"Farming Despite Marauding Yankees"

[CSA Today]

"When it was evident in 1865 that Sherman would march on Goldsborough, I thought that he would lead his army northward from that town. It seemed best therefore
to buy a farm in Wake [county] so as to have something to fall back on if the Edgecombe [county] places should be devastated. It was a mistake but not a costly one.
Sherman came to Raleigh instead of marching north from Goldsborough but my place was eighteen miles from Raleigh and too much out of the way to be ravaged.
My mules and corn and fodder were taken but there was no wanton destruction.

After peace was declared, I told the Negroes that they might cultivate the crops already planted and we would leave it to the agent in charge of the Freedman's Bureau
to divide the crops. I further agreed that I would at my expense transport them and their household property back to Edgecombe. This satisfied them but when the
Government officer (called by them the Bureau) made his award, he placed an undue estimate on the share to which the land was entitled. He gave me double what
was usual and I at once reduced this allowance to one-third of the corn and one-fourth of the cotton.

I told my Negroes early in the war that if the North succeeded, freedom would be brought to them. They would gain nothing by running off, on the contrary would
incur danger and trouble. I doubt whether this was needed as other slaves than mine continued quietly at work. But it is a remarkable evidence of their docility and
of their previous kind treatment that when the cotton factory at Rocky Mount was burned by Northern cavalry from New Bern, they loaded the wagons with meat
under supervision of my overseer, Mr. Norris, hauled the load three or four miles into the piney woods, and remained quiet while the Federals passed by.

Not one showed a disposition to join the soldiers. After the war at least half of my hands continued to work as freely hired or as tenants.
Some thought that it looked more like freedom to leave "Old Marster" and work for somebody else but nearly all continued on the Tar River farms."

(Memories of an Old time Tarheel, Kemp Plummer Battle, UNC Press, 1945, pp. 129-130)

 

[lakertaker]

Was just reading an account of the 3rd battle of Murfreesboro (Dec. 1864 - Tennessee). When questioned by Union forces, a local farm woman volunteered information to the whereabouts of the Confederate forces. The information proved accurate. As a reward for her help, the commanding officer had her 60 hogs moved to town, as he figured the Confederates would have confiscated them. Couldn't help but wonder if she got her hogs back, or not?