We were now preparing to close the two refugee buildings before leaving for Michigan. I offered the women the best dresses for finding their own places for work, and by this means many found places, if only to work for their board till they could do better. A good old woman we called Aunt Phoebe came to us with her four grandchildren, and begged to go to Michigan with me. She said the father of the children ran away to enlist in the army, and his master followed him. After an absence of three days, he returned with the report that he had got sight at him, and ordered him to come to him, but he refused, and he shot him dead. At this report his wife (the daughter of Aunt Phoebe), gave a scream and fainted. Both master and mistress were very severe, and whipped her severely for making so much fuss, as they called her grief. She sank under their severity, and died, leaving her infant, a week old, with her mother. Within a few days the oldest boy was taken with small-pox, but as he was not very near the other sick children, Dr. Carpenter thought the others would escape. I rolled him in a couple of quilts and sent him to the pest-house. Aunt Phoebe wept bitterly, as she said she should probably never see Jerry again, and he was such a good boy to help her take care of the other children. A few days later she was taken with a low type of lung fever. I had one of the colored women in the place nurse her. The white refugee women took but little notice of my offer of best dresses, in finding homes for themselves. I found these women of the lowest class of humanity. I called on General Curtis, and told him I had expended my fund of lecturing material upon these white women in the refugee building, and now I had come to report to him as I had of late threatened them, that, while I was willing to do to the extent of my ability in relieving and improving the most degraded, I could not consent to keep under my charge a house of ill-fame. "I will give you a good honest guard day and night over that building," said the noble general. This did more than all things else to scatter them. They swore they would not be tyrannized over by that Yankee woman any longer, and left, very much to my relief. Within four weeks our little small-pox boy was returned, but not as safe as the surgeon reported I took him into the wash-room and gave him a thorough cleansing, before taking him to see his grandmother, who wept for joy.