Daily Times [Leavenworth, Ks], August 14, 1861
Mr. Collins, son of Dr. Collins, a noted Methodist, who escaped from the South some time since, relates the following:
“Miss Geirnstein, a young woman from Maine, who had been teaching near Memphis, became an object of suspicion, and left for Cairo, on the cars. One of the firemen overheard her say to some Northern men: “Thank God, we shall soon be in a land where there is freedom of thought and speech.” The fellow summoned the Vigilance Committee, and the three Northern men were stripped and whipped till their flesh hung in strips. Miss G. was stripped to her waist and thirteen lashes given her bare back.”
Mr. Collins says the brave girl permitted no cry or tear to escape her, but bit her lips through and through. With head shaved, scarred and disfigured, she was at length permitted to resume her journey toward civilization.–New York Tribune.