Eight miles east of Summerville,
November 30, 1864.
Passed through the above named town this morning. All pine woods again to-day. Stopped at the first house I came to this morning and asked the resident, an ashcolored negress, something about the country. She said she'd had the chills and fever so long she didn't know anything, but “over dar was a house whar de folks had some sense.” Captain Smith and I walked over to the house she pointed to and found a fine old German, very anxious to know if we intended to burn his house. After he cooled down a little he grew much Union. He said he had been ordered to join the army one, two, three, twenty times, but had told them he would rather be shot than take up arms against the United States. The 12th Indiana band struck up as we passed his house, and the music touched the old fellow's heart. The tears rolled down his face and he blubbered out, “That is the first music I have heard for four years; it makes me think of home. D--n this Georgia pine wood.” He said that sugar is the staple here in peace times. The foragers brought in loads of it this evening.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 329
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