“She was a dancer in the Canterbury Music Hall.  I enclose photographs of her in costume, also receipts from her landlady, washing lists, her contract with the Canterbury, all in her own handwriting, and all gathered for me at my request by a New York detective, and forwarded to me here.  Among these papers you will find several notes written to her in the spring and summer of 1861 by the trooper Berkley and discovered in her room by her landlady after her departure.  A perusal of them is sufficient to leave no doubt concerning the character of this young woman—­who, apparently, neglected by the fellow, Berkley, pleaded piteously with him for an interview, and was, as you see, cynically rebuffed.

“I enclose, also, an affidavit made by Miss Lynden’s landlady that she, Letty, or ‘Daisy’ Lynden, was commonly understood to be the mistress of Berkley; that he took her from the Canterbury and from her lodgings, paid her board bills, and installed her in rooms at the enclosed address, where she remained until she found employment with a Doctor Benton.

“What her relations were with him I do not pretend to know.  It is evident, however, that they continue, as he writes to her.  It will also be apparent to you that she has not scrupled to continue her relations with the man Berkley.

“I will now further prove to you the truth of my assertion concerning this degrading and demoralising condition of affairs.

“It came to my knowledge that a certain Arthur Wye, serving in the volunteer artillery, and a certain subaltern in a zouave regiment, were not only intimates of the trooper Berkley, but had also been on dubious terms with the Lynden girl.

“Therefore, in company with an agent of the United States Secret Service detailed for the duty by Surgeon-General Hammond at my request, I held a private examination of these two men, and, with some adroitness, succeeded in making them identify the photographs of the Lynden girl, and later, unobserved by her, attempted to make them identify her as she was sitting outside the field hospital.  But this they refused to do.

“However, that evidence was not necessary.  Among her effects, scraps of letters in the waste-basket, etc., which she had imprudently left at her lodgings, were discovered fragments which, when pasted together, showed conclusively that she was on speaking terms at least with the artilleryman, Wye.

“This evidence I deem it my duty to lay before you.  As a sensitive and chaste woman, gently born, the condition of affairs will horrify you.  But the knowledge of them will also enable you to take measures for self-protection, and to clearly understand the measure which I shall now take to rid the Sanitary Service of this abandoned woman, who, as your friend and intimate associate, conceals her true character under the garb of Sainte Ursula, and who continues her intrigues with the trooper Berkley under the very roof that shelters you.