Page 217 - Arkansas Confederate Women

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192 Confederate Women op Arkansas

was present thinking if the general knew her social position,
he would feel more inclined to grant her request, introduced her
as the "sister of Commodore Perry, our distinguished naval
officer." But the patriotic old lady remarked with a good deal
of spirit, "I did not come here as the sister of Commodore
Perry, but as the mother of seven sons in the Confederate army,

and I want my old gray horse."

It is needless to say that the Federal officer, admiring her
independence, promptly restored the animal to its owner.

MISS JULIA EGBERTS, Charlotte, N". C.

THE HOMESPUN DRESS.

This ballad was written by Miss Carrie Belle Sinclair in
the midsummer of 1862.

There was a rivalry with the Augusta girls as to who should
have the neatest homespun dress, and from this incident she
took the idea and wrote that old war song.

The poem was first published in an Augusta paper and was
copied in the Savannah Morning News.

"The Homespun Dress" was sung to the popular air of
"The Bonnie Blue Flag," by a member of the "Queen Sisters,"
an English family, then holding the boards of the theatre, and
this, with other songs written. by her, soon won for their author

the name, "Songbird of the South."

THE HOMESPUN DRESS.
Oh yes, I am a Southern girl,

And glory in the name.
And boast it with far greater pride

Than glittering wealth or fame.

I envy not the Northern girl
Her robes of beauty rare,

Though diamonds grace her snowy neck
And pearls bedeck her hair.

Chorus