Page:A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Including the Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861-1865, Volume I.djvu/52

24 story of my imprisonment, or more than merely to refer to other matters which concern me personally, as distinct from my connection with the Confederacy." He was kept in prison about two years, and on May 6, 1866, was indicted for treason in the United States Court for the District of Virginia. With his counsel he insisted on a prompt and speedy trial, but the government postponed the trial and held him without bail until May, 1867, when upon a writ of habeas corpus he was brought before the court at Richmond and admitted to bail, the bond being fixed at $100,000. The bond was promptly given, and he was released. After an enthusiastic reception at Richmond, he went to New York, then to Canada, and in the summer of 1868 visited England and France. While in England he declined an offer to enter upon business with a Liverpool firm. In December, 1868, a nolle prosequi was entered by the government in his case, and he was therefore never brought to trial; and in the general amnesty of that month he was included. He subsequently removed to Memphis, Tenn., and became the president of a life insurance company. In 1879 he was bequeathed an estate by a lady admirer, Mrs. Dorsey, of Beauvoir, Miss., where he went to reside and where, living a life of seclusion, he gave himself up largely to literary pursuits. Occasional public demonstrations in the South revealed the attachment of the people there for him. This was notably the case when he attended the unveiling of the statue of Benjamin Hill, in Atlanta, the dedication of a monument to Confederate soldiers at Montgomery in 1886, and when he at another time visited the Georgia State Fair, at Macon. He avoided ostentatious display of himself; but when opportunity offered, the Southern people, by imposing popular demonstrations, gave evidence of their undiminished attachment to his personal character, and their sympathy for him in his misfortunes. They believed him to be a man of the highest personal integrity, a sincere Christian, a gentleman of refined and elevated character, and one thoroughly impressed with the correctness of the political and constitutional views he held, and the rightfulness and righteousness of the cause he espoused. He devoted much time of the last years of his life to the writing of his history of the war, the "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," published in 1881. The purpose he had in view in preparing and publishing this work he set forth briefly but