Of course with a regiment of our type there was much to learn both among the officers and the men.  There were all kinds of funny incidents.  One of my men, an ex-cow-puncher and former round-up cook, a very good shot and rider, got into trouble on the way down on the transport.  He understood entirely that he had to obey the officers of his own regiment, but, like so many volunteers, or at least like so many volunteers of my regiment, he did not understand that this obligation extended to officers of other regiments.  One of the regular officers on the transport ordered him to do something which he declined to do.  When the officer told him to consider himself under arrest, he responded by offering to fight him for a trifling consideration.  He was brought before a court martial which sentenced him to a year’s imprisonment at hard labor with dishonorable discharge, and the major-general commanding the division approved the sentence.

We were on the transport.  There was no hard labor to do; and the prison consisted of another cow-puncher who kept guard over him with his carbine, evidently divided in his feelings as to whether he would like most to shoot him or to let him go.  When we landed, somebody told the prisoner that I intended to punish him by keeping him with the baggage.  He at once came to me in great agitation, saying:  “Colonel, they say you’re going to leave me with the baggage when the fight is on.  Colonel, if you do that, I will never show my face in Arizona again.  Colonel, if you will let me go to the front, I promise I will obey any one you say; any one you say, Colonel,” with the evident feeling that, after this concession, I could not, as a gentleman, refuse his request.  Accordingly I answered:  “Shields, there is no one in this regiment more entitled to be shot than you are, and you shall go to the front.”  His gratitude was great, and he kept repeating, “I’ll never forget this, Colonel, never.”  Nor did he.  When we got very hard up, he would now and then manage to get hold of some flour and sugar, and would cook a doughnut and bring it round to me, and watch me with a delighted smile as I ate it.  He behaved extremely well in both fights, and after the second one I had him formally before me and remitted his sentence—­something which of course I had not the slightest power to do, although at the time it seemed natural and proper to me.

When we came to be mustered out, the regular officer who was doing the mustering, after all the men had been discharged, finally asked me where the prisoner was.  I said, “What prisoner?” He said, “The prisoner, the man who was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment with hard labor and dishonorable discharge.”  I said, “Oh!  I pardoned him”; to which he responded, “I beg your pardon; you did what?” This made me grasp the fact that I had exceeded authority, and I could only answer, “Well, I did pardon him, anyhow, and he has gone with the rest”; whereupon the mustering-out officer sank back in his chair and remarked, “He was sentenced by a court martial, and the sentence was approved by the major-general commanding the division.  You were a lieutenant-colonel, and you pardoned him.  Well, it was nervy, that’s all I’ll say.”