oted the last fifteen or twenty minutes before the bugle-call
to a final effort to prepare them for the ordeal they must face
the next morning. While I was thus employed several of my classmates
came into the room, and began talking to the other candidates.
Though their presence annoyed me, it did not interfere with my
work; so I kept on intently with the two young boys until the bugle
sounded.

DISMISSED FROM THE ACADEMY WITHOUT TRIAL

I then went to my quarters without paying any attention to the
interruption, or knowing anything of the character of what had
occurred. But one of the candidates, perhaps by way of excuse for
his failure, wrote to his parents some account of the "deviltry"
in which my classmates had indulged that day. That report found
its way to the War Department, and was soon followed by an order
to the commandant of cadets to investigate. The facts were found
fully to exonerate me from any participation in or countenance of
the deviltry, except that I did not stop it; and showed that I had
faithfully done my duty in teaching the candidates. After this
investigation was over, I was called upon to answer for my own
conduct; and, the names of my guilty classmates being unknown to
the candidates, I was also held responsible for their conduct. I
answered by averring and showing, as I believed, my own innocence
of all that had been done, except my neglect of duty in tolerating
such a proceeding. My conscience was so clear of any intentional
wrong that I had no anxiety about the result. But in due time
came an order from the Secretary of War dismissing me from the
academy without trial. That, I believe, shocked me a little; but
the sense of injustice was too strong in my mind to permit of a
doubt that it would be righted when the truth was known. I proposed
to go straight to Washington and lay the facts before the government.
Then I realized for the first time what it meant to have friends.
All my classmates and many other cadets came forward with letters
to their congressmen, and many of them to senators whom they happened
to know, and other influential men in Washington. So I carried
with me a great bundle of letters setting forth my virtues in terms
which might have filled the breast of George Washington with pride.

There was no public man in Washington whom I had ever seen, and
probably no one who had ever heard of me, except the few in the
War Departme