In this letter dated February 4, 1863, Mary Rucker of Rutherford County, Tennessee, begs General William Rosecrans to protect her from marauding Federal soldiers. “Soldiers are here every day . . . coming our foraging and the Pickets threatening to burst open doors and burning our house. Five Pickets here this morning and behaved most shamefully, they called for breakfast...Pickets will not pass me through as I have tried time after time, so I resort to this the only way left to me. So please lend a kindly ear to request and I assure of my and my children’s lasting gratitude. Respectfully, Mary Rooker”
