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..~ XXII ~.. Court-Martial THE DAY WAS WAR.'V!: for November 2, 1847. Indian summer lingered longer than usual in Washington. But there was an electric excitement in the air as this was the opening of the court-martial. The city was filled with visitors and regulars. Congressmen had returned from visiting their respective constituents . Visiting army officers, hoping to get a seat at the trial, strolled up and down Pennsylvania Avenue; and there was even a contingent of American Indians who happened to be in Washington as guests of the "Great White Father." But the major event, the key story in all the newspapers, was the opening of the trial for the handsome explorer of the American West and the conqueror of California. At high noon the official opening of the court-martial began at the old \Vashington Arsenal-a building best described as a run-down, wooden affair about as dressy as unshined boots with holes in their soles. The chamber devoted to the trial held only two hundred persons, and it had the same tvvilight quality about it as the rest of the building. The ceiling was high domed, and only shadowy light from the noontime sun filtered in through the windows near the roof. It was gloomy atmosphere, but it was fitting and proper for the proceedings about to begin. A special omnibus had carried the panel of trial officers to the building, and Brevet Brigadier General G. M. Brooke, president of the court, opened the first session of the trial. Captain John Fitzgerald Lee, the judge advocate, called the roll of those who should be present, and found that Brevet Major G. A. McCall was sick and unable to attend. All the other officers were present and accounted for as well as the defendant and the attorneys for the defense and prosecution. Contrary to Senator Benton's later accusations that the court was composed of West Point men out to get an officer who had not graduated from the Point, the majority of the officers were men who had come up through the ranks and had not graduated from West Point. Still, there was another factor involved with these men. Eleven of the thirteen 444 PREMONT officers had thirty years or more of Regular Army service, and a twelfth had twenty-nine years of service. Four of the officers from the thirteen were West Point men, and one of these-thirty-four-year-old Captain John Fitzgerald Lee-was the judge advocate or prosecuting attorney. Two other members of the court-General Brooke and Colonel De Russey-had done stints as administrators of the United States Military Academy. All in all, the court was Regular Army through and through, and that said more about its composition than any graduation from West Point. Colonel Fremont sat at a side table with Senator Thomas Hart Benton and William Carey Jones. They were awaiting the court's decision as to whether or not the two nonmilitary attorneys would be allowed to playa role in the trial. For the moment, the lawyers were permitted to sit beside Fremont until the court decided if they were to be given permission to act as counsel for the defendant. The audience gathered for the :first day was a conglomerate of personalities . Jessie Benton Fremont had not gone along with her sister Eliza's suggestion that both of them should dress in black. With her strong-willed touch, Jessie told her sister this was not an occasion for mourning. They were not attending a funeral. So there they sat, and it was a display of faith and complete con:fidence that other spectators saw. Jessie's striking beauty was something no member of the audience would ever forget. Here was no grieving wife, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Here was a proud woman who attracted all eyes as she sat composed and controlled in her wine-colored dress and her bonnet of burgundy velvet. Beside her, Eliza was the color of a bright spring morning in her gay blue dress. The :filtered light that captured the dust and cobwebs of the old highceilinged room also glanced off the bright gold braid of dress uniforms, and picked up the stem features of General Kearny, who was to be the star witness for the prosecution. Beside him sat his associate from the Army of the West, Captain Henry S. Turner. Away from the uniforms, there were congressmen who had managed to get into the...

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