Following Union General Phil Sheridan’s recent successful cavalry raid that disrupted Confederate supply lines and caused havoc six miles north of Richmond, the rumors have been flying: black soldiers are on the prowl, beating up white citizens and stealing the riches of prominent Richmond-area families.
Today’s Richmond Daily Dispatch publishes a report, submitted by an anonymous reader, on the raids that is certain to elevate yet further the fears of many readers. Even Baptist preachers are not immune to the atrocities committed by the dastardly black Union soldiers.
To the Editor of the Dispatch:
Owing to travel having been temporarily suspended on the railroad by a portion of the track having been burned by the vandal raiders on Wednesday morning last, it has been somewhat difficult to apprize your readers of said raiders’ depredations in these parts, and although in this brief account I must necessarily omit many interesting details, yet enough may be written to prove that the Yankees have lost none of their thieving propensities, or that any one portion of the grand army are more moral or honorable, or braver than their brethren in arms in other sections of the grand campaign.
On Wednesday morning, about 5 o’clock, a servant man from Dr John M Sheppard’s, residing about a mile from this place, came down breathless with the intelligence that an immense cavalry force (say 15,000 men) were at his master’s, and would soon be here, making, by the way, the third cavalry raid to this place in the last twelve months.
In a very short space of time the whole body of the miscreants were swarming the reads, the fields, and the woods, and by thousands surrounded the mansion and grounds of Mrs Allen, whose beautiful residence is, as you know, on the slight eminence at this junction of the Mountain Road with the railroad. They immediately took possession of the place, and for a time the officers along with the advance occupied the front portico, and planted their flags on the knoll in front of the house, and in the rear. One General and several staff officers took possession of the porch, and watched the movements of their troops. These officers endeavored to play the courteous gentlemen to the ladies, and placed a guard around the house, ostensibly to protect the property, but really to give their men the opportunity to pillage with impunity. They soon broke open the ice house, containing a quantity of bacon that Mrs Allen had stored there, taking the whole, including some few pieces belonging to the Rev Dr McCabe, and helped themselves incontinently to the ice, which they distributed with great profusion; they then killed her chickens, and proceeded to burst open the pantry, which they soon emptied of everything to eat and to drink. Butter, eggs, boxes of wine, were distributed, barrels of vinegar broken up, molasses strewn on the floor, soon bore witness to the instincts of the ruffians and the characteristics of their nation. Her wheat was all trampled down, her fences thrown down, and the rails used for burning the railroad, her horses and mules stolen, and all her peas and corn destroyed — this, too, while the General and staff were occupying the porch! From Goodall’s, twelve miles above, they marked their passage by stealing everything they could lay their hands on. At Goodall’s they cut up feather beds, destroyed furniture, and stole all Dr Goodall’s clothes, save those on his persons. At Mr James Winston’s, Sr, at Dr John M Sheppard’s, at Mrs Hopkins’s, on the Mountain Roan, at Mr Rowe’s; indeed all along in their route, the devils appropriated everything they could lay their thievish hands upon, including all the horses and mules. At this place they did not, providentially, go to the upper portion of the house, except on a search for a Confederate officer whom they supposed they had surprised, but had their labor for their pains. They captured the overseer, Mr Walker Luck; stole two watches from the servants and sundry articles of clothing, and among the latter class were guilty of a brutality so gross, so revolting, so horrible, that the open of the chaste writer must be withheld. Suffice it to say that an aged servant woman had to stand, with a drawn sword at her breast, and witness with an anguished heart the repeated defilement of her child, a girl of about seventeen, Mrs Allen estimates her loan in stores, horses, mules, grain, fowls, wood burned, and garden injured, at about $25,000. Mrs Hopkins’s loss is heavy in crops destroyed, fences burnt, and bacon and other stores stolen. Mr Rowe’s, Dr Sheppard’s, and Mr James Winston’s losses are heavy. They captured Capt Geo Hopkins, who was on a Court-Martial, and in fetal violation of every honorable or decent instinct, took prisoner the Rev. Meriwether Winston, a pious and highly esteemed minister of the Baptist Church, after stealing his small supply of family stores.
In the meantime, about 6 o’clock P. M., their revels were broken in upon by Gordon’s brigade, which appeared in sight, and opened the ball in beautiful style. The Yankees had one Parrott piece at Blackburn’s, on the Mountain road, adjoining Mrs Hopkins’s; Mrs Allen’s house occupying an intermediate position between the two fires. The wretches, regardless of the life of the ladies at Glen Allen, shelled the place; the missiles bursting all around the dwelling, but happily “nobody was hurt.” They also occupied Hopkins’s and Rowe’s houses, firing from the windows. One minute ball from the Yankees passed through the window of Dr McCabe’s chamber, and buried itself in the wall of the closet, smashing a small quantity of glassware. They finally moved down the Mountain road towards the Yellow Tavern, and the rest of their movements you know.
The veracious officers announced the defeat of Lee by Grant, the taking of Petersburg by Butler, the death of Longstreet, and similar lies.
Providentially, Dr McCabe was in the city attending to his duties, or he too would have had to share the fate of the Rev Mr Winston. God grant that the news we hear from Gen Lee’s army may be, without abatement, a fact. If so we may thank Him, and take fresh heart for the conflict.
Resident.
P. S.–I omitted to state that the pillaging process was principally conducted by the negro soldiers, about fifty of whom were with the party at Glen Allen. The out-houses bear the marks of the minute balls fired from Mr Rowe’s and Mrs Hopkins’s farm. A tree in the yard near the dwelling was partially skinned by a portion of a shell, the fragments of which are preserved as memorials of the visit of our Northern brethren.
Accounts such as this, whether wholly true or not, serve to fortify some white Southerner’s resistance to the United States even as victory in the war seems less likely than ever.
Source: Reader, “The Raiders that came to Richmond,” Richmond Daily Dispatch, May 17, 1864 (link)
