40 



not ('(tffoe. For swoctoiiing we had sor<»liiiiii synij), called 

 l(.n.i» sw(M'1(Miiiio'. It took faith to drink it, but sn»ar we 

 conhl not j^et. For wheat flour, which we of the coast never 

 saw, we had rice flour; clean rice dampened, beaten in a mor- 

 tar and sifted; and corn flour. 



We made our homespun clothes, tanned our own leather, 

 made our own shoes, but they were not pretty to look at. 

 i'oiled our own salt. Twisted our own lines and r<;pe, 

 pulled out old duds and forgotten finery from long forgotten 

 ti-uuks. Cut up car})ets and bed ticking for the negroes, and 

 lived on such plain fare as the farms atforded, and wei'e as 

 content as possible, esi»ecially as long as we heard that our 

 boys were licking "the f(»e" at the front. 



For medicine, dye stuffs, we went to the herbs of the 

 field. For hats, baskets, etc, we used rushes, shucks sind 

 <»ur old friend, the jialmetto. Salt was the great industry at 

 ^IcClellanville during the War, and thousands of bushels 

 were n;ade and distributed to suri-ounding country and 

 mid<lle i)art of the State at a i)rice ranging at dilferent times 

 from |5 to |2() per bushel. 



At first the salt pots, usually an old cylinder boiler, cut 

 in half and bi'icked in, were built all along the water front 

 of the village, and at night the bright fires were a beauti- 

 ful sight. Flats were used to hold water for re|)lenishing 

 lui'ing low tide. It was found afterwards that by making 

 |)(,nds or wells to hohl the salt water it would get stronger 

 by evai)oration. So the salt works were moved to the low 

 Hat u;arsh lands, neai- McClellan's Island. 



{hiring llie Civil War a blockade runner came to McClel- 

 lanville loaded with, what do you thiidv? Salt! Just the 

 thing we did not need. As you may su])pose salt was not 

 the only high-i»riced article. Here are a few selected at 

 random which brought the following ])rices when they could 

 be had at all : 



Cloth, except hoiPjes])un, was not to be had. A pair of 

 shoes was worth .f4() or 150, and not very good at that. 

 Boots, corl'espondingly higher. Hats, somewhere in the 

 same neighborhood. Sugar and coffee wei-e out of the ques- 

 tion. \Mieat flour down here was about $200 or |.'>00 per 



