A
single quotation from a home missionary in Iowa tells the whole
story:
"I will mention that I met more women driving teams on the road
and saw more at work in the fields than men. They seem to have
said to their husbands in the language of a favorite song,
'Just take your gun and go;
For Ruth can drive the oxen, John,
And I can use the hoe!'
"I went first to Clarinda, and the town seemed deserted. Upon
inquiry for former friends, the frequent answer was, "In the
army." From Hawleyville almost all the thoroughly loyal male
inhabitants had gone; and in one township beyond, where I
formerly preached, there are but seven men left, and at Quincy,
the county seat of Adams County, but five."
Even more important than the change in the personnel of labor
were the new machines of the day. During the fifteen years
previous to the war American ingenuity had reached a high point.
Such inventions as the sewing machine and the horse-reaper date
in their practical forms from that period, and both of these
helped the North to fight the war. Their further improvement,
and the extension of the principles involved to many new forms of
machinery, sprang from the pressing need to make up for the loss
of men who were drained by the army from the farms and the
workshops.
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