"Some one ought to see to their release. Can not you see to their release?"
"I tell you, madam, it is hard to do much for each other."
"Gentlemen," I responded, "I have learned one thing thoroughly since being with the army, and that is, it is almost impossible to get one officer to touch another's red-tape. But position or no position, head or no head, these flagrant wrongs ought to be plowed up beam deep. Here comes an order from President Lincoln for drafting men, and Judge Attocha has laid three thousand on the shelf, when all they ask is to be permitted to return to their respective regiments. That man is serving the rebel cause more effectually than when at the head of his company in the rebel ranks, by decimating the Union army; and here you have it in a tangible form. I am informed that Judge Attocha was a rebel captain. He is a rebel still, and in the exercise of this authority is banishing your soldiers for trivial military offenses, in irons, with forfeited wages; for which their families are now suffering."
The thought struck me, What will these officers think, to see a little old woman talking to them like this? for I addressed them as I would a group of ten-year-old boys. I had lost all reverence for shoulder-straps, and cast a glance over my audience, when I saw a number in tears. Surely there are hearts here that feel, I thought to myself. I turned to brother Diossy, and said, "You can leave your position, and get another to occupy your place here?"
"Yes, I could, if it would avail any thing; but it would be impossible for me to accomplish what you have done on Ship Island."
"Why? The idea seems to me perfectly preposterous."
"I will tell you why. There is so much wire-pulling here in the army. I would be suspected of trying to displace an officer for the position for myself, or for a friend standing behind me. Consequently I could not have examined the record as you did."
"That is true," rejoined a general. "I presume there is not one of us that could have had access to those records that you had, for the reason that Mr. Diossy has given. They know you have no such object in view, but see you as a sort of soldiers' mother; and records, or any sort of investigation, would be opened to you when it would be closed to us."
I told them I had not viewed it from that stand-point.
One of the officers, a very large man, six feet and four inches tall, I should judge, stepped up to me in officer-like style. "What do you propose to do with facts you gathered on Ship Island?"