The following article is from the Confederate Veteran, Vol. XII, No. 10 Nashville, Tenn., October, 1904.

SWIFT RETRIBUTION FOR HOUSE-BURNING

W. W. Patteson

The vandalism and ruthless destruction of property in the Valley of Virginia by the Federal army was greater perhaps than in any other section of the South. There were, no doubt, many individual incidents that occurred on Sherman’s infamous march to the sea that equaled in barbarous cruelty those in Virginia, but certainly none that surpassed them.

On the 20th of August, ‘64, a part of the Fifth Michigan Cavalry were sent to burn a number of handsome private dwellings in Clark County. It seemed to be providential that on that same day Companies C, D, and B (Forty-Third Battalion of Mosby’s Command), under Capt. William H. Chapman (afterwards lieutenant colonel), were marching from Fauquier County over to the west side of the Blue Ridge. As soon as we reached the top of the ridge, we saw the smoke of the burning buildings, and at Once took in the situation. We quickened our pace, crossed the Shenandoah at Castleman’s Ferry, and went in a gallop in the direction of the fires. We first came to the McCormack property, the fine dwelling now a mass of smoldering ruins. Hurrying on, we soon came in sight of Col. Morgan’s residence, and near by the Souer homestead, both burning. The latter had been fired early in the morning as the Yankees were passing, but had been put out by Mrs. Shephard and her little children. Returning, the Yankees again fired it, and when we came up Mrs. Shephard and her little ones were clustered in one corner of the yard, watching the flames consume their house. Orders had been passed back from our officer in front to “wipe them from the face of the earth, neither asking nor giving quarter,” and the sight of this helpless woman with her little children surrounded by a set of howling, plundering thieves served to emphasize the order, and we went at them with a yell. It was a sharp, quick, and clean little fight; no prisoners. The Yankees were handicapped with all kinds of plunder. They had pillaged all the houses of every movable article before burning them, but would not allow the owners to remove anything, not even clothing, except such as they had on. In going back over the ground to a place where I had persuaded one of the thieves with a shot through the head to stop early in the chase in order to get his horse and pistols, I found him lying with a lot of papers scattered around that fell from his pockets as he tumbled off of his horse. I got nearly a handful of jewelry of all kinds, tied on to his saddle, which I secured with his horse, also two rolls of goods, including lace curtains, ladies wearing apparel, blankets, sheets, etc., and two bottles of wine. Our command re-crossed the Shenandoah in the evening with quite a number of captured horses. In looking over the dead man’s papers that night, I found one evidently from his best girl, asking him to send her some of the things captured (?) from the houses of the Rebels. This was but a sample of the many letters found on the bodies of the house burners that day by members of our command, and this was the kind of warfare waged by Sheridan and Hunter in the fair Valley of Virginia.