The plundering by the baggage-train was almost worse in a friendly country. When the soldiers with the women and children came to a farmhouse, they pounced like hawks upon the poultry in the yard, then broke open the doors, seized upon the trunks and chests, and with abusive language, threatened, importuned and destroyed, what they could not consume or take away. On decamping they compelled the owner to horse his waggons and take them to their next quarters. Then they filled the waggons with the clothes, beds, and household goods of the farmers, binding round their bodies what could not otherwise be carried away. "Frequently," says the indignant narrator Wallhausen, "the women did not choose to be drawn by oxen, and it was necessary to procure horses, sometimes from a distance of six miles, to the great cost of the country people, and when they came with the waggons to the nearest quarters, they would not allow the poor people to return home; but dragged them with them to another territory, and at last stole the horses and made off." In the beginning of the war, a German infantry regiment had to march for some days through the country of their own sovereign; there were as many women and children with the baggage-train, as soldiers, and they stole in eight days from the subjects of their sovereign almost sufficient horses for each soldier to ride. The colonel, a just and determined man, frequently dragged the soldiers himself from the horses, and at last enforced their restoration by extreme severity. But it was impossible to prevent the women from riding; there was not one who had not a stolen horse, and if they did not ride them they harnessed them three or four together to the peasants' carts.