Nansemond-Suffolk City County Virginia USGenWeb Archives News.....YANKEE BARBARITY June 30, 1863
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deborah Parker dewdroppedep@aol.com August 26, 2017, 4:39 pm

Richmond Enquirer, Volume 60, Number 20 June 30, 1863
(From the Petersburg Express, June 26)

Among the thousand acts of barbarity practiced by the Yankee invaders in 
Virginia, none have exceeded the murder of Mrs. George R. Smith, at Suffolk, a 
full account of which has not before been published.

Mr. Smith resided about one mile from the town, a well-to-do farmer, having 
around him an interesting family - the eldest son, a gallant young man, in the 
16th Virginia regiment.  When Gen. Longstreet invested Suffolk, a sharp 
artillery and infantry skirmish took place near Mr. Smith's residence, and 
many balls passed through his houses.  The Yankees finally advanced and fired 
the houses, forcing the family to leave.  Mrs. Smith, with her seven children, 
the youngest only ten months old, attempted to escape to the woods and into 
the Confederate lines, when she was fired upon by the Yankee soldiers, and a 
Minnie ball entering her limb just below the hip, she died in thirty minutes 
from the loss of blood.  The children frightened, hid themselves in the 
bushes, while Mr. Smith set down upon the ground by his wife to see her 
breathe her last.  After she had been dead for sometime the Yankee commander 
permitted him to take a cart, and with no assistance, except one of his 
children, he put the dead body in the cart and carried it into town.  On his 
arrival in town, he was not permitted to take the remains of his wife to her 
brother's residence, until he had first gone through the town to the Provost 
Marshal's office he was gruffly told to take his wife to the grave yard and 
bury her.  He carried her to her brother's, John R. Kilby, Esq., and a few 
friends prepared her for burial, Mr. Kilby not being allowed to leave the 
house, or to attend the remains of his sister to the graveyard.

Nor did the cruelty of the fiends stop here.  Mr. Smith was denied the 
privilege of going in search of his little children, and for four days and 
nights they wandered in the woods an among the soldiers, without anything to 
eat or any place to sleep.  The baby was taken up by a colored woman and 
nursed, until some private in the Yankee army, with a little better heart than 
his associates, took it on his horse and carried it to town.  Mr. Smith is 
still in the lines of the enemy, his house and every thing else he had 
destroyed, and his little children cared for by his friends.

Will not the Confederate soldiers now in Pennsylvania remember such acts of 
cruelty and barbarism?  Will not the Nansemond companies remember it?  And 
will not that gallant boy in the 16th Regiment remember his mother's fate and 
take vengeance on the enemy?  Will not such a cruel race of people eventually 
reap the fruit of their doings?  God grant that they may.

Additional Comments:
Article transcribed verbatim from the original.

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