It is just a few days past 140 years (7 October 1864) since Custer and his yankee cavalry came down Holman's Creek where we live and where my wife's family lived then.
They started the day about seven miles up stream where they burned everything, mill, barn, house and personal belongings included, that belonged to the Moores. Next they moved to the Wines' farm(Mennonites) where they killed or stole the stock, burned the crops and barn and looted the house of everything including bedclothes. Only Mrs Wine and her children were at home.
Three more farms and two more mills lay between the Wine's and the farm house we own. All the crops and barns were burned as well as one of the mills. Zerkel's mill(my wife's family) was spared as the old man went to the roof and tacked up the federal flag. He was later run out of the county by his neighbors.
After Zerkel's mill was spared the yankees moved 1 1/2 miles down stream to what is now our place and burned the barn and two wash houses. They also burned another barn upstream from us. All livestock was either taken or shot and burned.
This looting and destruction continued for several more days until all of Shenandoah county was laid to waste. Several wounded confederate soldiers who were recuperating at home and who took up arms against the yankees were executed either by firing squad or hanging. Although most of the looting was recorded, the rapes were allowed to pass quietly into history in order to protect the sensitivities of the women and girls who were the victims.
The fact that most of the year's crop was in the barns meant that most families had to resort to eating roots, berries and nuts that they were able to scratch up in the woods. Many starved and others deserted their properties to move in with relatives in Pennsylvania. Most of the population was, and still is Mennonite. The folks burned out by the yankees were largely pacifist.
If you ever travel up or down the Valley with yankee tags on your car and suffer a speeding ticket at the hands our State Troopers or Deputies, know that there was probably a bit of pleasure had in writing the citation. Even after 140 years it's hard to forget.
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