“Here’s to the Land of Blockade Booze”

After the Civil War, when the federal government began enforcing excise taxes on distilled spirits, Cleveland County farmers found it nearly impossible to operate legally. Mamie Jones wrote that between 1817 and 1862 there had been no tax on liquor sold in bulk, but in 1862 the federal government imposed a tax to finance the War Between the States, which was not collected in North Carolina until after the fighting ended.

When enforcement finally came, local people were outraged. They believed that making and selling liquor in bulk was no different from selling cotton by the bale or molasses by the barrel. The corn, peaches, and apples were their own, grown on their own land, and they resented Washington taxing what they saw as the product of their own labor. Liquor also brought hard money at a time when farm products brought almost nothing—perhaps 15 cents for a fat hen, a nickel for a frying chicken, less than 25 cents for half a bushel of eggs, or 25 cents for a bushel of corn. Turning corn into liquor brought a far better return.

To operate a legal distillery required a $5,000 bond, a $50 special tax, a $2 per-day tax, and 50 cents per gallon of brandy distilled, with whiskey taxed even higher. These costs were prohibitive for small farmers with limited stills. When they learned that being caught meant fines and jail, many moved their stills to secluded places and worked at night by moonlight, giving rise to the name moonshiners.

Jones recorded a toast common at the time:

“Here’s to the land of blockade booze;
Of good corn likker and mountain dews,
Where the sober grow drunk, and the drunk grow limber!
Here’s to my home in the tall pine timber.”

To combat moonshining, the government sent revenue officers to destroy stills and confiscate untaxed liquor. Even people opposed to drinking resented these agents, whom Jones said were often men of unscrupulous character. Governor Zeb Vance sarcastically called them “red-legged grasshoppers.”

Source: Mamie Jones.