“You will!”
They were coming towards her when the one whom they had called “old Secesh,” entered, and they stopped.
“Men, for shame! For shame! Don’t dare touch that old woman! The first man who touches these old people will be shot,” he continued, raising his gun, and they went sullenly out into the yard.
And when they had gone, they had taken all—the sweet potatoes in the hills, the corn, bacon, flour, the cows, cooking utensils, anything any one wanted. And “old Secesh” stayed by the aged woman’s side.
“It is a shame,” he said, apologetically. “If only Grant were our commander! This isn’t the way he and Lee fight.”
At intervals other soldiers came, and finding all taken, passed on. To one she looked up reproachfully, and said, as she listened to the groans of the negroes about their burning cabins.
“And yet you say you are the friends of our negroes?”
“We came to save the Union. Damn the niggers,” was the reply she received; and then the man continued:
“You think Georgy is havin’ a bad time of it, old woman—jes’ wait till we git to Ca’liny, we’ll grease her over and burn her up. That’s where treason begun, an’, by God, that’s where it shall end!”