Exercise he
must have."
"You believe that is a medical necessity?"
"I do, most earnestly."
About the same time General Miles had heard from the country. The
incident had already aroused sharp criticism of the Government. Stanton
had come down to Fortress Monroe and peeped through the bars at the
victim he was torturing, and had extracted all the comfort possible from
the incident. The shackles were removed.
His jailer persisted in denying him the most innocent books to read. He
asked the doctor to get for him if possible the geology or the botany of
the South. General Miles thought them dangerous subjects. At least the
names sounded treasonable. He denied the request.
The prisoner asked for his trunk and clothes. Miles decided to keep them
in his own office and dole out the linen by his own standards of need.
Davis turned to his physician with a flash of anger.
"It's contemptible that they should thus dole out my clothes as if I
were a convict in some penitentiary. They mean to degrade me. It can't
be done. No man can be degraded by unmerited insult heaped upon the
helpless. Such acts can only degrade their perpetrators. The day will
come when the people will blush at the memory of such treatment--"
At last the loss of sleep proved beyond his endurance.
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