“Bracing herself, and looking every inch the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier, our brave Mother faced the man, whose eyes quailed before hers. He began a patronizing tone: ‘Madam, I have come to tell you that I have been obliged to carry out my orders in burning your home; I also wish to offer you my pity."
"’Stop sir, I command you!’ cried my Mother, stamping her foot. ‘You pity me? I scorn your pity! But listen to me! Do you see the one remaining column about to fall? That, sir, is the last of the original masts of the Federal frigate, Constitution, Old Ironsides. My Father, a brave soldier of the Revolution, built this home after that war. He went in as a boy, young and strong, he came out after serving seven years, weak and broken. He died at the early age of forty-five. Your grateful country has honored his memory by turning me, his daughter, and these my children, upon the world, homeless and destitute. Now you may go, sir. You have done all the harm, of which you are capable; I defy you to do more, and I utterly scorn your pity. Be gone out of my sight!’
From "The Diary of Netta Lee, The Lee Society, Alexandria, VA, 1925, PP 29-34.
War is rough on civilians. But you are mistaken if you don’t think Confederates were guilty of the same excess. I know of a nice story of a Confederate colonel (no doubt a Southern gentlemen) attempting to choke an elderly citizen of McDonald, Tennessee to death over a horse. The responsibility of loosing this mayhem on the nation rests with the geniuses who thought it a great idea to tear the nation apart so they could take their human property into the territories.