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One of the myths of the Northern invasion of the American South is that Sherman did not wreak the destruction on North Carolina as he and his vandals had in South Carolina. Homes in the Old North State were looted indiscriminately and livestock shot to deny noncombatants food for themselves and their children.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com The Great American Political Divide
If Southerners Had Behaved Themselves . . .
. . . [T]he Yankees came by the hundreds and destroyed everything that we possessed — every living thing. After they had taken everything out of the house—our clothes, shoes, hats, and even my children’s clothes — my husband was made to take off his boots which a yankee tried on. The shoes would not fit, so the soldier cut them to pieces. They even destroyed the medicine we had.
In the cellar, they took six barrels of lard, honey and preserves — and what they did not want, they let the Negroes come in and take. They took 16 horses, one mule, all of the oxen, every cow, every plough, even the hoes, and four vehicles. The soldiers filled them with meat and pulled them to camp which was not far from our home. They would kill the hogs in the fields, cut them in halves with the hair on. Not a turkey, duck or chicken was left.
My mother in law . . . was very old and frail and in bed. They went in her bedroom and cursed her. They took all our books and threw them in the woods. I had my silver and jewelry buried in the swamp for two months.
We went to Faison Depot and bought an old horse that we cleaned up, fed and dosed, but which died after a week’s care. Then the boys went again and bought an ox. They made something like a plough which they used to finish the crop with. Our knives were pieces of hoop iron sharpened, and our forks were made of cane — but it was enough for the little we had to eat.
All of which I have written was the last year and month of the sad, sad war (March and April, 1865). It is as fresh in my memory and all its horrors as if it were just a few weeks ago. It will never be erased from my memory as long as life shall last.
I do not and cannot with truth say I have forgotten or that I have forgiven them. They destroyed what they could of the new house and took every key and put them in the turpentine boxes. Such disappointment cannot be imagined. My children would cry for bread, but there was none. A yankee took a piece out of his bag and bit it, and said: “If you had behaved yourselves this would not have happened.”
(Sampson Independent, February 1960; The Heritage of Sampson County (NC), Volume I, Oscar Bizzell, editor, pp. 253-254)
We WERE behaving ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIf we had acted like the Union forces did during the war, Washington, D.C. ( and a lot more places ) would have been ransacked and burnt to the ground.
We restrained our baser instincts, and acted as GENTLEMEN should.
That time.
Don't count on it a second time.
Let's not go there, shall we?
Central Alabamaian
They deserve to go there.
DeleteIt is stories like this that were passed down from one generation to the next.
ReplyDeleteYankees don't understand why Southerners don't "just get over it". This is no different than the liberal telling the rape victim to "just give them what they want, and then get on with your life".
We shall never forget. Our children will never forget, nor our grandchildren.
We shall never forget.
DeleteAbsolutely.
150 years ago, they were digging up the graves of the dead, burning the flags, and attempting to stomp out any vestige of the Confederacy.
Delete150 years later, here they are, still wanting to dig up the dead, burning the flags, and trying stomp out any vestige of the Confederacy.
It's kind of hard to "get over it", while "it" is still going on.
Central Alabamian
Absolutely
DeleteIf Lincoln and the Fed Had Behaved Themselves . . .
ReplyDeleteNow that's a thought.
Really.
DeleteGrowing up in coastal NC having been born in 1950 I well remember all of the things we did NOT have that other places did. There were no big tractors, only small inexpensive one's mostly worn out and very limited tools with which to repair them or anything else.
ReplyDeleteAll but the richest in our small towns would be considered poor by today's standards. It occurred to me at some point that we were still (in the 50's and 60's) living in the wake of the Civil War. If it had not been for the military build up during WWII coastal
NC would still likely be desolate save for the Yankee carpetbaggers of the late 20'th
century who have so inflated land values that the natives often have to sell out and move away. I digress. A few years back I e-mailed a gentleman who retired from the
tobacco industry and turned to writing about NC folklore and history. I related my theory to him that Coastal NC lived in the shadow of the Civil war well into the second half of the 20th century. He wrote back that he fully agreed with me. And they wonder
why we won't forget!
When I was a child the license plate you saw most often on the front of a NC car (NC does not require registration plates on the front for those that don't know) was a depiction of the flag of the Army of Northern Va. with these words emblazoned over it.
"FORGET HELL" I wish I knew where to get one of those plates today. CH
Thanks great story you can find on eBay I have one
Deletethanks, I'll look. CH
ReplyDeleteCertainly.
Delete