Year: 1865

was an act of great kindness in Col. Smith,
your assistant adjutant general to except me
from that removal, as the others were now
placed in a condition still worse, some fifty
being, as afterwards learned cooped up in q
room not more than eighteen feet square. Of
course, had You been at hand, either I should
have gone with them, or they would have staid
with me. Such; my General, is the honest
story of your dealings with me. And however
you may, "with unbashful forehead, braze it
out. I found no small satisfaction in the assur-
ance, which was not wanting, that your treat
ment of me- 30 far as 1t was known in the ar
my. was regarded as IAN outrage; for every
step OF your proceedings in my case was in di-
rect and palpable violation of the law.


You, sir, had no right to put me in the pro-
vost guard prison at all; no right to keep me
in close confinement anywhere more than
eight days; and no right to hold me in any
sort of arrest more than forty eight days; the
settled usage of the army interprets the time
to forty days-that is, you had Just as much
right to shoot or hang, or starve me to death,
as to do what you did. Every provision of law
bearing on my case was broken by you. And,
as week after week passed away, it became
hope for in the shape of legal protection. For
was right well assured that any appeal to the
law, any word of remOnstrance, any movement
for legal remedy or redress, would only be con-
strued by you as fresh offence and visited
with further severity. Such is your scheme
of Justice" You, sir, were simply rioting in
the abuse of military power, sPurning alike
the restraints of law and the usages of hu-
manity. / never imagined before what it is for
an honest man to find himself stripped of all
legal protection and held in the condition of an
outlaw. Indeed, sir, no language of mine can
fairly express how much l suffered during
those long, dreary, dismal weeks spent in your
bull-pen; though far less, to be sure, in the
way of physical discomfort than mental dis
tress. May God defend you and yours, sir,
from ever suffering what l there suffered under
your hard-hearted and unlawful inHictions


l seemed to b. let alone and helpless at the
hands of most unfeeling and vindictive man;
that man had discovered himself my personal
enemy; he was armed with military power
he was capable of any outrage; there was no
sense Of honor, no grace of manhood In him;
to be mean was his pride. to be brutal his
pleasure; he was reveling in the license of as
sumed impunity; he allowed no law, nor any.
thing else, to stand between him and his NAL
ice. But, much as l suffered from you, and
bitter as is the remembrance of your infiic-
tions, shall not regret them, nay, shall take
comfort of them, provided your brutal savage.
ness, as exercised on me, should work some
you out of her honorable service.


Well my General, the sum Of he whole matter
warrants think, pretty grave charge against you
Al have aready said, you were my accuser and my
personal enemy. understand yOn as having ad-
mitted the personal enmty In your note to my
trie nd Mr. Nash. As lawyer You could scarcely be
ignorant Of the great legal maxim that no man is
gUOd judge In hi, own case" Yet you presumed
to act As my Judge; and then, on your own judg-
ment without iria or a hearing you dared 10 pun
ish me with very great severity for nearly two
months; singing me out and excepting me from
the protection Of the law, and from the honorable
usages Of the service subJecting me to the most
degrading conditions and assoc atoms utterly ignor
ing my military rank my sacred office, my good
name, my faithful service my years, my ill-health,
and my recent afict on; treating me- in fact az sn
outlaw, and as having TO rights which you were
boand to respect. AL this, l AFFIRM was done by
you mainly with the intent to distress and wiring me
into bearing false witness against my neis hbor Z"
Moreover, to enforce this wrong upon me you took
. mem advantage Of the military power with which
the government had clothed you thus pervertng a
solemn trust to the ends of private malice. Now,
SIR this is my charge. You will meet it IS You can


Sincerely yours, H. N. HUDSON