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being searched, and knowing that in the dispensation of such favors we were seldom neglected, a rapid return was effected, but the visit had been paid with only the loss of three barrels of corn and two turkeys.
My mother, fearing it would all be taken, remonstrated with the officer, and requested his name, as his manner was very rude.
Upon his declining to give it she remarked, “Ashamed of your name!
I am not ashamed of mine, but am very willing to tell it to any one.”
This slight thrust with the small sword of sarcasm, wounded him so severely, that on the following Tuesday a large scouting party was sent out who called took a horse, and pressed on. In the evening, while we were sitting with a party of friends, a body of cavalry rode up and halted in front of the house.
Another and another addition was made.
“Surely they had come to meet a foe worthy of their steel.”
Into the meadow they rode and performed some evolutions; still mystery attended them, until four wagons drove into the lane.
Their purpose was then easily understood.
The very small supply of corn we had under existing circumstances raised and housed was carried off, the three remaining horses (one of them they returned for old, blind and lame, lest we should inform the Rebels), fifteen turkeys, and nearly all the fowls belonging to our servants.
All were excessively hungry; and while the abundance of the North and the wants of the South are flaunted before the public — while we are robbed of that on which we depend for subsistence, and forbidden even to make an honest purchase of necessaries, except under certain circumstances-food is demanded of us wherewith to feed these soldiers of the prosperous North, and it is always given if we have it. “If thine enemy hunger, feed him,” is a divine command.
The scene was not a pleasant one, and many wonder how we are supported under such a constant succession of trials.
I trust the strength we receive is from above.
When they were catching the horses, one old and a pet, I flurted my hand-kerchief in his face, and made other attempts to frighten him beyond the reach of his persecutors, one of whom said, “Put down that handkerchief — jerk it out of her hand!”
After they succeeded in taking him, I remarked that they were brave men--two hundred soldiers brought out to a solitary farm-house, to interrupt the quiet and innocent employments of the family, and deprive them of the little which former rapacity had left.
Information was called for respecting the movements of the Rebels, which would not have been given had I been in possession of it, hoping
