sisted her in every way you
knew.

Never have I corrected them; a word was sufficient. Never have they
known want of any kind. Their parents are with me, and how sadly they
lament the loss of their boys. Their cabins are rifled of every
valuable, the soldiers swearing that their Sunday clothes were the
white people's, and that they never had money to get such things as
they had. Poor Frank's chest was broken open, his money and tobacco
taken. He has always been a money-making and saving boy; not
infrequently has his crop brought him five hundred dollars and more.
All of his clothes and Rachel's clothes, which dear Lou gave her
before her death and which she had packed away, were stolen from her.
Ovens, skillets, coffee-mills, of which we had three, coffee-pots--not
one have I left. Sifters all gone!

Seeing that the soldiers could not be restrained, the guard ordered me
to have their [of the negroes] remaining possessions brought into my
house, which I did, and they all, poor things, huddled together in my
room, fearing every movement that the house would be burned.

A Captain Webber from Illinois came into my house. Of him I claimed
protection from the vandals who were forcing themselves into my room.
He said that he knew my brother Orrington [the late Orrington Lunt, a
well-known early settler of Chicago]. At that name I could not
restrain my feelings, but, bursting into tears, implored him to see my
brother and let him know my destitution. I saw nothing before me but
starvation. He promised to do this, and comforted me with the
assurance that my dwelling-house would not be burned, though my
out-buildings might. Poor little Sadai went crying to him as to a
friend and told him that they had taken her doll, Nancy. He begged her
to come and see him, and he would give her a fine waxen one. [The doll
was found later in the yard of a neighbor, where a soldier had thrown
it, and was returned to the little girl. Her children later played
with it, and it is now the plaything of her granddaughter.]

He felt for me, and I give him and several others the character of
gentlemen. I don't believe they would have molested women and children
had they had their own way. He seemed surprised that I had not laid
away in my house, flour and other provisions. I did not suppose I
could secure them there, more than where I usually kept them, for in
last summer's raid houses were thoroughly searched. In parting with
him, I parted as with