A Northerner, who had purchased an estate in Virginia, noticed that smoke always emanated from the chimney of a cabin near his woods where an old negro lived. One day, on meeting the old colored man, he asked: "Where do you get your wood, Uncle?" The latter eyed him with an expression of great reproach and replied: "My pa was coachman at the Gret House, and he pa, and he pa; 'whar I git my wood?' That ain't no question for one gen'l'man to ax an'er!" _Fort Fisher, North Carolina, captured, 1865_ January Sixteenth When wintry days are dark and drear And all the forest ways grow still, When gray snow-laden clouds appear Along the bleak horizon hill, When cattle all are snugly penned And sheep go huddling close together, When steady streams of smoke ascend From farm-house chimneys--in such weather Give me old Carolina's own, A great log house, a great hearthstone, A cheering pipe of cob or briar And a red, leaping light'ood fire. JOHN HENRY BONER (_The Light'ood Fire_) _Forcible resistance to British Stamp Act under Colonel Hugh Waddell, of Wilmington, N. C., 1766_ January Seventeenth VALLEY FORGE EXCEEDED Starvation, literal starvation, was doing its deadly work. So depleted and poisoned was the blood of many of Lee's men from insufficient and unsound food that a slight wound which would probably not have been reported at the beginning of the war would often cause blood-poison, gangrene, and death. Yet the spirits of these brave men seemed to rise as their condition grew more desperate.... It was a harrowing but not uncommon sight to see those hungry men gather the wasted corn from under the feet of half-fed horses, and wash and parch and eat it to satisfy in some measure their craving for food. GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON _Tarleton routed at the battle of the Cowpens, S. C., 1781_ January Eighteenth While the Confederate soldiers were in the trenches, the ingenuity of the Southern women was taxed to the utmost to supply their household needs. Medicine had been declared contraband of war by the Federal Government, and salt works were made a special object for attack. Remedies were improvised from herbs of all kinds; the dirt floor of the meat house was boiled for the salt it contained; soap was made from china-berries and lye; candles out of resin or waxed rope wound around a corncob; thorns were used for pins; shoes were fashioned out of canvas, and supplied with wooden soles; buttons were made from persimmon seed; tumblers out of glass bottles; tea out of berry leaves; and coffee was made from sweet potatoes and dandelion seed. [Condensed from accounts of war times--Ed.] January Nineteenth ENGLISH TRIBUTES TO AMERICAN GENIUS LEE--One of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all the generals who have spoken the English tongue. COL. G. F. R. HENDERSON, C.B.