In a letter from Jacob Hall, a mail contractor for the U.S. Government, to Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, Nov. 4th, 1862:

...she (editor: his sister in-law whose husband is a Major in the Confederate Army) finally reached home and (I suppose) went to my house, where two days after her arrival she was arested by the order of Col. Penick and with seven other ladies was confined for seven weeks in our small room, sleeping on a (unreadable) matress on the floor where they have been removed to the Female Seminary which is converted into a female prison. Col. Penick did not see her for one week after her arrest (my wife writes). He says that they are no charges against her-that he only desires to make an example of her to keep men at home with their families. The facts detailed above constituted the whole of her offence. The interest, care and anxiety thus manifested by my wife for her young sister as much as if she was her child, I doubt not, may have something to do with the treatment of me and my family by him as stated above by my wife.

In a letter from Colonel Penick to Major General S. R. Curtis, St. Louis, Missouri, Penick states:

"...Mrs. Page is one of the ladies who returned from the South with Mrs. Jones and refuses to take the oath of allegiance or to go outside of our lines. "The modest, timid, gentle, harmless, innocent, and highly accomplished lady spoken of by Mr. Hall". If she has the accomplishments spoken of by Mr. hall, she is calculated to do us a great deal of good by her example and I have been disposed to convict her and use her on our side, if possible. I am still insisting upon her taking the oath, She is like old Jacob Hall, Mrs. Hall and all the balance of the Hall family. They think more of a negro than they do of their country or their God, and their opinion is that this is a war upon slavery. If my statements are not satisfactory let me know it and it will be made so."

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