Long gowns swept the sidewalks
Elegant hats adorned each head
Southern ladies gathered to talk
Each straining to hear what the other said

Their husbands had gone off to war
Precious sons soon followed behind
These ladies knew not what was in store
So each to the other was kind

There were benefits and raffles to discuss
Bandages had to be cut and rolled
Getting prepared was a definite must
Hiding treasures before the Yankees stole

Relying upon their own wisdom and wit
Their work made their men proud
Accomplishing each task bit by bit
Doing more than Southern ladies were ever allowed

Their elegance became but a memory to most
As year after year the war grew worse
Giving up precious family to the heavenly hosts
Without benefit of memorial or hearse

They learned much from their experiences
Becoming stronger ...
as their beloved Confederacy grew weak
Now they were prepared
to face the upcoming events
Of accepting gracefully their historic defeat

 There was a great misconception of the strengths of our Southern Lady in the mid-nineteenth century. Although during the antebellum era, propriety demanded that she mask many of her abilities behind a perfumed lace handkerchief or imported fan, they were simply waiting in readiness for their turn. These abilities were not a well kept secret, for every husband, brother and cousin knew where to turn in their weakest hour of need. She was always there in willing readiness to do whatever she could for the cause of her beloved family, her beloved homeland and her beloved South.

These same ladies who would faint prostrate at the mere mention of an off-color indiscretion were the very same ones to roll up their sleeves, shred their fancy petticoats into bandages and labor long and hard beside the physicians as nurses. They were the ones who took the last morsels of their own meager food and cooked it to feed both the Union and Confederate alike because they were hungry and in need. They were the ones who stood over wash pots boiling dirty and infested clothes of the soldiers trying to fight the greatest enemy of both sides of the war, disease.

Their reasoning was that perhaps one of their husbands or sons was in some far northern state in an injurious or hungry condition and hopefully with God's will some northern woman would administer to his needs as well.