Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-06-16
THEN AND NOW.

About this time oil the year, lo0f, int
brick building on the corner of Third
and Court streets, was occupied by the
Federal Provost Marshal, his assistants
and guards. To that point great streams
of people, dressed in every variety Of
style, with the pale country gray pre-
dominant, poured This great current
sweeping on, met one as great coming
away Upon each face, from the rosy
hue of sixteen to the pale and ssllow cast
of seventy, were written the same char
acters. Being interpreted, they meant
subjugation, sorrow and famine They
we're from the country, and in some in
stances, more than hundred miles away.
The drag net of war had passed over the
land, and left nothing upon which TO live.
Stung with hunger and tortured with in
definable apprehensions, they resolved
pom the desperate expedient of visit
to Memphis, through the Federal lines,
to procure the means Of subsistence. The
experiment proved, in some cases, sue
cessful, but frequently otherwise. Their
real difficulties, taking the place of dis
tant apprehension, began when they
passed the pickets and beheld the tall
tops of the buildings Of the conquered
city. That moment the sharp, malicious,
cunning eyes of the detectives were upon
them, and logged every step they took,
until the last which carried them beyond
the lines and once more into the open,
ravaged and desolated country. In hun
dreds of cases, whole teams, besides the
miserable pittance they had managed to
procure, was ruiblessly taken from them.
Many were the traps set to catch them,
and these rarely failed We have seen
pale, siekly, almost dying women,
stand for days in the rain, cold and storm,
at the permit Office on the corner
of Main and Jefferson streets, struggling
in vain to get their papers through"
Around them swarmed detectives, per
nit brokers and pick pockets, then hold
ing high carnival here How frightened
these poor country victims appeared in
the midst Of these terrors, no one who
saw them can ever forget Their natu-
raj protectors we're away around distant
camp fires or struggling and dying upon
the battle field. Upon every face was
written despair. The brawny soldier,
with his threatening musket, kept them
out on the street waiting for the happy
moment that should relieve them from
the horrors of their situation The sud
den resolution to give all over, was quel-
led by the quick-coming thought of the
starving ones at home. If at last, the
permit was secured, the trouble was not
half over. They then went to
the office of the Provost Marshal,
where they encountered new delay and
vexation in procuring a pass to let them
out of the lines. That obtained, the poor
broken heart began to revive; but alas !
the detectives eye had never left them
through all their days and nights Of hor-
ror. If they had been tricked into pur-
chasing something contrsband Of war,
and it did not appear upon the permit,
they were thrown, probably, into the IT.
wing Block, and their property con6sea-
ted. This was war.
How has all changed The Office Of
the Provost Marshal has ceased to be a
terror, and close by its side, occupying
the ground where the guard quarters
stood, now stands a church. The late
place Of terror is as harmless as the
green Pantheons of the peaceful for
ests, where the birds teach music
and the flowers give lessons in beauty.
The wanderer has returned The
Scared soldier who went away on the
4th day of June, 1862, marching to the
thunder of PoRTER's guns, has returned
On the spot where the pale, weeping
woman and the lettering, heartbrokeu
old man stood, and the grim, blue, bayo
Melted guards paraded, we have beheld
during the past month, another scene
than that of sorrow. The beauty and
esllantry Of the city-for four years stig-