The Black Flag is Raised

This entry is from the Memphis Daily Appeal, December 4, 1861.  This was one approach towards the war that was being advocated by some Confederates.

A call to raise the "black flag" in Memphis; the rhetoric and logic of war  We unhesitatingly say that the cause of justice and the cause of humanity itself, demands that the black flag shall be unfurled on every battlefield-that extermination and death shall be proclaimed against the hellish miscreants who persist in polluting our soil with their crimes. We will stop the effusion of blood, we will arrest the horrors of war, by terrific slaughter of the foe, by examples of overwhelming and unsparing vengeance. When Olive Cromwell massacred the garrison at Drogheda, suffering not a man to escape, he justified it on the ground that his object was to bring the war to a close-to stop the effusion of blood-and, that it was, therefore, a merciful act on his part. The South can afford no longer to trifle-she must strike the most fearful blows-the war-cry of extermination must be raised.

Ladies' Curiosity Gratified

This entry comes from the Memphis Daily Appeal, November 14, 1861.

Ladies Curiosity Gratified.

            The war correspondent of the Charleston Courier tells the following good one:
            Frequently the ladies are in the habit of visiting the prisoners, but oftener from curiosity than sympathy.  Another incident is told of an encounter between several of them and an Irishman:

            It had become a matter of habit with the fair ones to open conversation with the very natural inquiry, "Where are you wounded?" and accordingly when a party of three or four the other day approached our cell, they launched out in the usual way.  Paddy made believe that he didn't hear distinctly and replied, "Pretty well, I thank yez."  "Where were you wounded?" again fired away one of the ladies.  "Faith, I'm not badly hurt at all.  I'll be thravelling to Richmond in a wake," replied Pat, with a peculiarly distressing look, as if he was in a tight place.  Thinking that he was deaf, one of the old ladies in the background put her mouth down to his ear and shouted again, "We want to know where you are hurt."
 

            Pat evidently finding that if the bombardment continued much longer he would have to strike his flag anyhow, concluded to do so at once, and accordingly, with a face as rosy as a boiled lobster, and with an angry kind of energy, he replied:  "Sure, leddies, it's not deaf that I am, but since ye are determined to know where I've been wounded, its in my sate.  The bullet entered behind of my breeches.  Please to excuse my feelings and ax me no more questions."

          I leave it to you to imagine the blushing consternation of the inquisitors and sudden locomotion of the crinoline out of the front door.

Seated soldier wearing four button sack with kepi, patriotic matte, from Library of Congress Collection

Nostradamus Predicts

This entry come from the Memphis Daily Appeal, October 27, 1861

. . . .many of the predictions made by Nostradamus . . . have been completely verified, they are generally discredited in our times.  But in the Prophecies of Vatcinations, of that great man, vol. 2d (edition of 1609) we find the following:

"About that time (1861) a great quarrel and contest will arise in a country beyond the seas (America).  Many poor devils will be hung, and many poor wretches killed . . .. The war will not cease for four years, at which none should be astonished or surprised, for there will be no want of hatred and obstinacy in it.  At the end of that time, prostrate and almost ruined, the people will embrace each other in great joy and love."

The period of four years . . . comprise the exact term of Lincoln's administration.  At the close, a new era, it seems, will commence of harmony and peace.  Well, if we are to go through this fiery ordeal we must make up our minds to bear up manfully through the conflict, and acquit ourselves like men. . . .

Nostradamus from Wikimedia

Pillow Orders Tobacco Purchases

This entry is from the Memphis Daily Appeal, July 26, 1861, and concerns the Rebel soldiers' use and procurement of tobacco.

General Order No. 29.

Headquarters Army of Tennessee, Memphis, July 24, 1861.

The use of tobacco having become so fixed a habit with a very large proportion of our troops that the deprivation of it is to them a very severe inconvenience, and it being impossible for them to procure it at many of the encampments, the Major-General commanding, after consultation with and with the approval of his excellency, the Governor of the State, directs the various Commissary Staffs throughout the State to purchase by wholesale, from time to time, such amounts of good tobacco as may be necessary, and resell it to the soldiers of the Army of Tennessee at the cost price.

By command of Major-General, Gideon J. Pillow, Commanding the Army of Tennessee.

Gus. A. Henry, Jr., Ass't Adjutant-General.

Brandy Station, Virginia. Discussing the probilities (?) of the next move, from Library of Congress Collection

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A Woman's Work Is Never Done

This entry comes from the Memphis Daily Appeal, June 22, 1861 (as found at Art Circle Public Library, Cumberland County, TN website). During the Civil War, Southern women worked in ammunition factories much like during World Wars, Here is one example.

A visit to the Confederate Saber Factory in Memphis

Manufactory of Ammunition.-By the kindness of Mr. Trezevant, we were yesterday admitted within the Confederate Government saber manufactory, on the south-east corner of Monroe and Third streets, over which establishment we were obligingly shown by the efficient superintendent and inspector, Lieut.
Sengstack. 

On mounting to the immense room up stairs, we found four large tables ranged from end to end of the room, and at these tables two hundred and fifty women and girls, principally young girls, were busily engaged in the labor of preparing cartridges.. . .

. . .In giving employment, the widows, wives, and families of soldiers, have the
first preference. The women are paid four dollars and a half a week, the girls
three dollars; when by extraordinary industry a certain number per day are
made, a dollar a day is given. No less than two hundred and eighty-five persons
are employed, of whom two hundred and thirty are females. . . .

 "Filling Cartridges at the United States Arsenal at Watertown, Massachusetts," July 20, 1861, Harper’s Weekly.