Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/33

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your hands or any of your command, let me entreat you t<> >lx.\\ him every kindness in your power. In the awful night of the ijth. I testify \m[ for him my family and Dr. Reynolds' would have suf- fered indeed. He stuck to us all the night and all the day. 11- \\.is a great part of the night on the shed, and labored with all his might to save Dr. Reynolds' house, which, by the good providence of God, by his aid was saved. I beg you, by all kind of remem- brance of the past, for my sake as well as for him who has in the midst of the horrors of that night proved himself a man and a Christian, return to him in his extremity all the kindness he showed to us in ours.

I am, gentlemen, yours faithfully,

(Signed) A. TOOMER PORTER.

Bummers were men who were ordered by Sherman to go from house to house along the march, and rob our women and children of every morsel of bread and meat they possessed to feed his 70,- ooo hungry men, who, with few exceptions, acted like savages more than soldiers. Some of our women were forced to rake up grains of corn from where these men had fed their horses in order to pre- pare it for food as best they could. Every horse, mule, cow, turkey, chicken, and all that could be eaten, had been stolen. The day after leaving Columbia, General Butler, with a few men, charged some "bummers," and they ran in every direction from the house they were then pillaging, and in a chase of about 200 yards through the woods, I caught one of them, who begged hard for his life, and offered me a beautiful riding whip not to kill him, which he evi- dently had stolen from some lady, and, as he had thrown his gun away, all that I could do was to accept the whip and him too. I turned him over to General Butler, and left him answering ques- tions. The next day some one presented General Butler with a large map of the State, which was put in my charge until we could get a smaller one, which was procured I think the next day. About sundown of the first day I carried it. General Butler called for the map, which, to my disgust, I had left five miles away, in a house where some ladies had given me a piece of bread. The order had to be obeyed, and when I mounted my faithful horse, something, I know not what, seemed to tell him that quick work was all that could save us both. The smoke from the houses all around showed that we were gradually being surrounded, and I expected every moment