“What is all this nonsense?”
“Only this: a poor mother is at the Soldiers’ Home with her dying son. The physicians say he may live if he is sent north, but will surely die if left here. His furlough papers have been sent on, and I have seen them, and know they are wrong. His regiment is with Sherman on the march. Cannot something be done for the boy—for his mother?”
“We have the army regulations, we cannot go behind them. You know if I do, they will rap me over the knuckles at Washington.”
“Oh, that your knuckles were mine. I would be willing to have them skinned; the skin would grow again, you know.”
“Where are these papers?” he said sharply.
“I have them here in my pocket.”
“Let me see them.”
The woman took them slowly out, blank side upwards, and gave them to him. He turned them and his face flushed as he said, “Why I have had these papers and disapproved them. This is my signature.”
She replied tremblingly, “I knew it, but forgive me. I thought maybe when you knew about it, General—and the mother was weeping with the skeleton arms of her boy around
her neck—I thought maybe you would do something or tell me something to do.”