101. A Too Successful Tombola
By ELIZA RIPLEY (1862)
IN the neighboring city of Baton Rouge we organized the
Campaign Sewing Society: its very title shows how transient
we regarded the emergency; how little we deemed the
campaign would develop into a four years' war. There many of
us received our first lessons in the intricacies of coats and
pantaloons. I so well remember when, in the glory of my new
acquirements, I proudly made a pair of cottonade trousers for
a brother we were fitting out in surpassing style for service,
my embarrassment and
[_]
This piece describes the Southern organizations for the Confederate soldiers.
consternation when I overheard him slyly remark to my
husband that he had to stand on his head to button them—
they lapped the wrong way! Stockings had also to be
provided, and expert knitters found constant work. By
wearing a knitting bag at my side, and utilizing every moment,
I was by no means
the only one able to turn off a coarse cotton stocking, with a
rather short leg, every day.
From the factory in our little city— the only one, by the way, of
any size or importance in the state we procured the cloth
required for suits, but in the lapse of time, the supply of
buttons, thread, needles, and tape, in fact of all the little
accessories of the sewing room, was exhausted, and to
replenish the stock our thoughts and conversation were
necessarily
turned into financial channels. I cordially recommend to
societies and impecunious institutions the scheme in all its
entirety that we adopted, as vastly superior to the ordinary
and much maligned fair; the plan was the offspring of
necessity; the demand was so instant and urgent that we
could undertake no fair or entertainment that involved time,
work, or expense.
A tombola, where every article is donated and every ticket
draws a prize, was the happy result of numerous conferences.
The scheme was discussed with husbands and brothers; each
suggested an advancement or improvement on the other, until
the project expanded so greatly, including all classes and
conditions of donors, that it was quickly found that not only a
large hall, but a stable and a warehouse would also be required
to bold the contributions, which embraced every imaginable
article from a toothpick to a cow!
The hall was soon overflowing with minor articles
from houses and shops. Nothing was either too
costly or too insignificant to be refused : a glass
show-case glittered with jewelry of all styles and
patterns, and bits of rare old silver; pictures, and engravings, old and faded, new and valuable, hung side
by side on the walls ; odd pieces of furniture, work-boxes, lamps and candelabra were arranged here and
there, to stand out in bold relief amid an immense
array of pencils, tweezers, scissors, penknives, tooth-picks, darning needles, and such trifles; the stalls of
the stable were tenanted by mules, cows, hogs with
whole litters of pigs, and varieties of poultry; the
warehouse groaned tinder the weight of barrels of
sugar, molasses, and rice, and bushels of meal, potatoes, turnips and corn. Tickets for a chance at this
[_]
A tombola is a kind of raffle.
miscellaneous collection sold for one dollar each. As is ever
the case, the blind goddess is capricious : with the exception
of an old negro woman who won a set of pearls, I cannot
remember anyone who secured a prize worth the price of the
ticket. I invested in twenty tickets, for which I received
nineteen leadpencils and a frolicsome old goat, with beard
hanging down to his knees, and horns like those which
brought down the walls of Jericho. Need I add that the general
commanding refused to receive that formidable animal at
Arlington ?
The tombola was a grand, an overwhelming success; without
one dollar of outlay— the buildings and necessary printing bad
been donated—we made six thousand dollars. Before this sum
could be sent to New Orleans, that city was in the hands of
its captors.
Thus cut off from the means of securing necessary supplies,
and at the same time for facilities for communication. with those
whom we sought to aid, the Campaign Sewing Society sadly
disbanded. The busy workers retired to their own houses, the
treasurer fled with the funds for safe-keeping, and, when she
emerged from her retreat, six thousand dollars in Confederate
paper was not worth six cents.
