“I am, madam,” he answered, stepping over the dead body of the negro to her side.
“General Sherman, I am Helen Brooks, sister of Captain Henry Brooks, whom you know.”
“I am happy to know—”
“General, this is no time for pleasantries. In the name of the lowly Jesus, I beg of you stop this horrible outrage!”
“It is not my doing, Miss Brooks. I would stop it if I could, but it is beyond my power.”
“Beyond your power, General Sherman? Do you think these men would dare to do these things without your assent? Do you mean that your captains and colonels and lieutenants would rob, and loot, and pillage, and murder, and allow their men to do it, if you said it should not be done? Is this the power you have over your army? Look at those men throwing their firebrands on that house here under your very eyes! Do they fear Sherman’s anger or court Sherman’s favor?”
“Do you want a guard, Miss Brooks?”
“Want a guard! What mockery! General, I have just come from a house where the guards you sent set fire to the house they were guarding and burnt it down over the head of a young mother while she was giving birth to her first-born. Shame, shame on you, sir, and yours!”
“Madam, this is war! We did not commence it.”
“General Sherman, you know my family, or you would not have listened to me so far. You know how my father has sacrificed half his fortune for the Union cause, and how my brother well-nigh gave his life. And now—mark my words, sir—this is not a deed of war or necessity, but of infamous, vindictive hate, and the time will come when even in our loved Northland men will repudiate your deeds!”