Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/90

78 Baltimore, requesting that we should be permitted to accompany the remains by flag of truce to Richmond.

The scene on the arrival at General Schenck's headquarters in Baltimore was one that beggars description. The polite and gentlemanly Lieutenant who had accompanied us presented the letter from his superior officer, and it was handed to Colonel Fish, General Schenck's Adjutant. He read it, and asked, "Where is the body?" The Lieutenant produced the receipt of the Adams Express Company, who had it in charge, and the Colonel, receiving it, handed it to one of his subordinates, and said, "Go and get that body and have it buried." "Where shall I bury it?" asked the surprised official—to which the answer was in substance that he did not care where, so as the body was put out of the way, adding that he had stood all that he was going to stand of this paying honors to Rebel dead. Edwin Miller, overwhelmed with the thought of the dishonor about to be done to his father's remains, plead most earnestly to be permitted to accompany the officer and see the remains interred, and it was only after a long interval, and through the intercession of friends of Colonel Fish, who were the witnesses of the boy's agony, that he was permitted to accompany the remains to their sepulture, and have them placed in a vault instead of being buried in the ground.

When the question of the disposition of the body had been, finally settled, the Lieutenant in charge of us asked, "What shall I do with these men?" referring to Edwin Miller and myself. To which the reply was, "Let them go down to the guard-room." Now this guard-room was a dark basement room of the hotel in which General Schenck had his headquarters, provided with an iron door and a small grated window to admit a little light, into which the provost guard emptied the sweeping of the streets. Drunken soldiers, deserters, bummers, et id omne genus, constituted its ordinary population. Hence the Lieutenant was startled by the proposition, and said, "But this man is a minister of the gospel; you won't send him there?" "Why not," asked the now irate Colonel, "the preachers are more to blame for this war than any others. The best thing we could do would be to hang a few of them when we capture them." And so without further ceremony I was marched down by a sentinel to the guard-room. The iron door swung open and closed behind me, and I found myself, as the shadows of evening were coming on, in one of the vilest dens in which any respectable man ever spent the night.