Two Little Confederates by Thomas Nelson Page

The boys were not sure that they had even fallen asleep when they / heard Lucy Ann call, outside. They turned over to take another nap. / She was coming up to the door. No, for it was a man's step, it must be / Uncle Balla's; they heard horses trampling and people talking. In a / second the door was flung open, and a man strode into the room, / followed by one, two, a half-dozen others, all white and all in / uniform. They were Yankees. The boys were too frightened to speak. / They thought they were arrested for hiding the silver.

"Get up, you lazy little rebels," cried one of the intruders, not / unpleasantly. As the boys were not very quick in obeying, being really / too frightened to do more than sit up in bed, the man caught the / mattress by the end, and lifting it with a jerk emptied them and all / the bedclothes out into the middle of the floor in a heap. At this all / the other men laughed. A minute more and he had drawn his sword. The / boys expected no less than to be immediately killed. They were almost / paralyzed. But instead of plunging his sword into them, the man began / to stick it into the mattresses and to rip them up; while others / pulled open the drawers of the bureau and pitched the things on the / floor.