Dolly Sumner Lunt Burge describes the pillaging of her homestead by troops.

[Nov.] 19th. . . I walked to the gate. There they came, filing up. I hastened back to my frightened servants & told them they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection & a guard. But like Demons they rush in. My yards are full. To my smokehouse, my dairy, pantry, kitchen & cellar like famished wolves they come, breaking locks & whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smokehouse is gone in a twinkling. My flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds, both in vinegar & brine, wine, jars & jugs, are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys my hens, chickens & fowls - my young pigs, are shot down in my yard, & hunted as if they were the rebels themselves. Utterly powerless, I came to appeal to the guard I cannot help you Madam it is the orders & as I stood there from my lot, I saw driven first old Dutch my dear old Buggy horse, who had carried my dear dead husband so many miles, & who would so quietly wait at the block for him to mount & dismount, & then had carried him to his grave, performing the same sad office to dear Lou - & who had been my faithful servant so many years. Then old Mary, my brood mare, who for years has been too old & stiff, for work. With her three year old colt my two year old mule, & her last little baby colt -there they go- There go my sheep & worse than all - my boys, my poor boys, are forced to get the mules.

But alas little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder & fire - that they were forcing at the point of the bayonet my boys from home. One . . . jumped into the bed in his cabin, & declared himself sick, another crawled under the floor, a lame boy, he was, but they pulled him out & placed him on a horse & drove him off. Kid, poor kid. The last I saw of him, a man had him going round the garden looking as I thought for my sheep as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me the big tears coursing down his cheeks saying they were making him go. I said stay in my room but a man followed in cursing him & threatening to shoot him if he did not go poor Jack had to yield. James Arnold in trying to escape from a back window was captured & marched off. Henry too was taken I know not how or when, but probably when he & Bob went after the mules.

I had not believed they would force from their homes the poor doomed negroes, but such has been the fact here, cursing them & saying that Jeff Davis was going to put them in his army, but that they should not fight for him but for them. No indeed! No! They are not friends to the slave We have never made the poor cowardly negro fight, & it is strange, passing strange, that the all powerful Yankee nation with the whole world to back them, their ports open, their armies filled with soldiers from all nations, should at last take the poor negro to help them out against this "little Confederacy," which was to be brought back into the Union in sixty days time. My poor boys, My poor boys. What unknown trials are before you. How Jon here clung to your mistress & assisted her in every way you knew how you have never known want, of any kind, never have I corrected them a word was sufficient it was only to tell them what I wanted done & they obeyed. Their parents are with me & how sadly they lament the loss of their boys.

Their cabins are rifled of every valuable. The soldiers swearing that their Sunday clothes were the white peoples & that they never had time to get such things as they had. Poor . . . chest was broken open, his money & tobacco taken, he has always been a money making & saving boy, not unfrequently has his crop brought him five hundred dollars & more. All of his clothes and Rachels clothes that dear Lou gave her before her death & which she had packed away were stolen from her. Ovens, skillets, coffee mills of which we had three, coffee pots, not one have I left - sifters all gone. Seeing that the soldiers could not be restrained the guard ordered me to have their things that remained brought into my house. Which I did - & they all, poor things, huddled together into my room fearing every moment that the house would be burned.

A Mr. Webber from Illinois & a Captain came into my house of whom I claimed protection from the vandals that were forcing themselves into my rooms. He said he knew my brother Orrington of Chicago, . . . shame I could not restrain my feelings but bursting into tears implored him to see my brother & let him know my destitution. I saw nothing before me but starvation. He promised to do this and comforted me with the assurance that my dwelling house would not be burned though my out buildings might. Poor little Sadie went crying to him as a friend & told him they had her doll Nancy he begged her to come & see him & he would give her a fine waxen one. He felt for me I give him & several others the character of gentlemen. I don't believe they would have molested women & children had they had their own way. He seemed surprised that I had not laid away in my house flour & other provisions. I did not suppose I could secure them there more than where I usually left them for in last summer raid houses were thoroughly searched. In parting with him I parted as with a friend.

Sherman with a greater portion of his army passed my house that day. All day, as its sad moments rolled on were they passing, not only in front of my house, but they came up behind, tore down my garden palings, made a road through my back yard & lot field, driving their stock & riding through, tearing down my fences, & desolating my home Wantonly doing it when there was no necessity for it. Such a day if I live to the age of Methuselah, may God spare me from ever seeing again.

Such were some of the scenes of this sad day and as night drew it sable curtains around us, the heavens from every point were lit up with flames from burning buildings! Dinnerless & supperless as we were, it was nothing in comparison to the fear of being driven out homeless & houseless to the dreary woods. Nothing to eat. I could give my guard no supper & he left us. I appealed to another asking him if he had wife mother or sister, & how he should feel were they in my situation. A Col. from Vermont left me two men but they were Dutch & I could not understand one word they said. My Heavenly Father alone saved me from the destructive fire. Carriage house had in it eight bales of cotton with my carriage buggy & harness, on top of the cotton was some corded cotton rolls a hundred pounds or more These were thrown out the blankets in which they were taken, & a large twist of the rolls, set on fire & thrown into the boat of my carriage which was close up to the cotton bales. Thanks to my God the cotton only burned over & then went out! Shall I ever forget the deliverance?

This was after night - the greater part of the army had passed. It came up very windy and cold. My room was full nearly with the bedding of 8 with the negroes. They were afraid to go out for my women could not step outside of the door without an insult from them. They lay down on the floor Sadie got down & under the same cover with Sally while I sat up all night. Watching every moment for the flames to burst out from some of my buildings. The two guards came into my room & laid themselves by my fire. For the night I could not close my eyes but kept walking to & fro. Watching the fires in the distance & dreading the approaching day which I feared as they had not all passed would be but a continuation of horrors.

From: American Women's Diaries, 1789-1923. Microfilm. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.