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[113] Nor was that kind of employment all; for many a wife or daughter of a soldier went out on the farm and bravely did the work with plow and hoe to make provision for herself and little children. Shops were established extensively to manufacture domestic implements. Wheat and other cereals were produced, where practicable, in large quantities; hogs and cattle were raised more generally; and before the passage over the Mississippi was closed by the Federal gunboats, droves of beef-cattle and numerous wagon-loads of bacon and flour were almost constantly passing across that river from Texas to feed the soldiers of the Confederate army. Texas had a large surplus of provisions beyond the needs of home consumption and the soldiers stationed within the State.

An almost universally humane feeling inspired people of wealth as well as those in moderate circumstances to help the indigent families of soldiers in the field and the women who had lost their husbands and sons by sickness or in battle. There were numerous slaveholders who had only a few slaves, such as had been raised by themselves or by their parents as part of the family, and so regarded themselves. In the absence of the husband in the service, the wife, though never having been used to hardships, and even though delicately reared and educated, assumed the management of the farm and the control of the negroes on it. It was a subject of general remark that the negroes were more docile and manageable during the war than at any other period, and for this they deserve the lasting gratitude of their owners in the army. Their children since the war have been taught in the free public schools of the State, in separate schools by teachers of their own color, many of whom have been educated at public expense at the colored normal institute. The interior of the State not having been invaded by the enemy, the negroes were not demoralized and constituted an element of strength to the Confederate cause by their faithful labor on the farms, and by their

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