Portrait of a civilian 159'preparing to run from the Yankees,' Kate
tucked her diary away in the bottom of a
packing box, 'with only slight chance of
seeing it again.' After going for more than a
month without writing an entry, she opened
the dairy and wrote of the chaos and
violence around her. Such was the violence
that she wrote in March. 'For the last two
days we have been in a quiver of anxiety for
the Yankees every minute.' When fire
Yankees came on 22 March, she wrote that
'The life we are leading now is a miserable,
frightened one - living in constant dread of
great danger, not knowing what form it
may take, and utterly helpless to
protect ourselves.'
While she was visiting a neighbor, an
armed slave seized Kate, her little sister, and
several other women, forced them into one
room, and held them at gunpoint while
other slaves looted the house. Though Union
authorities forbade planters to leave, this
incident convinced Kate's mother that the
family must flee.
With only the clothes on their backs, the
Stones left Brokenburn on a cold March
night. When the family reached Delhi,
Louisiana, they found the chaos of a fleeing
countryside, 'everybody and everything,'
Kate wrote, 'trying to get on the cars, all
fleeing from the Yankees or worse still, the
Negroes.' Despite the confusion, the Stones
finally got on the train and reached Monroe,
80 miles (130km) inland from the
Mississippi. There they spent seven weeks
before they continued their trek to Texas. To
add to Kate's despair, news came of the death
of her brother Walter in Mississippi two
months earlier. The family would spend the
remainder of the war in Texas.