John Haroldson

John Haroldson

During the Civil War gunpowder was very scare in the Confederacy. And after resorting to almost every means to makeup the shortage, the authorities finally hit upon urine as a source of supply.

According, the following advertisement appeared in the Alabama Sentinel published in Selma, Alabama:

The ladies of Selma are respectfully requested to save the chamber lye gathered around their premises and barrels will be sent around to gather up the lotion

Signed,

Jonathan Haralson, Agent,
Nitre and Mining Bureau.
Confederate States Army
 

Whereupon a Southern wag made up the following verses:

John Haralson! John Haralson!
You are a funny creature;
You've given to this cruel war
A new and curious feature.
You'd have us think, while every man
Was born to be a fighter,
The women, bless the pretty dears
Should save their pee for nitre.

John Haralson! John Haralson!
Where did you get the notion
To send barrels around our street
To fill them with that lotion?
We thought the girls work enough
With making shirts and kissing:
But now you put the lovely dears
To patriotic pissing.

John Haralson! John Haralson!
Pray do invent neater
And a somewhat less immodest way
Of making your saltpetre.
The thing is so very odd,
Gunpowder like and cranky,
That when a woman lifts her skirt
She shoots another Yankee!"

They say there is a subtle smell
That lingers in the powder;
That when the smoke grows thicker,
And the din of the battle louder
That there is found to this compound
One serious objection;
A soldier can not sniff it
Without having an erection.