Judith White McGuire, Diary of a southern refugee during the war, by a lady of Virginia

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“ [340] to me, and I thought if I got killed there was nobody to care for me.”

His story was done. He looked at me, and said, “You have all been so good to me, particularly Miss T. God bless you all for it I am now almost at my journey's end.” When I looked up I found the men subdued and sorrowful. The story, and the weak, sad tones with which it was told, had touched them all, and brought tears from some.

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March 11th, 1865.

Sheridan's raid through the country is perfectly awful, and he has joined Grant, without being caught. Oh, how we listened to hear that he had been arrested in his direful career! It was, I suppose, the most cruel and desolating raid upon record — more lawless, if possible, than Hunter's. He had an overwhelming force, spreading ruin through the Upper Valley, the Piedmont country, the tide-water country, until he reached Grant. His soldiers were allowed to commit any cruelty on non-combatants that suited their rapacious tempers-stealing every thing they could find; ear-rings, breastpins, and finger-rings were taken from the first ladies of the land; nothing escaped them which was worth carrying off from the already desolated country. And can we feel patient at the idea of such soldiers coming to Richmond, the target at which their whole nation, from their President to the meanest soldier upon their army-rolls, has been aiming for four years? Oh, I would that I could see Richmond burnt to the ground by its own people, with not one brick left upon another, before its defenceless inhabitants should be subjected to such degradation Fighting is still going on; so near the city, that the sound of cannon is ever in our ears. Farmers are sending in produce which they cannot spare, but which they