Page 190 - Arkansas Confederate Women

SHERMAN'S RAID.

By Mrs. Mwgaret E. Rush, of Union County.

My home is now in Union county, Ark. I was a small child
in Anson county, N. C, during the war, where my mother, whose
name was Elizabeth Myers, was born and raised. My father

having died before the war, I had four sisters and one brother,

who was forced to go to the war at the age of 17. He died six

weeks later. If mother was living, she could tell better than I

can of the hardships and troubles of that cruel war—how hard

it was to give up her only son and have to provide for a family
of girls alone, and of the raid of Sherman's army, who destroyed
the stock of provisions, house and furnitnre, and left the people

to suffer the consequences with the few negroes.
I was small, but well do I remember seeing the Yankees

riding the roads, with their horses loaded with meat, chickens,
blankets and everything that they could carry. They burned
the mills and gins. I saw Mr. Lockhart's gin burn. It was full

of wheat and cotton. I can't tell half what we suffered from

the effects of the war. I was raised without a man on the place,
and had to do all kinds of work. I married a man here by the
name of Rush. His father died in the war; his mother was left

with her first-born to raise alone.