Buttermilk

from Harper's New Monthly Magazine's "Editor's Drawer"

In Western Virginia there is a correspondent of the Drawer who writes:

            The people of West Virginia have very queer ideas about our soldiers, and some of them were amusingly developed to the cavalrymen who made the recent raid on Wytheville. Among the officers was a certain Captain Y—, who has a remarkable fondness for buttermilk as a beverage, and who is in the habit of calling for it constantly at the farm-houses which he passes when “on a scout.” On the road to Wytheville he, with others, halted before a respect- able-looking house, when they were met at the door by the frightened inmates with cries of, “The Yankees have come! the Yankees have come !“ and one of them, “a virgin on to forty,” stretched forth her hands, and with the most imploring gestures exclaimed, “Gentlemen, burn my house, destroy my property, do what you will; but spare my honor!” “Confound your honor !“ said the irate Captain “have you got any buttermilk?”

            The fears of the virtuous lady were speedily calmed.

"Editor's Drawer", Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 28, Issue 164, January 1864, page 283, New York: Harper and Brother's

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