As the “keepers” of our history, we should know about the War here at home. I will try to include articles about the War in the Lowcountry in each issue. Hopefully, we will remember snippets from these articles and they will help us when we talk to the public. One purpose of our group is to educate the public and ourselves – so let’s be prepared.

CHARLESTON MERCURY, January 12, 1863, p. 2, c. 1

                The Relief of Soldiers' Families.--We have received a copy of the Report of the Board for the relief of the families of soldiers in the Parishes of St. Philip's and St. Michael's.  It is a condensed and interesting account of the operations of this excellent State establishment.  The Board recommends to the Legislature another and further appropriation as absolutely required for the good work.  The report says:

                The Board has now to provide for over six hundred soldiers' families, numbering about eighteen hundred persons; it has paid out the past year near thirty-seven thousand dollars, during the greater portion of which time the prices of food and provisions were fifty per cent. less than now; still, when it is known that the number of soldiers' families requiring aid is daily increasing from the harrowing truth that without credit and no work there is no alternative left but to apply for aid or starve, and, when, too, food and the indispensable necessaries of living are commanding and obtaining prices appalling to humanity, it is the advised and deliberate judgment of this Board that the recent appropriation by the Legislature of $59,5?2.23 to aid the soldiers' families in these Parishes is inadequate and insufficient for that purpose.

CHARLESTON MERCURY, January 13, 1863, p. 1, c. 5  

Save Your Rags.  

                This would perhaps, in ordinary times, be quite an unnecessary piece of advice, but at this moment it is of vital importance.  As our readers know, the price of paper has advanced enormously, and as a consequence, publishers have been compelled to make a corresponding advance on their prices.  One great reason of this increased tariff on paper is the scarcity of rags with which to manufacture it.  The manufacturers inform us that rags are exceedingly difficult to obtain, even when, as is the case, the rates paid are higher, by at least 800 per cent. than formerly.

                We write this article solely with the view of calling public attention to the scarcity, that it may, as far as possible, be remedied, and that speedily.  The press is one of the most potent auxiliaries of this Government in carrying forward its objects, and subserving its interests.  As a medium of communication, in times like these, when every day adds some memorable event to our history, the newspaper is as indispensable as our daily food.  And it is essential to our individual intelligence, and as a record of current events.  And as we sit down to read the pages of the favorite book or journal, let us not fail to remember that the materials for its manufacture must be obtained, or we shall have no book or newspaper.  Until the blockade is removed--a desideratum altogether among the uncertainties--we must rely upon our own resources.  Let then every family carefully save up all the rags--all the shreds--all the scraps—either linen, cotton, or woollen, and furnish them to the Paper Mills, and the proprietors of those mills will pay them handsomely therefore.  Husbands, tell your wives to see to this--and not only the wives, but let every member of the family, white and black, commence the saving of rags to make paper.  The possible contingency of a country like ours deprived of newspapers is shocking to contemplate.  And we will not believe but what, as we have thus sounded the note of alarm, every one interested (and who is not?) will do all in his or her power to keep the mills supplied with rags, that the press may thereby continue to dispense intelligence to the people.                                      Augusta Chronicle.