The Storm Centre by Mary Noailles Murfree — Read

Ashley, in common with a number of Baynell's friends, did not recognize a fair spirit in the inception of the investigation. The military authorities in Roanoke City seemed rancorously keen to prove that naught within the scope of their own duty could have averted the disasters of the battle of the redoubt. The moral gymnastic of shunting the blame was actively in progress. The proof of treachery within the lines, individual failure of duty, would explain to the Department far more to the justification of the commander of the garrison of the town the losses both of life and material, and the jeopardy of the whole position, than admission of the fact that the military of the post had been outwitted, and that the enemy was entitled to salvos of applause for a very gallant exploit. Indeed, only specific details from one familiar with the interior of the works, to which, of course, citizens were not admitted, could have informed Julius Roscoe of the location of the powder magazine and enabled him to utilize in this connection his own early familiarity with the surroundings. Thus the theory that Julius Roscoe could not have accomplished its destruction had he not been harbored, even helped, by the connivance of a personal friend in the lines, and that friend, a Federal officer, was far more popular among the military authorities than the simple fact that a Rebel had been detected visiting his father's house by a Federal officer, a guest therein, promptly arrested, and in the altercation the one had been hurt and the other had escaped. Had the capture of the redoubt never occurred later as a sequence, this transient encounter of Baynell's would hardly have elicited a momentary notice.

The aspect of the court-martial was far from reassuring even to men of worldly experience on broad lines. The impassive, serious, bearded faces, the military figures in full-dress uniform, the brilliant insignia of high rank being specially pronounced, for of course no officer of lower degree than that of the prisoner was permitted to sit, were ranged on each side of a long table on a low rostrum in a large room, formerly a fraternity hall, in a commercial building now devoted to military purposes. The spectacle might well have made the heart quail. It seemed so expressive of the arbitrary decrees of absolute force, oblivious of justice, untempered by mercy!