Research & How To > Impact of War on Civilians > Coping With Shortages > Confederate Candles

How to Make "Confederate Candles"

Melt together a pound of beeswax and a quarter of a pound of rosin or of turpentine, fresh from the tree. Prepare a wick 30 or 40 yards long, made up of three threads of loosely spun cotton, saturate this well with the mixture, and draw it through your fingers, to press all closely together, and to keep the size even. Repeat the process until the candle attains the size of a large straw or quill, then wrap around a bottle, or into a ball with a flat bottom. Six inches of this candle elevated above the rest will burn for fifteen or twenty minutes, and give a very pretty light, and forty yards have sufficed a small family a summer for all the usual purposes of the bed-chamber.

From: Confederate Receipt Book. A Compilation of over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times: Printed in Richmond, 1863