It will be perceived that General Dix delayed replying to my letter of the 5th of September until the 9th; that his reply was not left at the mayor's office until the tenth, and that in the meantime, on the afternoon of the 9th, after waiting for his reply for four days, I paid the arrears due the police, as I had good reason to suppose he intended I should. A friend of mine, a lawyer of Baltimore, and a pronounced Union man, has, since then, informed me that General Dix showed him my letter of the 5th before my arrest; that my friend asked him whether he had replied to it, and the General replied he had not. My friend answered that he thought a reply was due to me. From all this it does not seem uncharitable to believe that the purpose of General Dix was to put me in the false position of appearing to disobey his order and thus to furnish an excuse for my imprisonment. This lasted until the 27th of November, 1862, a short time after my term of office had expired, when there was a sudden and unexpected release of all the State prisoners in Fort Warren, where we were then confined. On the 26th of November, 1862, Colonel Justin Dimick, commanding at Fort Warren, received the following telegraphic order from the Adjutant-General's Office, Washington: "The Secretary of War directs that you release all the Maryland State prisoners, also any other State prisoners that may be in your custody, and report to this office." In pursuance of this order, Colonel Dimick on the following day released from Fort Warren the following State prisoners, without imposing any condition upon them whatever Severn Teackle Wallis, Henry M. Warfield, William G. Harrison, T. Parkin Scott, ex-members of the Maryland Legislature from Baltimore; George William Brown, exMayor of Baltimore; Charles Howard and William H. Gatchell, ex-Police Commissioners; George P. Kane, exMarshal of Police; Frank Key Howard, one of the editors of the Baltimore Exchange; Thomas W. Hall, editor of the Baltimore South; Robert Hull, merchant, of Baltimore; Dr. Charles Macgill, of Hagerstown; William H. Winder, of Philadelphia; and B. L. Cutter, of Massachusetts. General Wool, then in command in Baltimore, issued an order declaring that thereafter no person should be arrested within the limits of the Department except by his order, and in all such cases the charges against the accused party were to be sworn to before a justice of the peace. As it was intimated that these gentlemen had entered into some engagement as the condition of their release, Mr. Wallis, while in New York on his return home, took occasion to address a letter on the subject to the editor of the New York World, in which he said: "No condition whatever was sought to be imposed, and none would have been accepted, as the Secretary of War well knew. Speaking of my fellow-prisoners from Maryland, I have a right to say that they maintained to the last the principle which they asserted from the first-namely, that, if charged with crime, they were entitled to be charged, held and tried in due form of law and not otherwise; and that, in the absence of lawful accusation and process, it was their right to be discharged without terms or conditions of any sort, and they would submit to none." Many of our fellow-prisoners were from necessity not able to take this stand. There were no charges against them, but there were imperative duties which required their presence at home, and when the Government at Washington adopted the policy of offering liberty to those who would consent to take an oath of allegiance prepared for the occasion, they had been compelled to accept it. Before this, in December, 1861, the Government at Washington, on application of friends, had granted me a parole for thirty days, that I might attend to some important private business, and for that time I stayed with kind relatives, under the terms of the parole, in Boston. The following correspondence, which then took place, will show the position which I maintained: "Marshal KEYS, Boston. "BOSTON, January 4, 1862. "Sir:-I called twice to see you during this week, and in your absence had an understanding with your deputy that I was to surrender myself to you this morning, on the expiration of my parole, in time to be conveyed to Fort Warren, and I have accordingly done so. "As you have not received any instructions from Washington in regard to the course to be pursued with me, I shall consider myself in your custody until you have had ample time to write to Washington and obtain a reply. I desire it, however, to be expressly understood that no further extension of my parole is asked for, or would be accepted at this time. "It is my right and my wish to return to Baltimore, to resume the performance of my official and private duties. Respectfully, 66 GEO. WM. BROWN." "DEPARTMENT of State, "WASHINGTON, January 6, 1862. "JOHN S. KEYS, Esq., U. S. Marshal, Boston. "Sir:-Your letter of the 4th inst., relative to George W. Brown, has been received. "In reply, I have to inform you that, if he desires it, you may extend his parole to the period of thirty days. If not, you will please recommit him to Fort Warren and report to this Department. "I am, sir, very respectfully, "Marshal KEYS, Boston. "Your obedient servant, "F. W. SEWARD, "Acting Secretary of State." "BOSTON, January 10, 1862. "Sir-In my note to you of the 4th inst. I stated that I did not desire a renewal of my parole, but that it was my right and wish to return to Baltimore, to resume the performance of my private and official duties. "My note was, in substance, as you informed me, forwarded to Hon. W. H. Seward, Secretary of State, in a letter from you to him. 6 "In reply to your communication, F. W. Seward, Acting Secretary of State, wrote to you under date of the 6th inst. that you may extend the parole of George W. Brown if he desires it, but if not, you are directed to recommit him to Fort Warren.' "It was hardly necessary to give me the option of an extension of parole which I had previously declined, but the offer renders it proper for me to say that the parole was applied for by my friends, to enable me to attend to important private business, affecting the interests of others as well as myself; that the necessities growing out of this particular matter of business no longer exist, and that I cannot consistently with my ideas of propriety, by accepting a renewal of the parole, place myself in the position of seeming to acquiesce in a prolonged and illegal banishment from my home and duties. Respectfully, "GEO. WM. BROWN." On the 11th of January, 1862, I returned to Fort Warren, and on the 14th an offer was made to renew and extend my parole to ninety days upon condition that I would not pass south of Hudson River. This offer I declined. My term of office expired on the 12th of November, 1862, and soon afterwards I was released, as I have just stated. It is not my purpose to enter into an account of the trials and hardships of prison-life in the crowded forts in which we were successively confined under strict and sometimes very harsh military rule, but it is due to the memory of the commander at Fort Warren, Colonel Justin Dimick, that I should leave on record the warm feelings of respect and friendship with which he was regarded by the prisoners who knew him best, for the unvarying kindness and humanity with which he performed the difficult and painful duties of his office. As far as he was permitted to do so, he promoted the comfort and convenience of all, and after the war was |