June 19, 1863, Menphis Daily Appeal (Atlanta, Ga)
A letter from a correspondent to the Richmond Examiner, dated Richmond, June 7, gives the following narrative of the inhumanity of the Yankees toward the exiles from Western Virginia:
I received a letter this morning from a refugee, giving an account of the banishment of the secessionists of the town of Weston from their homes by the Yankees, and I will give you a couple of short extracts which furnish fair specimens of the treatment which our unfortunate citizens of Northwestern Virginia are receiving at their hands. The writer says:
“All secessionists have been banished from Weston–those who had protectors this side, were sent across the lines, the others were sent to Camp Chase.” She then mentions six ladies, who, with others, were sent within our lines. They were taken to Clarksburg in ambulances, thence sent to Winchester by rail and brought to Kingstown and set down on the roadside in the night, and told to do the best they could. They were allowed to bring sixty pounds of baggage and one hundred dollars in Yankee money. The writer names a good many who were given their choice (how very kind to give them their choice) either to go to prison or Ohio, and names ten or twelve more who were sent to Camp Chase, and says: “The hardest of all is they were compelled to leave their children. Mrs. D. started without hers, but went and took up her youngest, and told them they might kill her, but she would take her baby.”