A first hand account always holds more weight with me. Dismissing the Southern Civilian and their account of what transpired is like dismissing survivors of Auschwitz and their first hand accounts...
November 19, 1864
I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they rush in! My yards are full.
. To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds - both in vinegar and brine - wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard.
'I cannot help you, Madam; it is orders.'
So are you going to dismiss this first hand account by strongly pro-Confederate Southern citizen Myra Inman of Cleveland, Tennessee?
"The soldiers (Nathan Bedford Forrest's) are dealing very badly, taking corn, leaving down fences, stealing horses, chickens, hogs and everything else they can see..."
If they did this to Inman property, property of a well-known and well-connected pro-rebel clan in Cleveland, I shudder to think what they did to poor Union families.
Do you dismiss this first-hand account?