tiful lands of the garden spot of earth, as I have said,
were torn and pillaged and ruined, not alone by the fortunes of
civilized warfare, but by the ghastly horrors of cruelty and needless
vandalism. It is not the purpose of this paper to fight those battles
over. The strife lasted four years. The population of the North was
22,000,000; that of the South 9,000,000, of whom three and one-half
millions were slaves. The North was four times as great in numbers
as the South.

The North had three times as many armies. The South could not get enough
small arms for many months. All foundries for cannon, and all except two
powder mills were in the North. The North had food and provisions in
abundance. The South planted cotton and tobacco, but could not even in
times of peace, raise enough food, but were accustomed to buy from the
North and from Europe.

The Union had a treasury and a navy: the Confederacy had neither.
The North could renew supplies from abroad. The Southern ports were
blockaded and many necessaries of life were shut off. The Confederacy
set to work to make arms, ammunitions, blankets, saddles, harness,
and other necessities. Bells from churches and halls, dinner bells,
plantation and fire bells, along with stray pieces of metal, were melted
and cast into cannon. Old nails were saved and blacksmiths made of them
clumsy needles, pins and scissors.

For coffee was used burnt rye, okra, corn, bran, chickory and sweet
potato peelings. For tea, raspberry leaves, corn fodder and sassafras
root. There was not enough bacon to be had to keep the soldiers alive.
Sorghum was used for sugar.

The women and girls helped in every possible manner. Silk dresses
were made into banners, woolen dresses and shawls into soldiers'
shirts--carpets into blankets--curtains, sheets, and all linens, were
made into lint and bandages for the wounded. Soft white fingers knitted
socks, shirts and gloves, to keep the cold from the men in the trenches.
Calico was $10 per yard quite early in the strife. Homespun was made
upon the old colonial wheels and looms that had been kept as souvenirs
and curios. Buttons were obtained from persimmon seeds with holes
pierced for eyes. Women plaited their hats from straw or palmetto leaf,
and used feathers from barnyard fowls.

One mourning dress would be loaned from house to house as disaster came.
Shoes were made of wood, or carriage curtains, buggy tops, saddle tops
or any thing like leather. Ther