Yankee Soldiers Plunder and Steal

Hiding Valuables
As in any war, there was much theft and plunder by Yankee soldiers.  Southerners, however, had 2 advantages which helped ensure their survival:

1. Yankees did not recognize the patches of sweet potatoes, thinking they were weeds.

2. Southerners knew their local terrain well.  They knew its hiding places, and hid livestock such as pigs, and valuables in swamps and forests.

Diary of Nancy Emerson  
Staunton, VA  July 13, 1864
"They told us that Crook's men were a great deal worse than they, & that was true, but they were bad enough & worse at some other places than with us.  At one of our neighbors, they took every thing they had to eat, all the pillow cases & sheets but what were on the beds, & the towels & some of the ladies stockings.  One of them made up a bundle of ladies clothing to take, but his comrade shamed him out of it.                 

They then poured out their molasses, scattered their preserves & sugar & other things about the floor, & mixed them all together & destroyed things generally."

Diary of Estelle Laughlin 

"Word was sent by a neighbor's young houseboy ... that the Union soldiers were foraging, and so they had a little time to hide things.

All the keepsakes that they felt the Union soldiers might take were hastily dumped into a large, dark-colored bag.  Uncle Adam suspended it down into the well by the long rope.

The Union soldiers arrived and took the chickens, and some other things, but when they went through the house, they couldn't seem to find anything of value.

When the soldiers stopped at the well to draw up a bucket of cold water, the hearts of the watching family were in their throats, but by good fortune they didn't notice the rope suspended into the well, or else thought it was merely something put down in the well to be kept cold, as was the custom, and so the family treasures were saved."