please welcome loran foot. [ applause ] >> thank you so much, good afternoon. thank you so much, pete, for inviting me and thank you to the audience. you've had a lopping day, you've listened to a lot of talks, and so i really appreciate that you're -- that you're here to hear this wonderful story. i actually wanted to start out i've had several people at this conference ask me this question individually. so i will just announce it to the entire group. i am not shelby foot's daughter. so we will just get that out of the way right away. so in the fall of 8 teen 64, the people of the carolinas experienced an event that they described as a plague. one laek local south carolina newspaper put it this way. they seem to be everywhere. they actually cover the land like the local kufts of egypt. this newspaper was referring to thousands of yankees who were sneaking through the south carolina countryside under the cover of darkness. these yankees would dig into farmer's sweet potato fields and steal their sweet foe potatoes. they would nap in people's barns and under the