ase,
General Brant." He took up a piece of paper from his desk, scrawled with
two or three notes in pencil. "I think this is the way it stands. You
were commanding a position at Gray Oaks when information was received
by the department that, either through neglect or complicity, spies were
passing through your lines. There was no attempt to prove your neglect;
your orders, the facts of your personal care and precaution, were all
before the department. But it was also shown that your wife, from whom
you were only temporarily separated, was a notorious secessionist; that,
before the war, you yourself were suspected, and that, therefore, you
were quite capable of evading your own orders, which you may have
only given as a blind. On this information you were relieved by the
department of your command. Later on it was discovered that the spy was
none other than your own wife, disguised as a mulatto; that, after her
arrest by your own soldiers, you connived at her escape--and this was
considered conclusive proof of--well, let us say--your treachery."

"But I did not know it was my wife until she was arrested," said Brant
impulsively.

The President knitted his eyebrows humorously.

"Don't let us travel out of the record, General. You're as bad as the
department. The question was one of your personal treachery, but you
need not accept the fact that you were justly removed because your wife
was a spy. Now, General, I am an old lawyer, and I don't mind telling
you that in Illinois we wouldn't hang a yellow dog on that evidence
before the department. But when I was asked to look into the matter by
your friends, I discovered something of more importance to you. I
had been trying to find a scrap of evidence that would justify the
presumption that you had sent information to the enemy. I found that it
was based upon the fact of the enemy being in possession of knowledge at
the first battle at Gray Oaks, which could only have been obtained
from our side, and which led to a Federal disaster; that you, however,
retrieved by your gallantry. I then asked the secretary if he was
prepared to show that you had sent the information with that view, or
that you had been overtaken by a tardy sense of repentance. He preferred
to consider my suggestion as humorous. But the inquiry led to my further
discovery that the only treasonable correspondence actually in evidence
was found upon the body of a trusted Federal officer, and had been
forwarde