Sentence:  By repeating a form of words after a gentleman in a glazed cap and black raiment, we had suffered change into base assassins, the <WSD>offscouring</WSD> of society, starving for want of employment, and willing to “imbrue our coarse fists in fraternal blood” for the sum of eleven dollars a month, besides hard-tack, salt junk, and the hope of a Confederate States bond apiece for bounty, or free loot in the treasuries of Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas, after the war. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  An outcast, a pariah.