Matamoras, Texas

With Brownsville in control of the Federal army, trade was diverted to Eagle Pass further up the Texas gulf coast, a more difficult and costly route. This new trade route resulted in increased prices and shortages for some goods. However, most shortages in Texas caused more of a general inconvenience rather than a true life and death issue. Thread and cloth were dyed with home made natural dyes of bark, moss, pomegranates, berries, and swamp willow. Almost always, the comments were “they are not very pretty”. The shortage of paper resulted in newspapers cutting or ceasing publication. Letters were often short and written with homemade ink or in pencil. The ink too was made with natural growth such as dogwood or oak, pomegranate rinds, elderberries, or green persimmons.

William and Elizabeth Neblett 1875

Fruits and vegetables were readily available in the interior of Texas throughout the Civil War as was beef and pork; few citizens in the inland were faced with starvation. Elizabeth Scott Neblett was left to run the family farm and provide for her household when her husband joined the Confederate army. A Mississippi native, Neblett’s family moved to Texas in 1839. Lizzie, as she was known, married a lawyer, William Henry Neblett, in 1852. William enlisted in the Confederate army in 1863 and served as a company clerk in Galveston. In 1863 Elizabeth wrote “I am now dining finely almost eat myself sick on beans, peas and Irish potatoes.”³ and “We have 14 middlings of meat now, but some are small, but I think they would last us fully three months."⁴ Other Texans relied on wild game.

Slaves, on the other hand, relied on what their masters would feed them. Reports of shortages from slave narratives range from Mary Lindsay in Fannin County reporting of nearly starving to death to James Hayes stating “…things were about the same, like always, except some victuals were scarce. But we had plenty to eat…”⁵

In 1862 Theophilus Perry wrote to his cousin Thomas Person “Every thing is in great abundance except Coffee.”⁶ The loss of coffee was a tremendous sacrifice indeed. According to Lt. Col. Freemantle “The loss of coffee afflicts the Confederates even more than the loss of spirits…”⁷ This is confirmed by Mary Maverick who wrote her son in 1864 “I bought a sack of coffee Friday--fine-flavoured Havana--wish I could send you some. …we think it would be a great hardship to do without it.”⁸

Former slave Mollie Watson of Leon County gave this description of coffee substitutes to the WPA “De coffee was made outen rye or corn meal or sweet potatoes that was dried and parched. When day made it from sweet potatoes dey would slice 'em and put 'em in de sun to dry lak dey did fruit or corn. When it was plum dry it was put in de oven and parched and den dey would grind it in a little hand mill. It made purty good coffee but Ole Miss and Squire Garner had Lincoln coffee to drink. Dey called it Lincoln coffee because it was real coffee. Dey couldn't afford to serve it on de table as it was too 'spensive.”⁹

Another hardship was the shortage of flour. The lack of flour and the complaints of corn bread resonate throughout Texas war time diaries and letters. With the price of cotton rising, agricultural land usually dedicated to the production of wheat was given over to cotton. Then there was the problem of having the manpower to plant, harvest and mill the wheat. Transportation was also an issue with many of the wagons and draft animals impressed for military. W.R. Hunt recalled “…that the only 'flour' we had was home-grown wheat, ground on a grist mill, which turned out bran, seconds, shorts and flour all in the same sack. If we wanted to bake a cake for a special occasion, we sifted this flour through home-spun cloth…”¹⁰

Grist Mill. Landmark Inn, Castroville, Texas

Corn bread was still better than nothing. After leaving Galveston and refugeeing to Lavaca, Ann Raney Coleman experienced a shortage of corn meal. She describes the actions taken by the women of the town:

One day we got out of meal, and many families were suffering for bread, so the first time we heard of them grinding meal for citizens, a good many ladies got together and went to ask for meal, but were refused, being told it was for citizens and not for us, and that we could not have any. A few ladies took charge of the man who refused us, and the rest went and filled up all the sacks, but not until we had threatened to set fire to the mill if we did not get it.¹¹

Raney also describes women mustering “en masse” and threatening the military personnel with pistols when rations were refused.

Not all food shortages could be blamed entirely on the war although it did make it worse; a prolonged drought that resulted in a poor harvest in 1863 was followed by an unusually cold and hard winter that brought freezing weather as far south as Brownsville decreasing yields or totally destroying crops. This crop failure affected the citizens of Texas as well as the Texas troops who depended on the Texas crops. As soon as the drought ended and after the hard winter crops were again abundant in Texas. In 1864 Maria von Blücher wrote “…superabundant crops in Texas, and there are now shortages only in stray places where there are no farms in the immediate vicinity. … at the moment there is an immense want of bread and fruit here at Corpus Christi.”¹² Amelia Barr wrote “We could never want food in Texas….”¹³