Page 224 - Arkansas Confederate Women

;

Letter of Mrs. Jefferson Davis to J. L. Underwood 197

The ladies picked their old silk pieces into fragments, and

spun them into gloves, stockings, and scarfs for the soldiers'

necks, etc. ; cut up their house linen and scraped it into lint

tore up their sheets and rolled them into bandages; and toasted

sweet potatoe slices brown, and made substitutes for coffee.

They put two tablespoonfuls of sorghum molasses into the wat-

er boiled for coffee instead of sugar, and used none other for

their little children and families. They covered their old shoes

with old kid gloves or with pieces of silk and their little feet

looked charming and natty in them. In the country they made

their own candles, and one lady sent me three cakes of sweet

soap and a small jar of soft soap made from the skin, bones

and refuse bits of hams boiled for her family. Another sent

me the most exquisite unbleached flax thread, of the smoothest

and finest quality, spun by herself. I have never been able to

get such thread again. I am still quite feeble, so I must close

with the hope that your health will steadily improve and the

assurance that I am, Yours sincerely,

V. JEFFERSON DAVIS.

VIVID HISTORY OF OUR BATTLE FLAG.

From the Confederate Veteran May 1900.
Gen. W. L. Cabell, now of Dallas, Texas, who was chief

quartermaster of the Confederate army in Virginia at the time
referred to, furnished the following to the Veteran May 25,

1900:

When the Confederate army, commanded by Gen. Beaure-

gard, at Manassas and the Federal army confronted each other,
it was seen that the Confederate flag (stars and bars) and the
stars and stripes at a distance looked so much alike that it was
hard to distinguish one from the other. Gen. Beauregard,
thinking that serious mistakes might be made in recognizing
our troops, after the battle of July 18 at Blackburn Ford, or-
dered that a small red badge should be worn on the left shoulder
by our troops, and, as I was chief quartermaster, ordered me
to purchase a large amount of red flannel and to distribute a