Then a new idea seized them, and they said to the Sergeant “Make him sing!  Make him sing!”

This was too much for the Sergeant, who had been intensely amused at the girls’ wonderment.  He turned to me, very red in the face, with: 

“Sergeant:  the girls want to hear you sing.”

I replied that I could not sing a note.  Said he: 

“Oh, come now.  I know better than that; I never seed or heerd of a Yankee that couldn’t sing.”

I nevertheless assured him that there really were some Yankees that did not have any musical accomplishments, and that I was one of that unfortunate number.  I asked him to get the ladies to sing for me, and to this they acceded quite readily.  One girl, with a fair soprano, who seemed to be the leader of the crowd, sang “The Homespun Dress,” a song very popular in the South, and having the same tune as the “Bonnie Blue Flag.”  It began,

               I envy not the Northern girl
               Their silks and jewels fine,

and proceeded to compare the homespun habiliments of the Southern women to the finery and frippery of the ladies on the other side of Mason and Dixon’s line in a manner very disadvantageous to the latter.

The rest of the girls made a fine exhibition of the lung-power acquired in climbing their precipitous mountains, when they came in on the chorus

               Hurra!  Hurra! for southern rights Hurra! 
               Hurra for the homespun dress,
               The Southern ladies wear.

This ended the entertainment.

On our journey to Bristol we met many Rebel soldiers, of all ranks, and a small number of citizens.  As the conscription had then been enforced pretty sharply for over a year the only able-bodied men seen in civil life were those who had some trade which exempted them from being forced into active service.  It greatly astonished us at first to find that nearly all the mechanics were included among the exempts, or could be if they chose; but a very little reflection showed us the wisdom of such a policy.  The South is as nearly a purely agricultural country as is Russia or South America.  The people have, little inclination or capacity for anything else than pastoral pursuits.  Consequently mechanics are very scarce, and manufactories much scarcer.  The limited quantity of products of mechanical skill needed by the people was mostly imported from the North or Europe.  Both these sources of supply were cutoff by the war, and the country was thrown upon its own slender manufacturing resources.  To force its mechanics into the army would therefore be suicidal.  The Army would gain a few thousand men, but its operations would be embarrassed, if not stopped altogether, by a want of supplies.  This condition of affairs reminded one of the singular paucity of mechanical skill among the Bedouins of the desert, which renders the life of a blacksmith sacred.  No matter how bitter the feud between tribes, no one will kill the other’s workers of iron, and instances are told of warriors saving their lives at critical periods by falling on their knees and making with their garments an imitation of the action of a smith’s bellows.