their horses in every
imaginable way to hinder the course of the fugitives. The streets were
filled with smoke and flame, and almost impassable. After we had reached a
temporary shelter, my wife returned to the scene of destruction, as a bird
to its nest, and on her way was stopped before a burning house, in which a
corpse was lying, and a little child at the point of death. The dead
woman was gotten out with difficulty, and buried in the garden without
shroud or coffin, and the child was barely rescued and placed in her arms,
when an officer in front of the house called out to his men: 'Boys,
remember Hunter!' She ran up to him, uncovered the child, and said: 'Here
is a dying baby we have saved from the house you have fired. Is your
revenge sweet?' Shocked, the fellow burst into tears, and answered, 'No,
madam.' He followed her some distance, and leaning down, asked her
earnestly, 'Madam, can't I save something for you?' Her answer was, 'No,
it is too late: I have lost all!' Warned to leave the house in which we
had taken refuge, a party of us left, but soon became separated, and I
lost my little boy, aged about ten, and did not find him till the next
day, at Shippensburg, whither he had walked, a distance of eleven miles.
The rest of us kept upon the edge of the burning town, and for three or
four hours watched the progress of the flames.

"One of the saddest sights I witnessed was the burning of the old Academy.
I watched it burn, timber by timber. Fifteen years of associations as
scholar and teacher were annihilated in the course of one short hour. My
attention was then drawn to the flag-staff in the centre of the public
square, and we all, of our party as well as others, expressed an ardent
hope that it might stand, from which the American flag might wave, even
over the ruins of the town. At noon we returned to the uninjured house of
a friend, and spent the night in gazing upon the ruins of our once happy
and beautiful town.

"The conduct of the rebel soldiery was barbarous in the extreme, though
there were many honorable exceptions. Bundles were tired upon women's
backs; ladies were forced to carry back into the houses articles of
clothing they had saved from the flames; drunken wretches danced upon the
furniture and articles of value and ornament; women's persons were
searched in the most indecent manner; oaths and foul language abounded;
aged women were locked in their rooms while their houses were on fire;
tr