We had the table laid this morning, but no bread or butter or milk.
What a prospect for delicacies! My house is a perfect fright. I had
brought in Saturday night some thirty bushels of potatoes and ten or
fifteen bushels of wheat poured down on the carpet in the ell. Then
the few gallons of syrup saved was daubed all about. The backbone of a
hog that I had killed on Friday, and which the Yankees did not take
when they cleaned out my smokehouse, I found and hid under my bed, and
this is all the meat I have.
Major Lee came down this evening, having heard that I was burned out,
to proffer me a home. Mr. Dorsett was with him. The army lost some of
their beeves in passing. I sent to-day and had some driven into my
lot, and then sent to Judge Glass to come over and get some. Had two
killed. Some of Wheeler's men came in, and I asked them to shoot the
cattle, which they did.
About ten o'clock this morning Mr. Joe Perry [Mrs. Laura's husband]
called. I was so glad to see him that I could scarcely forbear
embracing him. I could not keep from crying, for I was sure the
Yankees had executed him, and I felt so much for his poor wife. The
soldiers told me repeatedly Saturday that they had hung him and his
brother James and George Guise. They had a narrow escape, however, and
only got away by knowing the country so much better than the soldiers
did. They lay out until this morning. How rejoiced I am for his
family! All of his negroes are gone, save one man that had a wife here
at my plantation. They are very strong Secesh [Secessionists]. When
the army first came along they offered a guard for the house, but Mrs.
Laura told them she was guarded by a Higher Power, and did not thank
them to do it. She says that she could think of nothing else all day
when the army was passing but of the devil and his hosts. She had,
however, to call for a guard before night or the soldiers would have
taken everything she had.
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