This brings up to the mind of every officer the terrors of the "Auditors of the Treasury." Not victory or defeat, not wounds or even death—nay, not old Time himself can clear a soldier from the terrible ordeal of the "Accounting Department." Poor Heald had evidently been asked: "Where is the money which was in your hands before the savages surrounded you, slaughtered your troops, wounded yourself and your wife, massacred the civilians under your care, tortured to death your wounded and burned your fort?" At the same time the ordnance bureau doubtless asked what had become of the arms, ammunition, accoutrements and cooking utensils; the commissary bureau asked after the stores and the quartermaster's bureau after the equippage. Scores of thousands of volunteer officers in the Union war found to their cost that their fighting was the only thing which the War Department kept no record of; that their account-keeping and reporting was what must be most carefully looked after if they would free themselves, their heirs, executors and assigns, from imperishable obligations. For the government knows no "statute of limitations"—takes no account of the lapse of time any more than does Nature in her operations. "Contra regem tempus non occurret."
Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, this is right. If all men were honest, "red tape" could be done away with; but as men are, individual accountability is indispensable. Without it, the army might fall into negligence leading to corruption, instead of being, as it is, the very example of administrational honor and probity.
It so happens that the death of Mrs. Maria (Heald) Edwards, niece of Captain Nathan Heald and mother of Mrs. General Chetlain, is announced after the above matter had been put in print. She died on May 6, 1893, at the residence of General Chetlain, in this city, at the ripe age of ninety years.
It stirs the heart to think that, almost up to this very day, there was living among us so near a relative to the gallant and unfortunate captain; a woman who was a girl nine years old when her uncle passed through the direful ordeal.
MASSACRE TREE AND PART OF PULLMAN HOUSE.