Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1865-02-03
Persecution of Southern unionists.

Persecution Of Southern Unionists.
The following case of rebel persecution
will afford an instance, out of thousands, of
what these people often offer in the south,
and on their journey to place of refuge.
Last summer there came TO the Refugee
house, mother, with her four children
trying TO reach her friends in Kentucky.
She was an intelligent woman, of the bet
ter class Of refugees. She said she had
lived near Jacksonport, White River, Ar
kansas that her husband owned farm,
well stocked with cattle, horses and pro-
visions, and was in prosperous circum-
stances. He was known as Uuion man,
and often had TO lie out in the woods
called in the south the " brush for weeks.
to escape being conscrip,ed in the rebel
army or murdered. Sometimes the guer-
rillas would come and .ake away whatso-
ever suited them of his property--his
horses, cattle and corn, as they pleased,
and even the bed-clothes from their beds,
| and their apparel. At last they caught
him once at home, when he had come to
see his little family, and spend lew days
under his own roof. They called him out
into his door-yard, told him he was id
traitor TO the south, tore him away with
violent hands from his weeping wife and
children, marched him short distance
down the road, and murdered him in cold
blood, the report of their murderous wea.
pons reaching his own doors. @ .......
After this they returned and told his
weeping widow that she had better pack
up and go TO Pilot Knob, where the feds
would take care of her, or they would
burn her house over her head. Some days
later, she yoked the last OK team that had
been left them, and putting her bedding
and her children in the wagon, with their
clothing and some of her husbands apparel
that she wished 10 keep, she started for
Pilot Knob, distance of about two hun
dred miles. Travelling about fifteen miles
a day, when she had been nearly week
upon the road, and her little stock of corn
and bacon was nearly exhausted, she was
met by band Of rebel marauders, who
stopped her in the road and inquired where
she was going. The poor woman, being
much alarmed, answered that her husband
was dead, aud she was trying to go to her
friends in Kentucky.
WELL said they, what have you got
here " and they began to rummage the
wagon, from which they took her deceased
husbands clothes, and her bed quilts, and
the corn meal and bacon that was LETT, and
then they unhitched the yoke of steers from
the old wagon, and said to her" We can
not allow you to take these things into the
federal lines. You say your husband is
dead how did he die 2 Put to death for
being a traitor !? Cd d--n him, served
him right. And you are going to your
friends in Kentucky? Union people, eh
Then you can travel on foot to Pilot Knob
and the feds will take care of you there.
They'll give you more blankets and clothes
and give you rations besides"
The poor women pleaded with her tears
and her little children crying around her,
that they would leave her the team, and
the bedding, and the little food she had
and let her go on her way; but they jeered
at her, and Knocked and laughed at her
distress, and took her team and everything
she had, aud left her with her little child
} rem crying on the road, after which she
pursued her way on foot, with the little
children to Pilot Knob, and received free
} passage by the Iron Mountain railroad tc
ST. Lewis. On their arrival at the refugee
home there, they were kindly cared for
and assisted to reach their friends in Ken.
lucky, where the poor woman and hel
|, children found her own fathers house anc
welcome to the paternal home. Hun
dreds of instances like this, differing only
in the kind and degree of persecution NIGH
be narrated.-Report of the Sanitary Com
mission.