Illustrating the way Union officers were regarded and treated by the Secession inhabitants, I recall an incident which occurred at Front Royal. A member of my staff arranged for supper at the house of Colonel Bacon, an old man and Secessionist. The Colonel treated us politely, but while we were eating a number of ladies of the town assembled in an adjoining parlor in which there was a piano, threw the communicating door open, and proceeded to sing such Confederate war-songs as _Stonewall Jackson's Away_ and _My Maryland_. We of course accepted good humoredly this concert for our benefit, but when we had finished supper, uninvited, Chaplain McCabe--now Bishop McCabe--and I stepped into the parlor. We were not even offered a seat, and in a short time the music ceased and the lady at the piano left it. Chaplain McCabe at once seated himself at the piano, and, to the amazement of the ladies, commenced singing, with his extraordinarily strong, sonorous voice, "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." The ladies stood their ground courageously for a time, but while the Chaplain, playing his own accompaniment, was singing _My Maryland_, with words descriptive of Lee's invasion and retreat from Maryland, including the words, "And they left Antietam in their track, in their track," the ladies threw open the front door and rushed precipitately to the street and thence to their homes. It was afterwards said that we were ungallant to these ladies. While at Winchester, besides the usual camp duty and participation in an occasional raid, I was President of a Military Commission composed of three officers, with an officer for recorder. It was modelled on the military commission first established, I believe, by General Scott in Mexico for the trial of citizens for offences not punishable under the Articles of War. There was a necessity for some authority to take jurisdiction of common law crimes, as all courts in the valley were suspended. Besides citizens charged with such crimes, there were referred to the commission for trial citizens charged with offences against the Union Army, such as shooting soldiers from ambush, etc. The constitutionality of the commission was questioned, yet it tried on only formal charges citizens charged with murder, larceny, burglary, arson, and breaches of the peace. Generally its findings and sentences were approved by the War Department or the President, even when the accused was sentenced to imprisonment in a Northern penitentiary. There were one or two cases where the accused were sentenced to be shot, but in no case did the President allow such a sentence to be carried out. During the trial for murder of an old man by the name of Buffenbarger, I learned that he had, at Sharpsburg, Maryland, been a friend of my father when both were young men.( 4) It turned out that Buffenbarger had killed a young and powerful man who had assaulted him violently without good cause. A majority of the