"Impossible you see—the pain is so intense I can't stand erect. These shackles are very heavy. If I stand, the weight of them cuts into my flesh—they have already torn broad patches of skin from the places they touch. If you can pad a cushion there, I will gladly try to drag them about—"
Dr. Craven sought the jailer:
"General Miles," he began respectfully, "in my opinion the condition of state-prisoner Davis requires the removal of those shackles until such time as his health shall be established on a firmer basis. Exercise he must have."
"You believe that is a medical necessity?"
"I do, most earnestly."
About the same time General Miles had heard from the country. The incident had already aroused sharp criticism of the Government. Stanton had come down to Fortress Monroe and peeped through the bars at the victim he was torturing, and had extracted all the comfort possible from the incident. The shackles were removed.
His jailer persisted in denying him the most innocent books to read. He asked the doctor to get for him if possible the geology or the botany of the South. General Miles thought them dangerous subjects. At least the names sounded treasonable. He denied the request.
The prisoner asked for his trunk and clothes. Miles decided to keep them in his own office and dole out the linen by his own standards of need.
Davis turned to his physician with a flash of anger.
"It's contemptible that they should thus dole out my clothes as if I were a convict in some penitentiary. They mean to degrade me. It can't be done. No man can be degraded by unmerited insult heaped upon the helpless. Such acts can only degrade their perpetrators. The day will come when the people will blush at the memory of such treatment—"