He became offended and said, "Colonel Mills, after all the kindness I
have shown you and Mrs. Mills, I think it is as little as you can do
in return to allow me the poor privilege of seeing my friend in his
distress."
"Very well," said I, "you can see him," and calling the officer of
the day, Lieutenant Hinton, I gave the necessary instructions. Upon
Mosely's entrance, Colonel Jones called his name and proclaimed his
pleasure in seeing him. The marshal pulled out his list and said,
"Excuse me, is your name George F. Mosely?" Informed that it was, the
marshal served the warrant and made him a prisoner. When I entered
he burst into tears, declaring he was the biggest fool in South
Carolina; that I had given him the best advice he had ever had, and he
had not known enough to take it. He begged me to tell his family his
condition, which I did.
Later, a Mr. A. Kruse, a United States commissioner, served a writ
of _habeas corpus_ upon me, demanding the body of prisoner S. D.
Garlington. I had no experience with writs of _habeas corpus_, and was
at a loss what answer to make. To delay him until Carlin's arrival,
I questioned his authority as such commissioner. Courteously he
informed me that he had a commission at home with President Johnson's
signature. He left, and soon returned with the document. I invited
him to my room, from which I had a view of the Newberry highway, over
which Carlin's command would approach, and kept him there until I saw
Carlin's command. Then I told him it was an army regulation that an
officer, not in a permanent station, only commanded within a radius of
one mile, and that I had a senior in the person of Lieutenant Colonel
Carlin of the 16th Infantry, then approaching, the proper person on
whom to serve the writ. Kruse accepted the situation, and I introduced
him to Colonel Carlin, who, however, directed me to endorse upon the
writ "refused, by order of the Secretary of War."
A Mr. Hugh Farley (brother of Farley of the U. S. Ordnance Corps),
reputed to be at the head of the Ku Klux which gathered in numbers,
approached Colonel Carlin frequently with requests to see different
prisoners. As he gave no good reason, his requests were refused. He
followed Carlin's command to camp that night, strenuously insisting
upon another request; whereupon the marshal arrested him, his name on
one of the warrants having been omitted at my suggestion.
Sixteen were carried to Columbia, South Carolina, and imprisoned in
the State penitentiary, but I understood none of them were convicted.