Reached Perfection...

I like this description of the stages of life :)

Health and beauty, 1864
By Rexey Ann Caplin

Pg. 15
It only remains to offer a few remarks on the recognition of beauty in the different stages of life. The beauty of childhood is in its simplicity and helplessness, in the utter unconsciousness of everything but its own feelings and desires. In youth it is the budding graces that we admire; it is the springtime of life. Womanhood is the summer and full bloom of beauty. Middle age is the autumn, when the ripe and mellow fruit of life attains perfection. Nor is advanced life without its beauties; the icicles and snows of age have charms and glories peculiarly their own. Thus, from the cradle to the grave, the pure, the wise, the good, the well-developed, are always beautiful.

Red. White and Blue Socks - Poem

Leaves from the battlefield of Gettysburg: a series of letters from a field hospital; and national poems, 1864

By Emily Bliss Thacher Souder, Mrs. Edmund A. Souder

Pg. 93

Knitting for the Army.

Inscribed to a lady of Christ Church.

All honor to the noble dame,

            Of fourscore years and seven;

To loyal heart and willing hand,

            Let honor due be given.

While youth and health the needles ply,

            And knit the livelong day,

We look with loving pride on her

            Who soon must pass away,

Yet wearies not, in hour of need,

            When faithful sons for country bleed,

To guard their feet from winter’s cold,

            Thus comforting the soldier bold.

Six pairs of hose, her busy hands

            Have hastened to prepare;

A happy soldier must he be,

            Whose feet these good socks wear.

The colors of our country’s flag

            They also bring to view,

And heart and eye alike are cheered

            With the red, white and blue;

So soft and warm and smoothly knit,

            A soldier’s foot they well will fit;

Grateful must prove the favored one,

            When told whose hands the works has done.

Another charm the soft wool holds,--

            Let me the secret tell:

Three times, the loyal thirty-four

            Within the circle dwell.

A stitch for every silver star—

            Woe to the hand that seeks to mar

The flag that floats o’er land and sea,

            Emblem, my country dear, of thee!

Withered the arm of every foe

            That aims at thee a deadly blow;

Palsied the traitor’s serpent tongue,

            Poisoning the fountain whence he sprung!

Confederate Socks

I recently came across two references of Confederate socks with the Confederate flag knit into them. One is a contemporary source that I still need to check out its documentation/source. 

Memorial Record of Alabama: Herbert, H. A. Alabama in Federal politics. Cochran, J. The medical profession. Clark, T. H. Judicial history. Screws, W. W. Alabama journalism. Clark, T. H. Religious history 1979

Pg. 870 "A pair of fine socks with the Confederate flag knit into them came back to the regiment with a card attached, addressed. "To the gallant Randle."

And... 

With Porter in North Missouri: a chapter in the history of the war between ...By Joseph Aloysius Mudd 

Pg. 328 "Among other things, they found a pair of white yarn socks which I had made with a Confederate flag knitted into each sock. I was then about sixteen years old."

Now if I only new what they looked like...

Patriotic Socks

A while back there was a pair of socks on Antique's Roadshow, blue wool with the American flag at the top and the Confederate secession flag knit into the foot. This particular pair was dated to earlier in the war. In doing research on knitting socks for the soldiers I came across an article about a pair presented to President Lincoln in 1864. This story was reprinted in a number of papers.  I wonder how many of this type of sock design was knitted during the course of the war. What happened to this pair?  

Daily national Republican.(Washington DC), March 21, 1864, Second Edition, Image 2 (Library of Congress)

A PATIOTIC GIFT. (the misspelling is as in the paper)

            At the Presidential reception on Saturday, Major French presented to the President a pair of woollen socks, knit expressly for the President by Miss Addie Brockway, of Newburyport, Mass. On the bottom of each was knit the secession flag; and near the top the glorious stars and stripes of our Union, so that when worn by the President he will always have the flag of the rebellion under his feet. These socks were sent by the maker to Mrs. Wm. B. Todd, of this city, and at her request Major French presented them with a few appropriate remarks. They were most pleasantly and graciously received by the President.

Almost the end of June

I have been reading in dribs and drabs....and knitting...stupid directions are holding me up!  There is a great book list on the website for The Society for Women and the Civil War. I did find quite a few digitized on google.
http://www.swcw.org/booklist.html

Summer is here....I need a bathing dress

so...I've been doing some research and came across a description of what people wore

American Photographs, Vol. 1

1859 (London)

Chapter XIII, Newport, Plymouth, and the Pilgrim Fathers, Boston.

Oh! ye bathing women of Brighton! What would you have said? – not a bathing women in a woolen dress; not a machine on wheels; not a blue flannel dress to be seen. Long rows of little sentry boxes are placed, forty or fifty feet from the sea, for the use of ladies and gentlemen, who all bathe together!

            Now let us take a look at the beach. Every now and then extraordinarily dressed figures rushed from the sentry boxes into the water, where there were perhaps a hundred ladies and gentlemen amusing themselves in the water at one time. It was a complete Aquatic Bal Costum. There were groups of bathers taking hold of hands, others swimming, - but all in full costume. We saw sailors, Turks, and Hungarians, and others in dresses of red, white, and every colour of the rainbow, disporting themselves in the water. There were two, a lady and gentleman, who particularly excited our notice; they were dressed in grey tunics, with huge red collars and cuffs, and the trousers below the knee were of the same hue, and on their heads were grey and red caps.

            The ladies’ dresses were composed of thick materials generally reaching a little below the knee, and confined round the waist by a leathern belt; they had also Turkish trousers, fastened round the ancle. These dresses were of the brightest colours. Red tunics decorated with eight or ten rows of wide black braid, the collar, cuffs, and trousers trimmed in the same manner. On the head a white straw hat with alternate rows of black and red braid round the crown, and in the front a large bow of the same colours. White and blue dresses decorated with red, black, or blue; in fact, every variety of marine dress, - it only wanted old Father Neptune with his trident to complete the scene. All the ladies wear straw hats to protect them from the heat of the sun, - a most excellent arrangement.    

Found a post Civil War Bathing dress on another blog.... 
http://blog.fidmmuseum.org/museum/2009/08/swim.html 

More about Angola yarn

I came across a reference to "Angola yarn" today.
Tales of the Living Age. 1858
Eddies Round the Rectory. by Owen Varra (fiction)

"Don't you remember the day Miss Cooper advised home-knit Angola stockings as the best for winter wear, and you gave a laughing glance at me?"

Interesting the writer used this wool in home knitting, which means this type of wool/yarn is available for purchase for hand knitting. This yarn seems to only show up for use in stockings. I love when I discover new information and I'm not looking for it. I'm usually on a different quest. Go figure!