Golden Gate National Cemetery, So. San Francisco, CA.

While the main conflicts of the Civil War occurred far away from San Jose, California did participate in the fighting, with local skirmishes between Union and Confederate sympathizers.  California was split between North and South in its sympathies, with more Confederate sympathy in southern California, and more Union sympathy in the North.  Since the gold fields were in Northern California, the Union received large donations of California gold, which greatly supported the war effort.  California’s brand-new state legislature also sent multiple companies of men to serve in the Union army, most ending up replacing more experienced soldiers stationed at army forts in the Midwest, but several seeing action on the front lines by joining up with Massachusetts and other Northern states’ militias.  The conflict split the nation in more ways than one, and the scars from those wounds are still sore in some areas of the U.S.!

How to make a gored skirt from the late 1860s.

Petit Courier des Dames, 1868.  Cathy Decker.

Pre-Raphaelite costume tips are forthcoming, but in the mean time, let's have a snippet of useful information about 1860s fashion.  Everyone is familiar with the fan-shaped hooped skirt, wide sleeves and narrow flounces of the 1850s and the bell-shaped hooped skirt, coat sleeves and wide flounces of the early 1860s.  However, there is a transitional style that came in after 1865, leading into the bustle of the 1870s, which I find very attractive.  It was called the "Empire" fashion and was named after the Second French Empire (which began with the crowning of Emperor Louis Napoleon (descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte) and Empress Eugenie at that time) and the fact that the style was thought of as an "exact copy" of the fashions of France during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.

La Mode Illustree, 1867.  Tara Maginnis.

Another fun summer beverage: homemade Cream Soda!

image from ClipArtETC. Soda water fountain.
With Memorial Day being the unofficial start of summer (according to the calendar, summer will begin on June 21), I thought that another cool drink recipe would be acceptable. Did you know that soda is a Victorian beverage? I found a recipe for Soda Powders in a household manual from 1858, and a recipe for Cream Soda in Godey's Lady's Book from 1865, which mentions a soda fountain! I knew that soda fountains were around by the 1890s but I didn't know that they were available in the 1860s. Here is the older recipe; I guess you're supposed to add your own flavoring and sugar:

Soda Water Powders.—A pleasant, cooling, summer drink. The blue paper contains carbonate of soda, thirty grains; the white paper tartaric acid, twenty-five grains.
Directions.—Dissolve the contents of the blue paper in half a tumbler of water, stir in the other powder, and drink during effervescence. Soda powders furnish a saline beverage, which is very slightly laxative, and well calculated to allay the thirst in hot weather. One pound of carbonate of soda, and thirteen ounces and a half of tartaric acid, supply the materials for 256 powders of each sort.

This one is from 1865:

Cream Soda -- an excellent Drink.
Five pounds of loaf sugar, one ounce cream of tartar, one ounce Epsom salts, five ounces tartaric acid. Dissolve all the ingredients in one gallon of water, and heat it till it boils; and skim, if necessary. When cool, put the syrup in bottles, and set in a cool place. To prepare the drink, put two or three tablespoonsful of the syrup into a tumbler two-thirds full of water; add one-fourth of a teaspoonful of super carbonate of soda; stir briskly, and the effervescence will be equal to any soda from the fount.

I don't know that I would try to make this recipe and actually drink it, but it's interesting to see that Cream Soda doesn't contain any cream -- at least in this rendering! I think I saw a recipe for Cream Soda that actually contained cream. I'll see if I can find it. Personally, I'd just buy a favorite brand of cream soda! A&W is one of my family's favorite brands, but Stewart's also makes a good cream soda. Pour it over ice and enjoy!