When McClellan was on the Peninsula, the shadow of the war-cloud swept past the place. One or two negroes ran away, but at that time they were not tolerated in camp. The campaign of 1862 left the estate unharmed. But Sheridan's cavalry, followed by the Sixth Corps, in its magnificent march from the North Anna, had suddenly and unexpectedly disturbed the security of the old plantation. There was a rattling fire from carbines, a fierce fight, men wounded and dead, broken fences, trodden fields of wheat and clover; ransacked stables, corn-bins, meat-houses, and a swift disappearing of live stock of every description.
Foraging.
But to go back a little. The proprietor of this estate ardently espoused Secession. His wife was as earnest as he. They hated the North. They loved the institutions and principles of the South. They sold their surplus negroes in the Richmond market. They parted husbands and wives, tore children from the arms of their mothers, and separated them forever. They lived on unrequited labor, and grew rich through the breeding of human flesh for the market.
When the war commenced, the owner of this magnificent estate enlisted in the army and was made a Colonel of cavalry. He furnished supplies and kept open house for his comrades in arms; but he fell in a cavalry engagement on the Rappahannock, in October, 1863, leaving a wife and three young children. The advance of the army, its sudden appearance on the Pamunkey, left Mrs. —-- no time to remove her personal estate, or to send her negroes to Richmond for safe keeping. Fitz-Hugh Lee disputed Sheridan's advance. The fighting began on this estate. Charges by squadrons and regiments were made through the corn-fields. Horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, were seized by the cavalrymen. The garden, filled with young vegetables, was spoiled. In an hour there was complete desolation. The hundred negroes—cook, steward, chambermaid, house and field hands, old and young—all left their work and followed the army. Mrs. —-- was left to do her own work. The parlors of the stately mansion were taken by the surgeons for a hospital. The change which Mrs. —-- experienced was from affluence to abject poverty, from power to sudden helplessness.
Passing by one of the negro cabins on the estate, I saw a middle-aged colored woman packing a bundle.
"Are you going to move?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; I am going to follow the army."
"What for? Where will you go?"