MY WIFE'S LAST VISIT TO THE MAIN HOUSE.
In the spring of 1861, my wife visited me; that year the war broke out in the south. As we sat in the dining room I said to her, "there is a war." "O, yes," said she, "and many of the stores are shut in Troy." Our hearts were too sad to talk much about home and past time, our visit was short, she inquired of me something about my fare, to her I never complained, knew she was too weak to bear my burdens, therefore I made the best of it to her.
The separation time drew near, she says to a patient, "let me out" (supposing him to be the attendant or turnkey), "not so" said I, calling George Harrison (for he was attendant then), we took the parting hand once more in a lunatic asylum.
Soon after we took the parting hand at this time, I was removed to the south or dead-house hallway, having been shaved by Adkins, the lunatic barber; I was now afraid I should be shaved to death by others. When I returned to this hall I was met by a large, robust, muscular man, his name I did not learn, English by birth. Not long after he came into my bed-room with patient Gibbs and ordered me to change my own suit for others, I knew not whose, I was very loth to do so, fearing I should never get them again, and so it is as yet, my trunk, overcoat, and all I carried there were retained, although I asked the steward for them when I left the institution in 1871, Oct. 13.