The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-01-28
WASHINGTON SKETCHES.
The Ladies of the Experimentation
Interesting Personal Histories.


The Ladies of the observation-disclosures
Interesting Personal Histories.
A lady correspondent of the Cleveland
Leader sketches some oil the ''women with
histories who serve in Government
clerkships in the Interior and Treasury
Departments. She writes:
''That black eyed, musical-volced
beauty, whom you see conyersing with
the head of a bureau, is one of those crea-
lures you have so often read about and
never vet seen, who, in the warmth and
verdancy of maidenbood, married their
fathers servant and then are disowned and
ostraciZed. This was her freak. She had
spent year or more in travelling over
Europe with her father, who was wealthy
New York merchant. She was tutored in
the best culture and walked the social path
of her parents, but under too strict sur
veillance. The only man she came in
close contact with outside of her relatives
was her fathers coachman. He was young,
and fine looking, as servants often are.
Her heart was captured, and the coach
man. though fortunately a man of con-
science, could not resist the opportunity.
They were married and the bride was ban
ished from home to the humble level OF
her husband. But she accepted her fate,
girded up her courage, made the most OF
her talents, and went TO teaching and writ
ing. Finally she secured employment OF
the Government, in preparing official re-
ports, ETC., and she not only holds that po-
sitiOn now, but is literally paid con-
tributor to periodical literature. Her love
for her husband has never grown cold he
does what work he can. Though her
mother and brothers still live (her father is
deadl in opulence in New York, she has
never been called home or forgiven.
" At that desk sits the mother of five
children, two of whom are dead, one lives
in New Mexico, and the other two are sup
ported by her own efforts. Her age is
thirty-seven. In her girlhood her parents
moved from Massachusetts to Kansas in
the days that tried mems souls. There
she married a young printer about the
time of the Pixies Peak gold fever, and
took for their bridal tour a journey to that
delusive summit, distance of over eleven
hundred miles. According to her pub
lished account of her journey, at the time,
she was arrayed in calico pants, dress of
the same reaching to the knees. Indian
moccasins, and hat. She travelled on
foot much of the way, walking from four
to ten miles day, admiring the endless
variety of flowers at her feet, and charmed
with the wild solitude of the uninhabited
plains. She is doubtless the first woman
who ever made bridal trip in such trav-
cling suit. The adventurers actually fol-
lowed Freemont's footsteps nearly to the
top of that famous peak where he heard
the bee sing. From Pixies Peak they
journeyed into New Mexico, and during
her stay there she became mother. Long
g. n,,I f..1
the couple returned. The war was then
in progress, and they engaged in educat-
ing the negroes in the Southwest. From
there they drifted to Washington, the hus-
band secured a clerkship and the wife COM
meneed writing for the press. Like too
many printers, the husband was bound b
be poor-he would keep 'tramping,' lost
his clerkship, and became contaminated
with free-love; poverty and destitution
crept closer and closer upon the family; a
long sickness overlook the wife, and in the
midst of all this dire misfortune her hus-
band abandoned her and disappeared down
the maelStrom of free-lOve. The wife re-
covered, gained small clerkship, cOntin-
ued a contributor to the press. though it is
a constant struggle to make both ends
meet
"Serving as a photographer in a pri-
vate office is another unfortunate wife,
whose home for time was in Ohio. She
married very young. Her husband, she
says. proved to be tyrannical and cruel.
She fled from him, and emerged into what
seemed by contrast a heaven-the strug-
gle of a lone, meek woman for bread.
The husband obtained a divorce. not on
the ground of desertion, but on false and
slanderous charges, and this, too, without
the knowledge of the wife. But so glad
was she on learning that she was free that
she never sought TO correct the record.
She was not, however, to be crushed. She
commenced canvaSsing for pictures, and
studying shorthand, and in an incredibly
short period was able tocommand living
in the practice of the latter art.
"On g Street is the daughter of a
millionaire, and the recent holder of a
small position in the greenback printing
bureau, but who to-day doesn't know
where she can get breakfast on New
Years day. Her father was Philadel-
phia manufacturer. and retiring from
business the possessor of great wealth, he
purchased beautiful site in st. Mary's
County, Maryland, just before the war.
In the convulsions of those days adversely
overlook him, and also political persecu-
ton. Death finally followed, sweeping
away the entire family except the daugh-
ter. But now, alas, she is one of the 300
who were discharged from the printing
bureau last Saturday.
"There are in the department several
lady relatives of prominent men now
dead. This used to be particularly the
case in the Treasury Department. But it
must be admitted that though woman
NAV be queen at home, she will very
often make poor Government clerk, and
vice uersa. I'm the Interior Department is
Mrs. C. n. Payne, daughter of the late
Captain o. III. Bergman, of the navy,
who made the first sOundings and survey
for the first ocean cable, and lost his life
in defending Fort Pickens; and Mrs. Low
rem Andrews, whose husband was Presi-
dent of an Ohio college and Colonel of the
1st Ohio regiment. In the Treasury is
Mrs. Lieut.-Gov. Ford, of Ohio, and down
in the room where the mutilated currency
is counted, is the widow of Representative
Mellish. of New York, who came to sad
and untimely end in the insane asylum
last winter. There is also Miss Amelia
Jackson, daughter of j. w. Jackson, who
killed Col. Ellsworth at Alexandria, and
was Immediately afterward shot.
"0f all the women who served in the
war In. various capacities, only one was
pensioned for physical disabilities, and that
was Mrs. Isabella Fogg, of Me-, who was
seriously injured by fall in Louisville,
while engaged in hospital work. She died
here last summer.
"There are 81 widows of Generals, and
2l7 of Colonels on the pension rolls.
When the pension paid the Brigadier-
Generals, $50 month, was offered the
widow of brave Gen. Meade, am told
she very emphatically declined to receive
it, because it was less than that paid Mrs
President Lincoln"
Truff4ao