AN INCIDENT OF THE LATE CIVIL WAR.

During the later period of the war the question of supplies
for the Army of the Confederacy became so serious that
various expedients were resorted to in order to enable
them to continue the struggle. For about two years their
supply of ammunition had depended upon successful
running of the blockade, but so many of the vessels had
been captured that one of the ordnance bureau devised a
scheme for providing the necessary ingredient (salt petre),
and as an experiment inserted the following advertisement
in the Salem, Ala., Sentinel:

"The ladies of Salem are respectfully requested to
preserve their chamber lye, as it is very needful to the
cause of the Confederacy in the manufacture of NITRE--a necessary
ingredient of gunpowder. Wagons with barrels will be sent to the
residences daily to collect and remove the same."

(Signed)    JOHN HARROLSON,
Agent Ordnance & Mining Bureau.

The scheme was so original, not to say unique, that a local wit
(home on sick leave) perpetrated the following, which was
printed and quickly circulated:

John Harrolson, John Harrolson, you are a funny creature,
You've given to this cruel war and new and curious feature,
You'd have us think, while every man is bound to be a fighter,
The women (bless the pretty dears) should save their P for Nitre.

John Harrolson, John Harrolson, where did you get the notion
To send your barrels 'round the tow to gather up the lotion?
We thought the woman's duty done in keeping house and d'dling,
But now you'd put the pretty dears to patriotic piddling.

John Harrolson, John Harrolson, do pray invent a neater
And somewhat less immodest mode of making your salt petre.
The thing's so very queer, you know, gunpower like and cranky,
That when a lady "jerks her brine" she shoots a bloody Yankee.

It so happened that one of these copies was used as
a wrapper upon a plug of tobacco sent by a "Johnny Reb."
to a Federal picket in exchange for a ration of coffee,
and a Corporal B.-------- of the -------- Vermont Regiment
(a Dartmouth graduate), wrote the following impromptu and
returned to the sender, with his compliments. No rejoinder
was ever returned to our lines:

John Harrolson, John Harrolson, we've read in son and story,
How women's tears in all these years have sprinkled fields of glory;
But ne'er before did wome help their braves in deeds of slaughter
'Till Souther beauties DRIED thier tears and went to MAKING water.

No wonder, "John," you boys are brave; who would not be a fighter
If every time he shot his gun he used his sweetheart's nitre?
And vice versa what could make a Yankee soldier madder,
Than dodging bullets fired from a pretty woman's bladder?

We've heard it said a subtle smell still lingered in this powder,
And as the smoe grew thick, and the din of battle louder,
That there was found in te compound a serious objection--
The solderis could not snuff it without causing an erection.

'Tis clear now why desertion is so common from your ranks;
An Artic's nature's needed to withstand "Dame Venus" prnaks.
A Souterner can't stand the press-- when once he's had a smell,
He's got to have "a piece" or bust, the cause can go to H--l.

This is an undated broadside [ca 1890s?], retrieved 2023-06-03 from

https://civilwartalk.com/attachments/james-great-great-grandfather-jones-pdf.110818/