Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-12-17
CHAPTER ".

Cooke in compliance with orders from
division headquarters at Frisco had
three weeks later practically finished
the case of Brevet Captain Nevins, and
that debonair person, who had appeared
before it on the first day suave, laugh
ing and almost insolently defiant, had
wilted visibly as day after day the judge
advocate unfolded the mass Of evidence
against him.
All that Nevins thought TO be tried
for was charge of misrepresentation Of
public funds and property, and it was
his purpose to plead in bar of trial that
he had offered to make complete resti-
tuition, to replace every missing item
and doubly replace if need be every dol
lar. This indeed he had lost no time in
doing the moment he was handed over
to the post commander two days after
the exciting episode at SanchO's, but he
coupled with the offer q condition that
all proceedings against him should be
dropped, and the veteran major COM
manding, while expressing entire will
ingness to receipt for any funds the ac-
cused might offer, would promise moth
ing whatever in return.
That Nevins should be charged with
desertion and breach Of arrest the ac-
Gused officer regarded as Of small i'm
portance. He was merely going to Tue
son as fast as he could to get from bust
ness associates, as he termed them, the
money deposited with them and owed
to him, and this must also excuse his
having borrowed the majors best horse.
His friends in congress would square
all that for him, even # the court
should prove obdurate. That grave
charges should have followed him from
a former sphere Of operations; that his
record, while retained in the volunteer
service until the spring of 1866 and as
signed to some mysterious bureau func-
tions in the SOUTH should have been
ventilated and made part and parcel Of
the charges; that it should be shown
that he as a newly commissioned officer
of the army had made the journey from
New Orleans to the iSthmus and thence
to San Francisco with men whom he
knew to be deserters from commands
stationed in the Crescent City; that he
should have gambled with them and
associated with them and brought one
of them all the way with him to Yuma
and concealed from the military author
tiles his knowledge of their crime; that
it should be proved that he was a pro-
fessiOnal 'fcard sharp, expert manipu
lator and bIackleg he never had con-
templated as even possible, and yet,
with calm and relentless deliberatiOn,
"that cold FLOODED, merciless martinez
of a West Pointer - as he referred to
the judge advocate at an early stage in
the proceedings, had laid proof after
proof before the court and left the case .
of the defense at the last without leg
to stand on.
And then Nevins dropped the debonair
and dOnned the abject, for the one friend
or adviser left to him in the crowded
camp, an officer who said he always took
the side of the under dog in fight, had
told him that i'll it's present temper that
court, with old Turnbull as one of its
leaders, would surely sentence him to
term Of years at Alcatraz, as we'll as to
dismissal from the military service Of
the United States. Dismissal he expect .
ed, but cared little for that. He had !
money and valuables more than enough !
to begin life on anywhere, and the pick .
ings of his accustomed trade were all too
scant in Arizona. He needed a broader .
field and crGwding population for the I
proper exercise of his talents, and the
uniform of the officer, after all, had not .
proved to be SO potent in lulling the
suspicious of prospective victims as he
had expected ct might be.
But Alcatraz, a rock bound prison,
convict garb, hard labor on soft diet
that was indeed appalling.
''That man Loring has made you out
an innate blackguard, Nevins. You've
got to plead for mercy, said his shrewd
adviser, and Nevins saw the point and
pleaded. He laid before the court let
ters from officers Of rank speaking CRATE
fully of his aid during the prevalence
OF yellow fever in the gulf states. He
begged the court to wait until he could
show them the affidavits Of many states
men and soldiers, whom it would take
months to hear from by mail, and there
was then no telegraph in Arizona. He
begged for time, for pity, and the court
was moved and wrote to Drum barracks
for instructions and adjourned until the
answer came, which it did by swift
stages and special courier within a
week. "Advices from Washington say
uaI lue COuSreSS1OHai DackerS OF the dG-
oused have declared themselves we'll rid
If him and suggest the extreme penalty
If the law And this being the ADVICE
If Washington, it was simply human
nature that the court should experience
| revulsion Of feeling and consider itself
pound to see that the poor fellow was
lot made to suffer martyrdom.
Most of the members were men from
5he volunteers or from the ranks. West
Pointers were the exception, not the
'ule, in the line of the army for years
lfter the war. Most of the court had