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Two Military Executions

Categories: SOME HAUNTED HOUSES
Scary Books: Present At A Hanging
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In the spring of the year 1862 General Buell's big army lay in camp,

licking itself into shape for the campaign which resulted in the

victory at Shiloh. It was a raw, untrained army, although some of

its fractions had seen hard enough service, with a good deal of

fighting, in the mountains of Western Virginia, and in Kentucky.

The war was young and soldiering a new industry, imperfectly

understood by the young America
of the period, who found some

features of it not altogether to his liking. Chief among these was

that essential part of discipline, subordination. To one imbued

from infancy with the fascinating fallacy that all men are born

equal, unquestioning submission to authority is not easily mastered,

and the American volunteer soldier in his "green and salad days" is

among the worst known. That is how it happened that one of Buell's

men, Private Bennett Story Greene, committed the indiscretion of

striking his officer. Later in the war he would not have done that;

like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, he would have "seen him damned" first.

But time for reformation of his military manners was denied him: he

was promptly arrested on complaint of the officer, tried by court-

martial and sentenced to be shot.



"You might have thrashed me and let it go at that," said the

condemned man to the complaining witness; "that is what you used to

do at school, when you were plain Will Dudley and I was as good as

you. Nobody saw me strike you; discipline would not have suffered

much."



"Ben Greene, I guess you are right about that," said the lieutenant.

"Will you forgive me? That is what I came to see you about."



There was no reply, and an officer putting his head in at the door

of the guard-tent where the conversation had occurred, explained

that the time allowed for the interview had expired. The next

morning, when in the presence of the whole brigade Private Greene

was shot to death by a squad of his comrades, Lieutenant Dudley

turned his back upon the sorry performance and muttered a prayer for

mercy, in which himself was included.



A few weeks afterward, as Buell's leading division was being ferried

over the Tennessee River to assist in succoring Grant's beaten army,

night was coming on, black and stormy. Through the wreck of battle

the division moved, inch by inch, in the direction of the enemy, who

had withdrawn a little to reform his lines. But for the lightning

the darkness was absolute. Never for a moment did it cease, and

ever when the thunder did not crack and roar were heard the moans of

the wounded among whom the men felt their way with their feet, and

upon whom they stumbled in the gloom. The dead were there, too--

there were dead a-plenty.



In the first faint gray of the morning, when the swarming advance

had paused to resume something of definition as a line of battle,

and skirmishers had been thrown forward, word was passed along to

call the roll. The first sergeant of Lieutenant Dudley's company

stepped to the front and began to name the men in alphabetical

order. He had no written roll, but a good memory. The men answered

to their names as he ran down the alphabet to G.



"Gorham."



"Here!"



"Grayrock."



"Here!"



The sergeant's good memory was affected by habit:



"Greene."



"Here!"



The response was clear, distinct, unmistakable!



A sudden movement, an agitation of the entire company front, as from

an electric shock, attested the startling character of the incident.

The sergeant paled and paused. The captain strode quickly to his

side and said sharply:



"Call that name again."



Apparently the Society for Psychical Research is not first in the

field of curiosity concerning the Unknown.



"Bennett Greene."



"Here!"



All faces turned in the direction of the familiar voice; the two men

between whom in the order of stature Greene had commonly stood in

line turned and squarely confronted each other.



"Once more," commanded the inexorable investigator, and once more

came--a trifle tremulously--the name of the dead man:



"Bennett Story Greene."



"Here!"



At that instant a single rifle-shot was heard, away to the front,

beyond the skirmish-line, followed, almost attended, by the savage

hiss of an approaching bullet which passing through the line, struck

audibly, punctuating as with a full stop the captain's exclamation,

"What the devil does it mean?"



Lieutenant Dudley pushed through the ranks from his place in the

rear.



"It means this," he said, throwing open his coat and displaying a

visibly broadening stain of crimson on his breast. His knees gave

way; he fell awkwardly and lay dead.



A little later the regiment was ordered out of line to relieve the

congested front, and through some misplay in the game of battle was

not again under fire. Nor did Bennett Greene, expert in military

executions, ever again signify his presence at one.



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