I saw that she was ill. She reeled up against the tent pole, and would have fallen had I not caught her by the arm. I seated her on a log, all the seat there was. After a moment she revived a little, and said in a faint voice, “Beavers.” At that moment reveille sounded. The woman was too evidently ill for me to leave her. I sent a sergeant to attend the roll-call. I directed our cook to provide the woman with coffee and food. Then I questioned her a little. She had walked twenty-two miles over railroad ties. She was Beavers’s wife. She said to me: “You are his counsel, I believe?” “Yes,” I replied, “and I have done everything I could to save him.” “No, you have not,” she answered. “You have not made the point that he was never legally enlisted as a soldier, I’ll warrant! He’s over forty-five and can’t be conscribed. He was pardoned out of the penitentiary on condition that he should enlist, but the court-martial had no proof of that. There’s nothing whatever to show that he’s a soldier; and if he ain’t a soldier, he can’t be punished for desertion. I’ve come to tell you, for he would never think of it.” I jumped to my feet. I called a sentinel, and told him to take the woman to the guardhouse and make her as comfortable as possible. I mounted my horse and galloped to the station. I roused the telegraph operator two hours before his time. He was a sleepy fellow, but he was accustomed to taking imperative messages out of hours. I gave him this one to the war department:-- Beavers to be shot to-morrow morning. No proof whatever he was ever soldier. If not soldier, could not have deserted. Too old for conscript law, and no proof of enlistment except Governor Letcher’s telegram. Telegram not under oath, not legal testimony. Witness not subjected to cross-examination. As counsel, I demand stay in this man’s case. I rode back to the guardhouse, and found that a new member had been added to the battery. The company was known as Lamkin’s Battery. We named the new member “_Little_ Lamkin’s Battery,” to distinguish it, I suppose, from the big one. Beavers sat all that morning with his wife’s hand in his, and Little Lamkin’s Battery in his arms. He said it looked like its mother. He’d “gamble on that.” Not until within an hour of the time appointed for Beavers’s execution did there come a reply from the war department. But when it came it was thoroughly satisfactory. It read thus:-- Legal points conclusive. Release Beavers and restore him to duty. Duplicate sent to General Walker. Soon after that Beavers deserted, blankets and all, to “the other enemy”--that was his form of speech, not mine. The next time I saw him was under peculiar circumstances. In July, 1865, I went on board the steamer _Morning Star_, at Portland, four miles below Louisville, Kentucky.