The hour had at last arrived when she was utterly destitute.

In the meantime her husband lay in a foreign prison, ignorant of the unhappy fate his wife was undergoing.

Many are the nights we have walked to and fro on the grounds of Camp Douglas, and often has he spoken to me of his absent wife and children.

I know him, gentlemen, and never in the breast of man beat a heart truer than his, nor in the minds of God's mortals were there ever finer and nobler impulses.

While he was thus suffering confinement for his country's sake, his wife and children were here--in our very midst, _starving_! Aye, starving! Think of it, gentlemen--that in the midst of those who were supposed to be friends--the wife and children of a patriot were allowed to starve.
Great God! is there on earth a spectacle so fearful to behold as _starvation_?
And is it not enough to evoke the wrath of the Infinite, when men, surrounded by all that wealth can afford, refuse to aid and succor their starving fellow creatures?
"You may think that no man can be found who would refuse, but I tell you, gentlemen, that that man who now stands before you, was appealed to by this lady, the accused, after she had disposed of every piece of furniture in the room, save and except the bed on which her children slept.