_know_ how their loved ones were faring.

Can imagination conceive a situation more pitiable?

Ghastly visions made night hideous. During the day, the quick
galloping of a horse, the unexpected appearance of a visitor, would
agitate a whole household, sending women in haste to some secret place
where they might pray for strength to bear patiently whatever tidings
the messenger should bring.

Self-denial in all things began from the first. Butter, eggs,
chickens, etc., were classed as luxuries, to be collected and sent by
any opportunity offering to the nearest point of shipment to hospital
or camp. Fruits were gathered and made into preserves or wine "for the
sick soldiers." Looms were set up on every plantation. The whirr of
the spinning-wheel was heard from morning until night. Dusky forms
hovered over large iron cauldrons, continually thrusting down into the
boiling dye the product of the looms, to be transformed into
Confederate gray or _butternut_ jeans.

In the wide halls within the plantation-houses stood tables piled with
newly-dyed cloth and hanks of woollen or cotton yarns. The knitting of
socks went on incessantly. Ladies walked about in performance of
household or plantation duties, sock in hand, "casting on," "heeling,"
"turning off." By the light of pine knots the elders still knitted far
into the night, while to young eyes and more supple fingers was
committed the task of finishing off comforts that had been "tacked"
during the day, or completing heavy army overcoats; and painfully
these toiled over the unaccustomed task.