The Storm Centre: A Novel

by Charles Egbert Craddock

The president, a brevet brigadier-general, at the head of the table, was of a peculiarly fierce physiognomy, that yet was stony cruel. The judge-advocate at the foot had the look of laying down the law by main force. He had a keenly aggressive manner. He was a captain of cavalry, brusque, alert; he had dark side whiskers and a glancing dark eye, and was the only man on the rostrum attired in an undress uniform. His multifarious functions as the official prosecutor for the government, and also adviser to the court, and yet attorney for the prisoner to a degree,—by a theory similar to the ancient fiction of English law that the judge is counsel for the accused,—would seem, in civilian estimation, to render him "like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once," as Mrs. Malaprop would say, or a military presentment of Pooh-Bah. The nominal military accuser, acting in concert with the judge-advocate, seated at a little distance, was conscious of sustaining an unpopular rôle, and it had tinged his manner with disadvantage. The prisoner appeared without any restraint, of course, but wearing no sword. The special values of his presence, his handsome face, his blond hair and beard that had a glitter not unlike the gold lace of his full-dress uniform, his fine figure and highbred, reserved manner, were very marked in his conspicuous position, occupying a chair at a small table on the right of the judge-advocate. Baynell had a calm dignity and a look of steady, immovable courage incongruous with his plight, arraigned on so base a charge, and yet a sort of blighted, wounded dismay, as unmistakable as a burn, was on his face, that might have moved even one who had cared naught for him to resentment, to protest for his sake.

The light of the unshaded windows, broad, of ample height, and eight or ten in number on one side of the room, brought out in fine detail every feature of the scene within. Beneath no sign of the town appeared, as the murmur of traffic rose softly, for the building was one of the few three-story structures, and the opposite roofs were low. The aspect of the far-away mountains, framed in each of the apertures, with the intense clarity of the light and the richness of tint of the approaching summer solstice, was like a sublimated gallery of pictures, painted with a full brush and of kindred types. Here were the repetitious long ranges, with the mouldings of the foot-hills at the base, and again a single great dome, amongst its mysterious shimmering clouds, filled the canvas. Now in the background were crowded all the varying mountain forms, while a glittering vacant reach of the Tennessee River stretched out into the distance. And again a bridge crossed the currents, light and airy in effect, seeming to spring elastically from its piers, in the strong curves of the suspended arches, while a sail-boat, with its head tucked down shyly as the breeze essayed to chuck it under the chin, passed through and out of sight. Another window showed the wind in a bluffer mood, wrestling with the storm clouds; showed, too, that rain was falling in a different county, and the splendors of the iris hung over far green valleys that gleamed prismatically with a secondary reflection.

The room was crowded with spectators, both military and civilian, finding seats on the benches which were formerly used in the fraternity gatherings and which were still in place. The case had attracted much public attention. There were few denizens of the town who had not had individual experiences of interest pending the storming of the fort, and this fact invested additional details with peculiar zest and whetted the edge of curiosity as to the inception of the plan and the means by which Julius Roscoe's exploit had become practicable. The effect of the imposing character of the court was manifested in the perfect decorum observed by the general public. There was scarcely a stir during the opening of the proceedings. The order convening the court was read to the accused, and he was offered his right to challenge any member of the court-martial for bias or other incompetency. Baynell declined to avail himself of this privilege. There ensued a moment of silence. Then, with a metallic clangor, for every member wore his sword, the court rose, and, all standing, a glittering array, the oath was administered to each of the thirteen by the judge-advocate. Afterward the president of the court, of course the ranking officer present, himself administered the oath to the judge-advocate, and the prosecution opened.

The military accuser was the first witness sworn and interrogated, but the prosecution had much other testimony tending to show that the prisoner had been living in great amity with persons notoriously of sentiments antagonistic to the Union cause, as exemplified by his long stay in Judge Roscoe's house; that he was in correspondence and even in intimate association with a Rebel in hiding under the same roof; that either with treacherous intent, or for personal reasons, he had leniently permitted this enemy in arms to lie perdu within the lines and subsequently to escape with such information as had resulted in great loss of men, materials, and money to the Federal government; that he had been apprised, by the sentinel at the door, of the approach of a body of troops the night before the attack on the redoubt took place, and that he nefariously or negligently declined to investigate the incident. Most of this evidence, however, was circumstantial.

The defence met it strenuously at every point. The intimacy between Judge Roscoe and the Baynell family was shown to be of a far earlier date, and the friendship utterly devoid of any connection with political interests; in this relation the accused had in every instance subordinated his personal feeling to his military duty, even going so far as to cause the property of his host's niece to be seized for military service,—the impressment of the horse, which Colonel Ashley testified he had at that time considered an unwarrantable bit of official tyranny, some individuals being allowed to retain their horses through the interposition of army officers among their friends.

Colonel Ashley testified further that the prisoner was such a stickler on trifles, as to seek to check him, a person of responsibility and discretion, an experienced officer, in expressing some casual speculations in the presence of Judge Roscoe concerning troops on an incoming train.

The accused admitted that he had not investigated the sound of marching troops in the thrice-guarded lines of the encampment, but urged it was no part of his duty and impracticable. Small detachments were coming and going at all hours of the night. If an officer of the guard, going out with the relief or a patrol, had seen fit to march across Judge Roscoe's grove, it was no concern of his nor of the sentinel's. He had no divination of the proximity of the enemy.

Perhaps the ardor of the witnesses, called in Captain Baynell's behalf, when the prosecution had rested at length, made an impression unfavorable to the idea of impartiality. More than one on cross-examination was constrained to acknowledge that he was swayed by the sense of the prisoner's hitherto unimpugnable record, and his high standing as a soldier. No such admission could be wrung from Judge Roscoe, skilled in all the details of the effect of testimony. His plain asseverations that his son had come to his house, not knowing that a Federal officer was a temporary inmate, the account of the simple measures taken to defeat the guest's observation or detection of the young Rebel's propinquity, the reasonableness of his quietly awaiting an opportunity to run the pickets when a chance meeting resulted in discovery and a collision—all went far to establish the fact that the presence of Julius Roscoe was but one of those stolen visits home in which the adventurous Southern soldiers delighted and of which Captain Baynell had no sort of knowledge till the moment of their encounter, when Julius rushed forth to the gaze of all the camp.

This was the point of difficulty with the prosecution, the point of danger with the defence,—the adequacy of the proof as to the prisoner's knowledge of the presence of the Rebel in hiding, harbored in the house. For this the prosecution had the apparition of the Confederate officer, covered with blood and later identified as Julius Roscoe, and the condition of Baynell's wound, which the surgeon swore was a "facer," delivered by an expert boxer. Evidently this came from an altercation, in which both had forborne the use of weapons, thus suggesting some collision of interests, as between personal associates or former friends rather than a hand-to-hand conflict of armed enemies.

On this vital point, to form the conclusions of military men, Baynell could command no testimony save that of the Roscoe household,—the most important witness of course being the judge himself, who had devised and controlled all the methods to keep the Federal officer unsuspicious and tranquil, and to maintain the lurking Rebel in security. The anxiety of the authorities to fix the responsibility for the disclosure of the military information concerning the interior of the works, which only one familiar with the location of the magazine could have given, had induced them to ignore Judge Roscoe's shelter of their enemy, thus avoiding the entanglement of a slighter matter with the paramount consideration under investigation. While the fact that his feelings as a father must needs have coerced Judge Roscoe into harboring and protecting his son and requiring his servant to minister to his wants, still the recital of the concealment of his presence affronted the sentiment of the court-martial, even though Judge Roscoe's part was obviously restricted to the sojourn of the Confederate officer in his house, for he had no knowledge of the details of the escape and subsequent adventures.