The inhabitants of Eastern Georgia suffered even more than those of Middle Georgia from our army operations,—the men having got used to their wild business by the time they arrived there, and the General having, I suspect, slipped one glove off. Here is the story of an old gentleman of Burke County:—
“It was the 14th Corps that came through my place. They looked like a blue cloud coming. They had all kinds of music,—horns, cow-bells, tin-pans, everything they could pick up that would make a hideous noise. It was like Bedlam broke loose. It was enough to frighten the old stumps in the deadenings, say nothing about the people. They burned everything but occupied dwellings. They cut the belluses at the blacksmith-shops. They took every knife and fork and cooking utensil we had. My wife just saved a frying-pan by hanging on to it; she was considerable courageous, and they left it in her hands. After that they came back to get her to cook them some biscuit.
“’How can I cook for you, when you’ve carried off everything?’ she said.
“They told her if she would make them a batch of biscuit they would bring back a sack of her own flour, and she should have the balance of it. She agreed to it; but while the biscuit was baking, another party came along and carried the sack off again.
“The wife of one of my neighbors,—a very rich family, brought up to luxuries,—just saved a single frying-pan, like we did. Their niggers and all went off with Sherman; and for a week or two they had to cook their own victuals in that frying-pan, cut them with a pocket-knife, and eat them with their fingers. My folks had to do the same, but we hadn’t been brought up to luxuries, and didn’t mind it so much.
“General Sherman went into the house of an old woman after his men had been pillaging it. He sat down and drank a glass of water. Says she to him, ‘I don’t wonder people say you’re a smart man; for you’ve been to the bad place and got scrapings the devil wouldn’t have.’ His soldiers heard of it, and they took her dresses and hung them all up in the highest trees, and drowned the cat in the well.
“A neighbor of mine buried all his gold and silver, and built a hog-pen over the spot. But the Yankees were mighty sharp at finding things. They mistrusted a certain new look about the hog-pen, ripped it away, stuck in their bayonets, and found the specie.
“Another of my neighbors hid his gold under the brick floor of his smoke-house. He put down the bricks in the same place; but the rascals smelt out the trick, pulled up the floor, got the gold, and then burnt the smoke-house. They made him take off his boots and hat, which they wore away. They left him an old Yankee hat, which he now wears. He swears he never’ll buy another till the government pays him for his losses.
“My wife did the neatest thing. She took all our valuables, such as watches and silver-spoons, and hid them in the cornfield. With a knife she would just make a slit in the ground, open it a little, put in one or two things, and then let the top earth down, just like it was before. Then she’d go on and do the same thing in another place. The soldiers went all over that cornfield sticking in their bayonets, but they didn’t find a thing. The joke of it was, she came very near never finding them again herself.
“One of my neighbors, a poor man, was stopped by some cavalry boys, who demanded his watch. He told ’em it was such a sorry watch they wouldn’t take it. They wanted to see it, and when he showed it, they said, ‘Go along!—we won’t be seen carrying off such a looking thing as that!’”