by Jerry Flook, Garland Historian
Published in the Garland-Rowlett Messenger, June 2011
*Second Installment*
The war took a devastating toll on those who remained at home. With the able-bodied men away at war, the women the children, and the aged fell heir to the making of the crops, care of the livestock, splitting rails, cutting firewood, spinning, weaving, and sewing of clothing. Because the Confederacy was blockaded, virtually no manufactured items were available, including pins, needles, cotton cards (a fine-toothed wire comb for preparing cotton for spinning), ink, salt, coffee, sugar, writing paper, newsprint, cooking utensils, clothing other than homespun, hats, leather items, combs, and so forth. Where possible people improvised substitutes.
As the war dragged on, the economy of the South steadily deteriorated. Confederate currency lost its value and prices of necessities skyrocketed. The plight of the soldiers’ families was becoming untenable. Wheat which had sold for 60 cents a bushel soon after the war started was selling for $2.50 a bushel by 1863. Wheat flour became so precious that it was carefully hoarded for times of illness and for Sunday biscuits. Otherwise cornbread became the staple. Parched barley and rye were used instead of coffee. To obtain salt, many families were compelled to dig up the soil from the floor of their smoke house and boil it to extract the salt it had absorbed from the curing of pork over the years. Soldiers wrote home begging for clothing and blankets, but the Confederate government had confiscated most of the cotton bales to prevent their falling into enemy hands and for use in the constructing breakworks to block artillery fire. A group of women in desperation raided a government stock of cotton bales in Dallas to obtain cotton for making clothes for their families and menfolk on the front.
Thomas Lair Anderson, his wife Naomi, and their year-old daughter had migrated to eastern Dallas County from Lewis County, Missouri, in 1853. They built a 2-room log cabin on the site now occupied by Garland’s Windsurf Park and soon added to their family 7 more children. Although Thomas had suffered for a long time with a lung condition. Probably tuberculosis, he was conscripted into Confederate service in August 1864, only about three months before the birth of his eighth child. A few letters exchanged between Thomas and Naomi have survived and illustrate the Hardships of the war endured both by the soldiers and their families.
Dallas County, Texas
October 16, 1864
My dear Husband,
I seat myself this morning to inform you that we are well and hope that when these few lines come to hand they may find you enjoying the same blessing. I received two letters from you on the 14th of this month, which gave me great satisfaction to hear from you but was very sorry to hear that you were so unwell and that your cough had returned. I can’t see how you are to live with that when you have to be exposed to all kinds of weather, but I hope and trust in the Almighty’s power that He will be with you in all your trials and difficulties and sickness. Willis Loving [a neighbor] has got a detail here to _____ horses, so I heard. It doesn’t seem like it is any use to try to get a furlough, for he had none and stayed here five months doing nothing and then got a detail to do nothing I suppose. Thomas I want you to get a furlough and come home. You are not able for duty and I don’t see what good you can do them by staying there. I had to stop Carter [son] from ploughing on account of the dry weather, though I have the prettiest wheat in the neighborhood. Wormley Carter [brother-in-law] has been a great help to me. He is at home now. Thomas, the children all want to see you badly and talk a great deal about their Pa. Henry especially [3-year-old son]. I kissed Henry and Lucy for you and do every day and tell them that I am kissing them for you.
Naomi Anderson to her dear Husband, Thomas L. Anderson
A short time before Christmas that same year Naomi received this letter forwarded from H.M. Barnes, an officer in Thomas’s company, stationed at the time in Minden, Louisiana.
Camp Allen, Louisiana
December 16, 1864
Dear Wife [Mrs. Rebecca Barnes],
I can inform you that your husband is alive and well but alas I cannot pen that same glad and consoling tidings for Mrs. Anderson. Her husband quit this time of trouble and is now trying the realities of eternity.
Mr. Thomas Anderson departed this life on Thursday the 15th of Decemebr, 1864, at 9 o’clock P.M. He was only sick three days. About two hours before he died he called my name, adding “I am not afraid to die. All is well with me now.” He then requested his effects to be sent to his wife. He mentioned some few articles, espeically one canteen, one tin cup, and one blanket, and one or two suits of clothes. Mr. Anderson has made an agreeable soldier and a good soldier so far as his physical ability would allow.
I wish you, Rebecca, to show this to Mr. and Mrs. [Wormley] Carter, that Mrs. Anderson learn these facts. Give my kind respects to Uncle Wormley and family and to all others that may inquire. Write soon and often. I love to hear of home.
H. M. Barnes
Thomas L. Anderson, age about 36, was buried in a trench grave at Minden, Louisiana. Naomi Anderson never remarried, but successfully raised six out of her nine children to adulthood.
Following the war and influx of families from the devastated South migrated to Texas to start a new life. At least 41 veterans of….