Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/518

 512 Southern Historical Society Papers.

and woollen mills began to be heavily taxed, the old fashioned wheel, card, and hand looms of our grandmothers bloomed into fashion once more, and under the patriotic zeal of our mothers, and daughters the whole land was musical with the song of the spinning and the clack of the shuttle. When their hand cards gave out it was ascertained that there was no machinery in the South to renew the supply. But many thousands of pairs were imported through the blockade, as well as two sets of machinery for their manufacture, and the stock was abundantly renewed. Ere long, also it was discovered that the card clothing and other destructible parts of the mills were giving out and could not be replaced in the Confederacy. This difficulty was also met by the importation of quantities of card clothing, belt- ing and lubricating oils, which kept all the factories going till the end. An abundant supply of cotton goods, and a full supply for the people, and a partial one for the army, of woollen, being thus pro- vided, the remaining quota of woollen goods and leather findings were sought for abroad. By means of warrants based upon cot- ton and naval stores, an elegant long legged steamer was purchased in the Clyde- She was built for a passenger boat to ply between Glasgow and Dublin, and was remarkably swift. Captain Cros- san, who purchased her in connection with my financial agent, Mr. John White, ran her in at Wilmington with a full cargo in 1863, changed her name from Lord Clyde to the Ad-Vance. When her elegant saloons and passenger arrangements were cut away, she could carry with ease eight hundred bales of cotton and a double supply of coal. As cotton was worth in Liverpool then about fifty cents in gold, the facilities for purchasing abroad whatever we desired are apparent. Before the port of Wilmington fell this good vessel had successfully, and without accident, made eleven trips to Nassau, Bermuda, and Halifax through the Federal fleet, often coming through in open day. Captain Thomas Crossan, Captain Julius Guthrie, North Carolinians, and Captain Wylie, a Scotchman, were her successive commanders. By reason of the abstraction or destruction of the Adjutant-General's record, as before remarked, I am unable to give an exact manifest of her several inward cargoes, but the following will give an idea of them : Large quantities of machinery supplies, sixty thousand pairs of hand cards, ten thou- sand grain scythes, two hundred barrels blue-stone for the wheat growers, leather and shoes for two hundred and fifty thousand pairs, fifty thousand blankets, gray woolen cloth for al least two hundred and fifty thousand suits of uniforms, twelve thousand overcoats ready