and gaining the favor of that disgrace to the name of man, was soon able to intimidate the cowardly or beggar the brave.  One of his first attempts was to compel this lady to yield to his hellish passions.  With contempt she spurned his offers and ordered him never more to cross the threshold of her house.  Swearing vengeance against her, he left, and on the following morning she received an order to leave the limits of the city, that day, and prepare to enter the Confederate lines.  The dangers which then threatened her, she deemed vanished, for she feared more to remain in the midst of our enemies than to enter our lines.  The order was therefore received with joy, and she prepared to depart.  Though a pang of sorrow may have filled her heart at being compelled to relinquish her comfortable home, though she saw before her days, weeks, months, perhaps years of hardship, not one feeling of remorse at having rejected the offers of a libertine, ever entered the mind of the soldier’s wife.  The time at length arrived for her to depart, and with her two children, a few articles of clothing, and a small sum of money, she was placed within our lines, far from any human habitation, and left to find a shelter as best she could.

“To this city she bent her footsteps, and here she anticipated finding an asylum for herself and children.  Gentlemen, we all well know that, unfortunately for our cause and country, the evils Speculation and Extortion, had spread their leprous wings and covered our land with destitution.  To a man of this city, who, before the world’s eye, appeared the Christian and the man of benevolence, but who in his dealings with his fellow-men, was as vile an extortioner as the most heartless; to this man she went and hired a room in which to find a shelter.  Finding she was a refugee and fearing an evil day, he bound her down by law to suffer ejectment the moment she could no longer pay the rent.  Ignorant of the weapon she placed in his hands, she signed the deed, and after paying a portion of the rent in advance, left him and assumed possession.  Mark well, gentlemen, what I have said.  In his action we find no Christianity—­no benevolence; nothing but the spirit of the extortioner is here manifested.  There is no feeling of sorrow shown at her unfortunate position, no disposition evinced to shield the helpless mother and her babes.  No! we find his actions narrowed down to the sordidness of the miser, the avariciousness of the extortioner.  A feeling of surprise at such conduct may flit across your bosoms, gentlemen, and you may perchance doubt that I can show a man of this city, so bereft of charity, so utterly oblivious to all the better feelings of humanity, but I shall before long call his name, and give such evidence of the truth of my assertions, as will be beyond contradiction or doubt.

“To another man the soldier’s wife went for the purpose of purchasing a few articles of furniture.  Of him I have little to say at present.  It is true that without caring who and what she was, his merchandize was sold to her at the speculator’s price.  But he had the right to charge whatever he pleased, and therefore I have nothing to say against him for that.