She was at last obliged to keep out of his way whenever he came under the influence of liquor.

When sober, his memory of these hallucinations was sufficiently distinct to fill him with sorrow, shame and fear; for he sincerely loved his wife and knew her to be above reproach.

After the war, during which he held the position of a general in the Southern army, he became very much reduced in his circumstances, lost heart and gave himself up to drink.
The friends of his wife tried to prevail on her to abandon him; but she still clung to her husband, though her life was often in danger from his insane passion.

Four years of this dreadful experience, in which she three times received serious personal injuries from his hands, and then the old home was broken up, and he went drifting from place to place, a human ship without a rudder on temptation's stormy sea; his unhappy wife following him, more or less, in secret, and often doing him service and securing his protection.

In the spring of 1874, his faithful colored man brought him to the asylum at Binghampton, a perfect wreck.