These stories which tie into History flatten me, thank you! I'm a little suprised someone hasn't done a book on them. Stained when the Red River was being evacuated, and their wagon over turned? Please. You can't make this stuff up! I'm a little buggy on the Red River campaign anyway ( just ask Mark Jenkins or anyone over at the Navy forum I've pestered since the time I bumped into the story- can't get enough of it, one of my top 2 or 3 Civil War stories ,) stories like this just flesh it out more. That piece belongs behind plexiglass, with blinking arrows pointing the way to it. Of course, I'd own a very annoying museum.
Yes, it is batting rather than my 'stuffing.' Shows how much I know!
Anyway, I'll post once more about the Confederate Star quilt and then quit. This morning I located my g-grandmother's memoirs, written about 1925. She was the one who wore those beautiful clothes, and since she was born in 1850, had some pretty good memory of the war years. She said:
"As an aside I want to tell you about the household goods that started to Texas. When the Red River was being crossed, one of the wagons turned over. As it happened and as it often happens, it was the one wagon that was loaded with our most valuable things. There were on it all Mother's silver, the family records and business papers, including our very old Bibles and all of our better clothing. The only thing salvaged was a quilt which covered the contents of the wagon. I have it now, all yellowed and stained by the brick colored waters of the Red. It was an original pattern of Mother's, the seven stars of the Confederacy. And it was quilted in very tiny circles made with Mother's gold thimble as a pattern for the quilting. How many fears and worries and forebodings must have gone under those almost invisible stitches which were made when Mother could not sleep. She on one side of the Mississippi and my (future) husband's mother on the other often sewed all night when they heard the guns at Vicksburg. Again, I say, those women."
You can see the tiny, thimble sized quilted circles as little puffs outside the ring of stars.
Last edited: