When John B. Gordon entered York, Pennsylvania he found the population
in a state of Panic, fearing retaliation for Union atrocities against
Southern Civilians. He gathered a large crowd of women in the street and
told them this:
“Our Southern homes have been pillaged, sacked
and burned; our mothers, wives and little ones driven forth amid the
brutal insults of your soldiers. Is it any wonder that we fight with
desperation? A natural revenge would
prompt us to retaliate in kind. But we scorn to war on women and
children. We are fighting for the God given rights of liberty and
independence as handed down in the Constitution by our fathers. So fear
not. If a torch is applied to a single dwelling or an insult offered to a
female of your town by a soldier of this command, point me out that man
and you shall have his life.
