Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1908-03-21
THOUGHT HE KILLED A MAN.
Samuel Martindale Relieved When
Told the Truth.

ut must be a dreadful thing said
Capt John 8. Harrington, ito carry
through life the knowledge-or even
the suspicion-of having killed a
man, of having deprived any human
being of life.
Il was captain of company A, One
Hundred and Thirty-second Indiana,
in the civil war, and the regiment was
stationed most of the time of it's serv-
ice at Stevenson, Ala 1 was Judge adj
vocate of the general court-martial at
Bridgeport, ten miles from Stevenson,
on the Tennessee river. 1t was re-
ported to me one morning that Sam
uel Martindale of my company was in
sore distress. He had killed a man, a
deserter from union regiment, as he
was escaping from the prisoners
stockade the night before.
This deserter had gotten over the
stockade, had crossed the ditch sur
rounding it and was climbing the en-
bankment hundred feet away where
Martindale was pacing his sentry beat
when Corporal Tiff ordered him to
fire on the fugitive. He did so. The
man fell, shot in the back and through
the body, the mimic ball touching the
backbone in it's flight. The poor fell
low was paralyzed and Martindale
had suffered a shock almost as bad
The deserter was picked up. A de-
tail carried him to a convalescent
camp up. the mountain. The surgeon
in charge took the body to see to its
burial and our detail returned to
camp.
Il consoled Martindale as best
could; told him what he had done was
in the strict line of duty, but he con-
tinued to bewail this death, which he
said was quite a different thing from
shooting man in actual battle.
More than 20 years later 1 was
talking one evening with a neighbor
Maj. w. H. Calkins, who afterward
went to the state of Washington. We
were calling up army incidents as we
were seated on his porch when a
friend visiting him came out upon the
porch, whom he introduced as a for
mer surgeon in the army. The major
told of man in his regiment, cav
airy regiment, who was shot in the
toe, not much more than bruising it, yet
the soldier died from that apparently
insignificant wound.
Then the surgeon spoke up. He
said he could tell of most singular
recovery. He told of a man brought
UP to the hospital of which he was in
charge just outside of Stevenson, Ala,
a man who had been shot through the
body. The surgeon had casually looked
at the body when he in some mySteri-
GUS way was moved to put his ear to
the heart. He heard a faint beat
More than that, there was faint
breath coming from his lips. The
surgeon, who was about to give or
ders for the burial of this body, had
the man placed upon bed. He
nursed him, watched him night and
day and finally sent him away entirely
restored, to his regiment. Let US hope
this deserter did valiant duty for his
country afterward.
Il thought at once of poor Sam Mar
tindale as heard the surgeons story,
and directly afterward 1 told him that
the deserter whose death he had
mourned so many years did not die,
and was probably yet in the land of
the living.
"Martindale was again a happy man.
He said that this thing of killing a
man jumping over a fence was too
much like murder for his peace of
mind. Mr.. Martindale is yet living
He's up in Newton county, where he
has served as auditor and treasurer
of his county"