VIRGINIA FARMLAND

"On the morning of the 17th [December 1864] we all left the boats. It was an interesting sight to see them land cavalry horses, pitching them overboard and allowing them to swim ashore. Everything being landed, we were ordered to cook our dinner as quick as possible, after which we fell into line, and then commenced the raid. We took our line of march across the most fertile country that there is in Virginia . Talk about Secession being hard up, it is all a mistake. Passing you would observe in the fields and pastures any amount of cattle and sheep, and around their houses any amount of poultry , and on entering you would find their smoke-houses filled with meat and their barns filled with grain to repletion. But the Philistines were upon them. We helped ourselves to anything that we saw and wanted in the shape of poultry , meat, tobacco, corn, horses, or rebs. The boys emptied their haversacks of all government grub, replacing it with turkeys, chickens, ducks, sweet potatoes etc, etc. the boys were living high, and it was hard for them to fall back on hard tack and salt horse again." P.125, A GRAND ARMY OF BLACK MEN edited by Edwin S. Redkey (1993)