The following comment appeared in a Louisville, Kentucky, newspaper concerning the women and children whom Sherman had shipped north: 

"The train which arrived from Nashville last evening brought up from the South 249 women and children, who are sent here by orders of General Sherman to be transferred north of the Ohio river.

These people are mostly in a destitute condition, having no means to provide for themselves a support."

They were hired out to perform work at a price that was at no more than a subsistence level, making them virtual white slaves for the Yankees."

More than two thousand women and children were sent into the North in this manner. The papers in the area advertised them as if they were any other commodity for sale. And so the Yankees maintained their illicit trade in human flesh even as they were singing glory, glory, hallelujah!

From 'The South Was Right' from the authors, Donald and Ronald Kennedy.