at home were looked after and supplies sent to their needy families. The last year of the war a bushel of corn cost $13, while a soldier's pay was $11 a month, paid once in a while. So the poor people became destitute. But the state furnished meal and salt to all[652] and the more fortunate people gave liberally of their supplies. Many of the poorer white women did work for others--weaving, sewing, and spinning--for which they were well paid, frequently in provisions, which they were in great need of. Some made hats, bonnets, and baskets for sale. The cotton counties supported many refugees from the northern counties, and numerous poor people from that section imposed upon the generosity of the planting section. The overseers, white or black, had a dislike for those to whom supplies were given; they also objected to the regular payment of the tax-in-kind, and to impressment which took their corn, meat, horses, cows, mules, and negroes, and crippled their operations. The mistresses had to interfere and see that the poor and the government had their share. In the cities the women engaged in various patriotic occupations,--sewing for the soldiers, nursing, raising money for hospitals, etc. The women of Tuskegee raised money to be spent on a gunboat for the defence of Mobile Bay. They wanted it called _The Women's Gunboat_.[653] "A niece of James Madison" wrote to a Mobile paper, proposing that 200,000 women in the South sell their hair in Europe to raise funds for the Confederacy. The movement failed because of the blockade.[654] There were other similar propositions, but they could not be carried out, and year after year the legislatures of the state thanked the women for their patriotic devotion, their labors, sacrifices, constancy, and courage.