“In the order I have mentioned we began our descent of the broad, winding stairway. My attention was too much occupied in managing the bulky flag to know by actual observation precisely what happened in the first instant of the lamentable tragedy. I heard the clash of weapons and at the same moment the report of two guns, with so imperceptible an interval between that it might have been taken for a single shot. I saw Ellsworth fall forward at the foot of the first flight of stairs, and I saw Brownell, standing on the landing near the turn to the second flight, make a thrust with his bayonet at the tottering form of a man which fell headlong down half the second flight of stairs. No explanation of what had happened was needed. As Brownell reached the first landing place, after the descent of a dozen steps, a man rushed out and, without noticing the private soldier, leveled a double-barreled gun squarely at Ellsworth’s breast. Brownell said that he made a quick pass to turn the gun aside, but was not successful, and the contents of both barrels, slugs or buckshot, entered the Colonel’s heart, killing him instantly. He was on the third step above the landing when he received the shot, and he fell forward in that helpless, heavy manner which showed that every spark of life had left his body ere he reached the floor. The murderer’s fingers had scarcely pressed the triggers of his weapon when Brownell’s rifle was discharged full in the centre of his face, and as he staggered to his fall the shot was followed by a bayonet thrust of such force that it sent the man backward down the upper section of the second flight of stairs, where he lay for hours afterward with his face to the floor and his rifle beneath him. This man proved to be James T. Jackson proprietor of the Marshall House, and I fully recognized him as the person we had met as we entered the house.