Slept very little last night. Went out doors several times and could
see large fires like burning buildings. Am I not in the hands of a
merciful God who has promised to take care of the widow and orphan?
Sent off two of my mules in the night. Mr. Ward and Frank [a slave]
took them away and hid them. In the morning took a barrel of salt,
which had cost me two hundred dollars, into one of the black women's
gardens, put a paper over it, and then on the top of that leached
ashes. Fixed it on a board as a leach tub, daubing it with ashes [the
old-fashioned way of making lye for soap]. Had some few pieces of meat
taken from my smoke-house carried to the Old Place [a distant part of
the plantation] and hidden under some fodder. Bid them hide the wagon
and gear and then go on plowing. Went to packing up mine and Sadai's
clothes. I fear that we shall be homeless.
The boys came back and wished to hide their mules. They say that the
Yankees camped at Mr. Gibson's last night and are taking all the stock
in the county. Seeing them so eager, I told them to do as they
pleased. They took them off, and Elbert [the black coachman] took his
forty fattening hogs to the Old Place Swamp and turned them in.
We have done nothing all day--that is, my people have not. I made a
pair of pants for Jack [a slave]. Sent Nute [a slave] up to Mrs.
Perry's on an errand. On his way back, he said, two Yankees met him
and begged him to go with them. They asked if we had livestock, and
came up the road as far as Mrs. Laura Perry's. I sat for an hour
expecting them, but they must have gone back. Oh, how I trust I am
safe! Mr. Ward is very much alarmed.
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