The court-martial sat for fifteen days. It acquitted Knox upon the first and second charges. Of course, he was found guilty of the third. After some hesitation between sentencing him to receive a written censure, or to leave Grant's department, the latter was decided upon, and he was banished from the army lines.
When information of this proceeding reached Washington, the members of the press at once united in a memorial to the President, asking him to set aside the sentence, inasmuch as the violated Article of War was altogether obsolete, and the practice of sending newspaper letters, without any official scrutiny, had been universal, with the full sanction of the Government, from the outset of the Rebellion. It was further represented that Mr. Knox was thoroughly loyal, and the most scrupulously careful of all the army correspondents to write nothing which, by any possibility, could give information to the enemy. Colonel John W. Forney headed the memorial, and all the journalists in Washington signed it.
A Visit to President Lincoln.
One evening, with Mr. James M. Winchell, of The New York Times, and Mr. H. P. Bennett, Congressional Delegate from Colorado, I called upon the President to present the paper.
After General Sigel and Representative John B. Steele had left, he chanced to be quite at liberty. Upon my introduction, he remarked:—
"Oh, yes, I remember you perfectly well: you were out on the prairies with me on that winter day when we almost froze to death; you were then correspondent of The Boston Journal. That German from Leavenworth was also with us—what was his name?"
Two "Little Stories."
"Hatterscheit?" I suggested. "Yes, Hatterscheit! By-the-way" (motioning us to seats, and settling down into his chair, with one leg thrown over the arm), "that reminds me of a little story, which Hatterscheit told me during the trip. He bought a pony of an Indian, who could not speak much English, but who, when the bargain was completed, said: 'Oats—no! Hay—no! Corn—no! Cottonwood—yes! very much!' Hatterscheit thought this was mere drunken maundering; but a few nights after, he tied his horse in a stable built of cottonwood logs, fed him with hay and corn, and went quietly to bed. The next morning he found the grain and fodder untouched, but the barn was quite empty, with a great hole on one side, which the pony had gnawed his way through! Then he comprehended the old Indian's fragmentary English."
This suggested another reminiscence of the same Western trip. Somewhere in Nebraska the party came to a little creek, the Indian name of which signified weeping water. Mr. Lincoln remarked, with a good deal of aptness, that, as laughing water, according to Longfellow, was "Minne-haha," the name of this rivulet should evidently be "Minne-boohoo."
These inevitable preliminaries ended, we presented the memorial asking the President to interpose in behalf of Mr. Knox. He promptly answered he would do so if Grant coincided. We reminded him that this was improbable, as Sherman and Grant were close personal friends. After a moment's hesitancy he replied, with courtesy, but with emphasis:—