ISLAND IN 1893 AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR GENERAL HOWARD WAS APPOINTED
CHIEF OF THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU]


_The South's Hopeless Poverty_

Southern women had suffered much by the Civil War, on the whole far
more than their Northern sisters. There was but little exaggeration in
the phrase which was current at the time, that the Confederacy, in
order to fill its armies, had to "draw upon the cradle and the grave."
Almost every white male capable of bearing arms enlisted or was
pressed into service. The loss of men, not in proportion to the number
on the rolls, but in proportion to the whole white population, was far
heavier in the South than in the North. There were not many families
unbereft, not many women who had not the loss of a father, or a
husband, or a brother, or a friend to deplore. In the regions in
which military operations had taken place the destruction of property
had been great, and while most of that destruction seemed necessary in
the opinion of military men, in the eyes of the sufferers it appeared
wanton, cruel, malignant, devilish. The interruption of the industries
of the country, the exclusion by the blockade of the posts of all
importations from abroad, and the necessity of providing for the
sustenance of the armies in the field, subjected all classes to
various distressing privations and self-denials. There were bread
riots in Richmond. Salt became so scarce that the earthen floors of
the smoke-houses were scraped to secure the remnants of the
brine-drippings of former periods. Flour was at all times painfully
scarce. Coffee and tea were almost unattainable. Of the various little
comforts and luxuries which by long common use had almost become
necessaries, many were no longer to be had. Mothers had to ransack old