I went _without_ permission." General Grant rose to his feet.

Centering the other's eyes with his own he spoke to him as one officer speaks to another when he expects the truth and nothing but the truth.
"And you give me your word, as a soldier and a gentleman, that once--once _only_--you wore a Federal uniform and that because of the burial of your wife ?" "I do," answered Herbert Cary, a rebel to the last.

"And that was the only cause in heaven or hell that could have _induced_ me to wear it!" For a moment the Commander of the Army of the Potomac surveyed the still defiant prisoner, then turned his back and walked to the window where he tossed away a much chewed cigar, meantime thinking out his last analysis.
Here was a man who had been hunted tirelessly month after month as a rebel spy.

It was true that he was a spy and true that he had worn a uniform of blue.

Yet the fact had been established--by the spotless honesty of a little child--that he had worn the uniform only so that he might reach his home and bury his dead.