and it became more abundant und of fa better quality For clothing homespun oa the only wear In those days rude spinning wheels und hand looms of antique pattern were common Those who had relinquished the use of these or who had used them only in the mono faclnre of servants clothing speedily found it necessary t use them themselves Ocut rs were made with some impiovements in < Ie sign and there was on eager search for dye ing materials The were cs a rule vegetable vege-table Indigo barks of various kinds Hg et were largely used The country weaver who made n good article of brown jeans witli cotton warp and wool filling was in great demand Many of the wealthiest and lost cultured women both made and wore the coarsest of homespun cloths For underwent rough factory cotton or cotton made on the hand looms was tho bet thing to b obtained I was said by very old people that time had been turned back threequarters of a century and that people in tie main resorted to as primitive methods of living and t primile mrthos preparing prepar-ing clothing et as w ei e in use in the days ol tho revolution of 17TO Leather was in great demand and since there i nothing like leather it was found that it admitted of no substitute Many farmers had tan troughs made out of large logs or of planks and large enough t hold a dozen hides In these they rudely tanned with oak bark the skins of their own and their neighbors cattle for upper leather Tho sole leather a a rule I was made at the regular tanneries So very urgent and constant was the demand for shoes that frequently the hides were not allowed al-lowed t remain in the troughs long enough to become tanned thoroughly but had t betaken be-taken out and used while partly raw They er utilized while of a brown or russet color and were not black Attempts at polishing pol-ishing such leather were infrequent Tho demand de-mand for solo leather overtaxed the capacity of the tanneries and the faun houses were ransacked for any articles in which heavy leather was used Old tiunlcs were cut up and particularly the ample skirts then in ue of saddles I the owner of such a saddle did not speedily utilize its heavy flaps for his I ow use some one else would steal them Shoeless men could not resist the tcmotatior of such a saddle and instances were fmc quent where the owner having left his boise saddled and tied t a post returned to find his saddle innocent of skirts Such thefts occurred oc-curred even outside of churches The flap of the saddle went out of use and the rawhide saddle without it came in vogue universally Solo leather finally became so scarce and high that the people resorted to wood as a sub > ti tute for the soles of shoes These wooden woen bottoms as they were called consisted of bottms woe cled consistd a sole and lIe all in a solid piece It was cutout cut-out of maple or gum wood as a rule sometimes some-times with a knife again by rude machinery Later such wood bottoms were sold by a number of expert makers who kept on hand various sizes for mens wear Farm hands wore them largely From the middle the sole turned up toward tho toe so that the foot in walking would have a rolling motion forward which was necessary as r tho li id solo necer rigid could not bend Into a groove cut around the upper edge of the wooden bottom bot-tom the upper leather was secured by means of wooden pegs or iron tacks when the latter could b had I was found that the wood bottom made a dry warm shoe and after a little practice one which was worn without special inconvenience The heel and sole were always protected by narrow straps of iron around the edges to prevent rapid wear The shoes made a great deal of noise when used in the house or on hard ground and on nights when there a a stillness in the air and the ground was frozen hard the footsteps foot-steps of brisk walkers thus shod step brik walker bho were easily heard at a distance of half a mile Old men had rude difficulty in becoming accustomed t this and new footgear and one venerable man declared that ho wished tho plagued plage things had never been agitated In snow walking with these shoes was difficult as the a snow bale n it does in a horses hoof Kerosene oil had not been in use a great while when the gnt hie war began but had yet pine tically displaced the candle The lack of oil rendered the rendere lamps useless and the tallow candlebecame supreme In the matter of JigUfc a in other things there were inven ton One of these was a taper which was made by drawing a thick wick of loosely hrit cotton through a pan of melted b wax and r in This operation was repeated rept until the wick mekwhlch unt was generally twenty t fifty yards in length was tbo tenty a pencil J While and looked like 1 rope of yellow s wa Whie it was yet warm this wick was wound on a bottle or on n corncob often i fantastic shapes One end turned up was lighted and lgbt ad the taper was placed rpr plac upon the table at supper time or for 1 reading light Such a taper burned slowly but yet had t b watched and turned up From time t time the burn ing end was unwound and pulled up Some times there was carelessness and the entire taper caught on fire from the wick Another device for light was n saucer or platter of melted lard in which floated a ball from the sycamore or cotton wood tree These balls which were dry and absorbent and quite inflammable flammable burned readily acting a a Trick and keeping the lard melted One ball gave gve foP asniu h light as an ordiaarv kerosene i lamp The tallow dip the wax taper on the candle each had their advocates Other people who desired a more powerful illumination illumi-nation returned t an even more primitive custom and used pine knots which in the fireplace made a glare which made 1 room all ablaze with light ap People i the country particularly were put t great straits for writing paper and envelopes en-velopes All old letters were resurrected and all extra sheets of paper removed therefrom Old letters written on one side of the paper were again brought out and the other side used Old books were cut up and the paper ten for this purpose Envelopes were cutout cut-out of any kind of paper by the u of a sharp knife and a wooden pattern Cherry treo or peach tree gum furnished the mucilage ale being dissolved in vinegar These envelopes en-velopes were often made by children and sold at from f t 6 per pack in Confederate or state currency Many letters were mailed in the old style of a century since without envelopes en-velopes Goose quills furnished pens a of yore and buzzard and turkey quills were also used Polkberries elderberries and the galls of the red oak tree furnished ink copperas cop-peras being used in the solution Sharpened bar of lead were used a pencils while for slate pencils old slates were cut up into na row strips and rounded with a knife Occasionally Occa-sionally a partially cindered bone of a chicken was used asa slate pencil but proved rather too soft As for school books kind sCt A bk any were used many of them being half a century old Occasionally in the country schools no two books could b found alike In the manufacture of shoe blacking lamp black or the charcoal of burned wheat or oat straw mixed with tallow and beeswax was used Some used buttermilk into which all the lampblack it would dissolve was mixed I the manufacture of hat and bonnet both ingenuity and taste were shown Boys and girls a well a women devoted much time t braiding long rolls of wheat oat or rye straw for hat braids Palmetto was split and braided Artificial flowers brde Afcinl flower were homemade home-made of feathers in their natural color or dyed and from muslin For ordinary wear bonnets were mae in poke style of marsh rushes dried cut in proper lengths and woven in a open warp of cotton Such bonnets bon-nets presented a really tidy appearance Wheat or rye straw was also used the same way The making of such bonnet was laborious a the straws or rushes had to b laid in the warp one by one by hand Old buttons were covered and recovered nd new one were cast from pewter Ship cut from small thin gourds were covered with cloth and did good duty as buttons The re pair of corsets when ribs were broken was a puzzle but for only a little while for it was found that hickory splints served the purr well and white oak was as serviceable |