d to
recognize the obligations imposed upon a military officer in such
circumstances, and it was rarely the case that any unpleasant
collisions occurred.

The following incident will illustrate some of the embarrassments
likely to occur. When I reached Charleston in July previous, I was
visited by the wife of a gentleman named Parks, who told me that her
husband had left the valley with General Wise, but not in any
military capacity, being fearful that he might suffer arrest at our
hands on account of his sympathy with the Confederates. I told her,
what I had told to a formal deputation of citizens, that I did not
propose to meddle with non-combatants if they in good faith remained
at home, minding their own business, and carefully abstaining from
giving aid or information to the enemy. I had, on general
principles, a dislike for test oaths, and preferred to make conduct
the test, and to base my treatment of people on that, rather than on
oaths which the most unscrupulous would be first to take. Had her
husband known this, she said, he would not have left home, and
begged that she might be allowed to send an open letter through the
lines to him to bring him back. I allowed her to do so at the first
proper opportunity, and Mr. Parks at once returned. In the latter
part of September, however, Governor Peirpoint of West Virginia
thought it necessary to arrest some prominent citizens, known as
Secessionists, and hold them as hostages for Union men that the
Confederate troops had seized and sent to Richmond. It happened that
Mr. Parks was arrested as one of these hostages, without any
knowledge on the part of the civil authorities of the circumstances
under which he had returned home. I was ignorant of his arrest till
I received a letter from the lady, complaining bitterly of what
seemed to her a breach of faith. I was at Sewell Mountain at the
time, but lost no time in writing her a careful explanation of the
complete disconnection between his arrest by the civil authorities
as a hostage, and a promise of non-interference with him on my part
as an officer of the United States army. I also showed her that the
arrest of non-combatant Union men by the Confederate forces was the
real cause of her husband's unpleasant predicament. In view of the
circumstances, however, I thought it right to request the Governor
to substitute some other hostage for Mr. Parks, so that there might
not be the least question whether the letter or t