skeleton labelled "Chickahominy,"
claiming it to be the bones of some gallant soldier of the Union, army who
had fallen in one of the disastrous battles in Virginia.

At his examination, Keller protested that he was a Union man, and had been
imposed upon by some designing person who had taken advantage of his
ignorance to make his shop the medium of displaying contempt and hatred of
our cause by the revolting spectacle I have mentioned. It was proved,
however, that Keller had said these were the bones of a Yankee. His
defence may or may not have been true; but, at all events, he was
apparently not an evil-disposed person, and I always believed the General
punished the offence rather than the man.

After Keller had been on Ship Island some two or three months, his wife, a
very modest, respectable little woman, came to me frequently with a
piteous story of the suffering occasioned herself and her children by the
prolonged absence of her husband, and begged me to intercede with the
General for his pardon. Satisfied that the cause could suffer no injury by
the return of the unfortunate man to his home, I promised to do my best to
obtain his release. Accordingly, I took advantage of every favorable
opportunity to drop a word in the hearing of the General for the benefit
of poor Keller, who was pining away in his confinement at a rate that bade
fair soon to render him as valuable a subject for anatomical research as
the article he had exhibited in his shop-window.

At first my efforts met with very doubtful encouragement; but I was
satisfied that the General's obduracy was caused by a conflict between his
sense of public duty and his natural tendency toward forgiveness; so,
fully assured that a few weeks would produce the desired result, I
contented myself with merely recalling the ease to his memory whenever an
opportunity offered.

Toward the last of October, being somewhat impatient at my tardy progress,
I had just resolved to abandon my previous policy of waiting for time to
do its work, and to make a vigorous onslaught upon the General's
sympathies, when I learned that he had issued an order for Keller's
release; and thus I was confirmed in my opinion that the General's heart
was not proof against the claims of the unfortunate erring.

In the case of Mrs. Phillips, who was banished to Ship Island for her
ghastly levity over the dead body of the gallant and lamented young De
Kay, the General ordered a release after th