"During the latter part of the Civil War, the Confederacy was short of salt petre,
one of the most necessary ingredients of gunpowder. The following advertisement in
the Salem, Alabama Sentinel shows an original method of obtaining a supply:
"The ladies of Salem are respectfully requested to preserve their chamber lye, as it
is very needful in the cause of the Confederacy in the manufacture of nitre, a
necessary ingredient of gunpowder. Wagons with barrels will be sent to residences
daily to collect and remove the same.

"(signed) John Harrolson
"Agt. Ordnance & Minging Bureau
"C.S.A."

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

"John Harrolson, John Harrolson, where did you get the notion
To send the barrels around the town to gather up the lotion?
We thought the women's duty done in keeping house and diddling,
But now you'd set the pretty dears to patriotic piddling.

"John Harrolson, John Harrolson, do, pray, invent a neater
And somewhat less immodest way of making your saltpetre.
The things's so very queer, you know, gunpowder-like and cranky,
That when a lady jerks her brine she shoots a bloody Yankee.

"John Harrolson, John Harrolson, we read in song and story,
How women's tears in all these years have sprinkled fields of glory,
But ne'er before did women help their race in deeds of slaughter,
'Till Southern beauties dried their tears and went to making water.

"No wonder, John, your boys are brave. Who wouldn't 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 sadder,
Than dodging bullets fired from a pretty woman's bladder?

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

"'Tis clear now why desertion is so common from your ranks:
An Arctic nature's needed to withstand Dame Venus' pranks.
A Southerner can't stand the press -- when once he's had a smell.
He's got to have a piece or bust -- the peace can go to hell.