" A favorite night's employment was found in making envelopes.  No bits of white paper suitable for writing with pen and ink could be wasted in envelopes. Thus it happened that wall paper and sheets with pictures on one side, taken from `United States Explorations,' served to make envelopes, neat enough.  These we stuck together with gum from peach trees. Ink was made from oak balls and green persimmons, with rusty nails, instead of copperas, to deepen the color. The noisy goose supplied our pens."

Ref: Simpson, Anna, fl. 1861-1885, Memoir of Anna Simpson, in South Carolina Women in the Confederacy, Vol. 1. United Daughters of the Confederacy, South Carolina Division; Taylor, Thomas, Mrs. and Conner, Sallie Enders, eds.. Columbia, SC: State Company, 1903, p. 34.