sold, and private cotton, when found, fared in the same way. Cotton had been the cause of much trouble to the commanders on both sides during the war; it was considered the mainstay of the South before the war and the root of all evil. So of all property it received the least consideration from the Federal troops, and was very easily turned into cash. All farm animals near the track of the armies had been carried away or killed by the soldiers (as at Selma), or seized after the occupation by the troops. Horses, mules, cows, and other domestic animals had almost disappeared except in the secluded districts. Many a farmer had to plough with oxen. Farm and plantation buildings had been dismantled or burned, houses ruined, fences destroyed, corn, meat, and syrup taken. The plantations in the Tennessee valley were in a ruined condition. The gin-houses were burned, the bridges ruined, mills and factories gone, and the roads impassable.[676] In the homes that were left, carpets and curtains were gone, for they had been used as blankets and clothes, window glass was out, furniture injured or destroyed, and crockery broken. In the larger towns, where something had been saved from the wreck of war, the looting by the Federal soldiers was shameful. Pianos, furniture, pictures, curtains, sofas, and other household goods were shipped North by the Federal officers during the early days of the occupation. Gold and silver plate and jewellery were confiscated by the bummers who were with every command. Abuses of this kind became so flagrant that the northern papers condemned the conduct of the soldiers, and several ministers, among them Henry Ward Beecher, rebuked the practice from the pulpit.[677]