General Montgomery was among those who believed that, while the army, as an army, had a right to make use of property abandoned by an enemy, individuals, whether as officers, soldiers, or citizens, had no such right; and among his first acts, after being appointed Military Governor of Alexandria, was to direct his Assistant Adjutant-General to issue an order forbidding the use of abandoned property, without permission first had from general headquarters; and when the provost-court was established, he directed Judge Freese to see that that order be in no way violated or evaded. In every case reported to the Judge, where an attempt was made to take an article from an abandoned house and appropriate it to the private use of the taker, whether officer, soldier, or citizen, the party was directed to refrain, or, if already taken, to return it at once, under the penalty of arrest and punishment. This soon became so generally understood in Alexandria that no further attempt was made to appropriate abandoned property for private use and profit there; but, after a time, a case arose from the country, which required the interposition of the court, a trial of the case, and a judgment; and it is this case which we now propose to relate. Dr. W. was the assistant surgeon of the Fourth-Volunteers, and as good a man, in every respect, as one often meets. When the government called for troops, he was among the first to offer his services, though at that time doing a large practice, having a large family to support, and having but little of this world's goods; and when the Fourth regiment was organized, the governor of his State appointed him its assistant surgeon. This regiment was among the first to reach Washington, and the second to establish a camp beyond Alexandria. The colonel of the regiment was a wide-awake New Englander, an intense anti-slavery man, an ardent admirer and supporter of President Lincoln, one who believed that a secessionist, by becoming disloyal to the government, forfeited all the rights he ever possessed, and that this forfeiture extended to property quite as well as to personal rights. Though he was never known to appropriate any abandoned property to his own private use or profit, yet he had no scruples of using it himself, and of allowing others of his regiment to use whatever fell in their way; and if any of his officers or soldiers asked to appropriate to their own use anything which they had found, he never answered nay. That he was entirely conscientious in all this, no one that knew the man doubted for a moment, however much they might differ with him in political opinion. With a commanding officer holding such decided views, it was not at all surprising that his lieutenant-colonel, major, assistant-surgeon, adjutant, and almost, if not quite, every company officer should, erelong, become as decided as himself upon this question.