"But has the Judge-Advocate the right to disregard the plain plea?" Lieut. McJimsey started to inquire, when the President interrupted with,
"Lieutenant, we can have no discussion of the court's practices in the presence of the prisoner. If you want to enter upon that we shall have to clear the court. Do you desire that?"
There was something in the bluff old Major's tone that made the Lieutenant think this inadvisable, and he signified the negative.
"Call your first witness, then, Judge-Advocate," said Maj. Truax, with a wave of his hand.
Lieut. Steigermeyer, in full-dress, even to epaulets, rigidly erect and sternly important as to look, testified that he was a Second Lieutenant in the Regular Army, but had the staff rank of Captain and Inspector-General, and after going out of his way to allude to the laxness of discipline he found prevailing in the Western armies, testified that on the day mentioned, while in pursuance of his duty, he was going over the battlefield, he came upon the prisoner, whose drunken yelling attracted his attention; that he had admonished him, and received insults in reply.
"My way is to knock a man down, when he gives me any back talk," remarked the Major, sotto voce, taking a fresh chew of tobacco. "That's better than court-martialing to promote discipline."
"Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—"
"Pardon me, Lieutenant—I should perhaps say Captain"—interrupted Lieut. Bowersox, with much sweetness of manner, "but the most of us are familiar with your views as to the inferiority of the discipline of the Western Armies to that of the Army of the Potomac and European armies, so that we need not take up the' time of the court with its reiteration. What farther happened?"
"Nothing. The Provost Guard came up at that moment, and I directed a Sergeant to place the two principal offenders in custody, and secure the names of the witnesses."
"Is that all, Captain?"