e and took him to the hospital. Two
days of quivering agony followed and then he met and bravely faced his
last enemy. Opening his eyes, he said clearly and distinctly, "Give
the Captain his sword." Then his breath fluttered and the little
armor-bearer slept the sleep of peace.

CHAPTER XI.

A SOLDIER OF THE CROSS

Under Arrest for Absence Without Leave. Order of Court Reversed by
President. Certificate from State Legislature of Massachusetts for
Patriotic Services. Appointed by President Lincoln Lieutenant-Colonel
on General McPherson's Staff. Wounded at Kenesaw Mountain. Conversion.
Public Profession of Faith.

The tragic death of John Ring was the final crushing news that came to
Captain Conwell at Newberne. Combined with the nervous strain he had
been under in trying to get back to his men, the condemnation from his
superior officers for his absence, it threw him into a brain fever.
Long days and nights he rolled and tossed, fighting over again the
attack on the fort, making heroic efforts to rescue John Ring from his
fiery death, urging his horse through tangled forests and dark rivers
that seemed never to have another shore. For weeks the fever racked
and wasted him, and finally when feeble and weak, he was once more
able to walk, he found himself under arrest for absence without leave
during a time of danger.

It had been reported to General Palmer that the defeat of the Federal
troops might have been avoided had the officers been on duty. An
investigation was ordered and Captain Conwell was asked for his permit
to be absent. He had simply his pass through the lines, a vastly
different thing he found from an authorized permit of absence. The
investigation dragged its slow course along, as all such things,
encumbered by red tape, do. Disgusted and humiliated by being kept a
prisoner for months when the country needed every arm in its defense,
by having such a mountain made of the veriest molehill built of a kind
act and boyish inexperience, he refused to put in a defense at the
investigation and let it go as it would. Setting the Court of Inquiry
more against him, a former Commander, General Foster, espoused his
cause too hotly and wrote to General McPherson for an appointment for
a "boy who is as brave as an old man." The Court of Inquiry, made up
of local officers, most of them jealous of his popularity, resented
this outside interference and the verdict was against him. But others
higher in autho