I sent for Colonel Serrell, and asked him about it, and he said he had told the chaplain no such thing. I said to the chaplain:--
“On or about the 27th of May I wrote to General Gillmore, and asked him if he assumed a certain publication, or knew anything about it; he wrote me that he did not. Now, Chaplain Hudson, did you not write the letter which was published in the New York Evening Post?”
“Well, yes, I did.”
“Did you show it to General Gillmore before you sent it off?”
“I did.”
“Did he know you sent it?”
“He did.”
“Do you not know that I made the inquiry of .him on the night of the 27th of May, and you were sent off on the morning of the 28th so that I should not get at you, and that you have stayed away since because you wrote that letter and were in conspiracy with General Gillmore? Do you not know he sent you away for that reason?”
“I do not know it.”
“Do you not believe so?”
“Well, I do.”
“Well,” said I, “if I were not personally mixed up in this matter, if I were not personally aggrieved, I should know how to punish such a lying, cheating, defaulting chaplain as you are. But I do not think any man should be the judge of his own case; therefore I cannot sit in judgment upon you. I must put you in close arrest, because you would not come back to your regiment when ordered.”
And he was put in a tent close to my headquarters. He sent to me, and said he wanted his clothing. I had his trunk hunted up; it took two days to find it, because it had strayed off somewhere. His colonel came to me and asked if Chaplain Hudson should have a bed and bedding. “Certainly,” I said, “let him have everything that is necessary.”
When I got to New York I met a number of my fellow-churchmen of the Episcopal Church, who said to me: “What have you been doing to Chaplain Hudson?”
