Late at night we reached Fort Scott. My first call was on Colonel Blair, commander of the post, who, with his wife, kindly offered me a home with them while I remained at that point. They introduced me to Dr. Slocum, who gave a sketch of the terrible destitution of the forty thousand refugees and freedmen, who passed through this great thoroughfare. Many of them had stopped here. He took me to a number of the destitute families, and gave directions to others, and left me to my work. Here was a great number of the poor whites, called "Clay-eaters," who complained about government dealing rations to colored people. I heard one of them, say that "if niggers would stay where they belonged, with their masters, they would have more white-bread and beef." I told them, I had learned that many of their husbands were fighting against the government while the husbands of many of the colored women were fighting to sustain it, and I should favor those who were on the side of the government. I asked them why they did not themselves remain in their old homes? "We came 'case our men was conscripted," they said. One woman and her daughter of eighteen had each a filthy, ragged bed quilt over her shoulders, and their faces were so swarthy that their eyes and teeth presented as great a contrast as those whose natural skin was of darker hue. As the little boy of four years had no shoes, and I had a pair left that would fit him, I told the mother to wash his feet and try them. "Sal, bring me that cup thar," said the woman. Their drinking cup with water was brought. "Han' me that rag thar," and she wet her hand and wet the feet, and was wiping off the mud, when I told her they were not washed; to look at the mud on the bottom of his feet and between his toes. "O, yez'm," she drawled out, and wet one end of the rag in the cup, and made a second effort. When the shoes were put on, he could not walk without holding to his mother or sister. They were probably the first he had ever had. Most of the day was spent in visiting this class of persons--the most ignorant, listless, and degraded of any people I had ever met. On giving a description of the ignorance and filth, of the poor whites I called on, Colonel Blair inquired "What would you do with them?" "I would keep body and soul together till Spring opens," I answered, "and then load up your great army wagons, and take them out upon the rich prairies and dump them out, giving them the homely adage, 'Root, pig, or die.'" The greatest difficulty in managing this class was to get them to do any thing. Not so with colored people; they would do any thing they could find to do.