Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[444] recollected, when I received a letter from a lady in Malden, Massachusetts. She wrote me in very dignified and proper terms that she was somehow interested in Mrs. Mumford, who was then in the greatest distress. Mrs. Mumford had written to her that at the time of the execution of her husband I had told her that if ever I could soften her troubles I would be glad to help her, and she asked her Massachusetts friend to send to me to ascertain if I would see her.

I immediately answered I would see Mrs. Mumford any time at my office in Washington. A few days later her card came to me and she was shown in. She had aged somewhat. I told her that I had received a letter from her friend and asked the purpose of her visit. She then told me that a very considerable amount of money had been subscribed for her, but being in Confederate money it did not amount to much. At last it was entrusted to some man, a clergyman I think, who concluded to take it and build a house in Wytheville, Virginia, for her and her children, of whom there were three or four. He had purchased two acres of land and had a house built upon it. The work was nearly finished, when her trustee ran away, leaving a mechanic's lien upon the building of something more than eighty dollars, and the land and buildings were now to be sold to satisfy that lien.

“Where are you living now?” I asked.

She said she had come to Alexandria and was staying there with a friend, waiting to see me.

“Can you wait there without difficulty until I can send down and see about this matter at Wytheville?”

She said she would thankfully, and that I would find her story correct.

I immediately sent to Col. Thomas Tabb, of Hampton, Virginia, who had been a Confederate officer, and who had afterwards been my counsel in some matters of moment. I wrote him the story and asked him to investigate it and to purchase the title to that house in the name of Mrs. Mumford, and charge the amount to me, and telegraph me if it was all right. He telegraphed me within a day or two that the matter was as I had supposed, and he would attend to it. The morning I got that despatch, Mrs. Mumford came again to my office. I told her what had been done. She expressed