to save their property when it became known that the rebel guerillas
were near at hand; for these worthies were oftentimes but little
better than organized bands of robbers, and the people stood as much
in fear of them as they did of the Federals. These valuables,
consisting for the most part of money, jewelry and silverware, were
sometimes hidden in cellars, in hollow logs in the woods and in
barns; but more frequently they were buried in the ground. The work
of hiding them was sometimes performed by the planters themselves, if
they happened to be at home, but it was generally intrusted to old
and faithful servants in whom their owners had every confidence. It
not unfrequently happened that these old and faithful servants proved
themselves utterly unworthy of the trust reposed in them. Sometimes
they told the raiding soldiers where the property was concealed, and
at others they ran away without telling even their masters where the
valuables were hidden. General Gordon's old servant, Jordan, was one
of this stamp. He went off with the Union forces, who raided that
part of Mississippi, and before he went he told a rebel soldier,
Godfrey Evans, who happened to be at home on a furlough, and who was
skulking in the woods to avoid capture, that he had just buried a
barrel containing eighty thousand dollars in gold and silver in his
master's potato-patch, and that none of the family knew where it was.

This Godfrey Evans had been well off in the world at one time. He had
property to the amount of fifteen thousand dollars; but, like many
others, he lost it all during the war, and returned home after the
surrender of General Lee to find himself a poor man. His comfortable
house had been burned over the heads of his wife and children, who
were now living in a rude hut which some kind-hearted neighbors had
hastily erected; his negroes, who had made his money for him, were
all gone; his cattle had been slaughtered by both rebel and Union