Carrie Bell Sinclair - Knowledge (XXG)

31: 244:"The accompanying song was taken from a letter of a Southern girl to her lover in Lee's army, which letter was obtained from a mail captured in Sherman's march through Northern Alabama. The materials of which the dress alluded to is made are cotton and wool, and woven on the hand-loom, so commonly seen in the houses at the South. The scrap of a dress, enclosed in the letter as a sample, was of a gray color, with a stripe of crimson and green, quite pretty, and creditable to the lady who made it." 172:, as was her mother, and had just entered upon his ministerial labors as a member of the Georgia Conference when Carrie was born. The Rev. Mr. Sinclair was of Scotch descent. He was a Methodist minister, and was stationed for a while during her girlhood at Augusta, Macon, Savannah, North Carolina and South Carolina, but as his health failed he finally settled in Macon and engaged in mercantile business. At the time of his death, the Rev. Mr. Sinclair was teaching a school for young women in 203: 232:, or record the deeds of her Southern heroes in song and story. Sinclair's poem, "The Southern Girl's Homespun Dress", was composed in the midsummer of 1862, in Augusta, Georgia. She stated that there was quite a rivalry with the girls as to who should have the neatest homespun dress, and from this incident, she took the idea and wrote what became an old war song. It was first published in an Augusta paper, and was copied in the 732: 693: 648: 604: 564: 526: 457: 413: 176:. He left his widow and eight daughters – the eldest only married. Carrie Bell was a child at this time. Some three years after the death of her father, a younger sister died. It was upon this occasion that Carrie Bell penned her first rhymes, telling her childish sorrow in song. Soon after, her mother removed to 338:

Also according to Rutherford (1907), in 1911, many inquiries appeared through the press, asking who the author of The Homespun Dress was and a reward was offered to the one who would answer these satisfactorily. The habit among the Southern writers of not signing their names to their literary efforts

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Sinclair wrote a number of inspiring Southern poems commemorative of incidents of the war, many of which were set to music. So many stirring lyrics did she compose during war-time, that she gained the title of the "Song-bird of the South." With her own hands, she made thirteen flags of silk, and

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Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States; Illustrated with Three Thousand Vignette Portraits

187:, who, while visiting his sister in Augusta, heard the discussion about steam and the probability of using it for a propelling power; at once this great man of inventive genius began to plan his patent. 150: 816: 796: 252:

After the close of the war, Sinclair was busy writing again, and contributed to most of the leading journals of the South and many in the North and West.

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to reside, and, although not entirely abandoning the field of letters, yet she felt that new duties claimed her attention, that of the wants of the

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Her early pseudonym was "Clara", which she exchanged later for "Mollie Marygold". Under the latter title, she contributed for two years to the

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Southland Writers: Biographical and Critical Sketches of the Living Female Writers of the South. With Extracts from Their Writings

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The South in History and Literature: A Hand-book of Southern Authors, from the Settlement of Jamestown, 1607, to Living Writers

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According to Familysearch.org, Carrie's sisters were: Martha, Mary, Francis, Ella, Sarah, Maria, Pattie, and Ada.

217:. She dedicated it to her friend and adviser, the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, vice-president of the Confederacy. 195:

Her first appearance in print, a poem titled "The Storm", was in a weekly literary paper published in Augusta,

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presented them to different Confederate regiments. She was the president of the Ladies Knitting Society.

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during the civil war, and there, her "Georgia, My Georgia" and "The Homespun Dress" poems were written.

786: 781: 259:, from which widely circulated journal many of her poems were copied into English and Irish papers. 720:. Vol. 9, no. 8. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadfoot's Bookmark. September 1901. p. 399 718:

Confederate Veteran: Published Monthly in the Interest of Confederate Veterans and Kindred Topics

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and then Carrie commenced her literary career, writing because she could not resist doing so.

547: 361: 474: 326: 177: 275:, where a sister, Mrs. Mason, resided, she died there in 1883, at the age of forty-four. 228:

soldiers. When she did write, it was that she might in some way aid in the cause of the

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Sinclair's later life seems to have been clouded by disappointment. Removing to

751:"Socks, Stockings and Other Knitted Items: Articles from Civil War Newspapers" 168:

Her father, the Rev. Elijah Sinclair, a Methodist minister, was a native of

681:. Vol. 5, no. 4. Methodist Magazine Publishing Company. June 1901 296: 126: 213:

In 1860, though dated 1861, she published a volume of poems in Augusta,

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caused much to be lost that should have be credited to the South.

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