Turchin, who usually accompanied her husband in
the field, started to the rear to procure political "influences" to
save him. With various recommendations she went to Washington, and
was so successful that although the sentence of the court dismissing
him from the service was promulgated on the 6th of August, he had
been appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers on the 5th, and he
was not one of those who were dropped from the list on March 3,
1863. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xvi. pt. ii. p. 277.] The
trial was one of considerable notoriety, yet it is probable that it
was overlooked by the President and Secretary of War at the time the
appointment was made; but it cannot need to be said that whatever
grounds for leniency might have existed, it turns the whole business
into a farce when they were made the basis of a promotion in the
revised list six months later. To add to the perfection of the
story, Mrs. Turchin had acted on her own responsibility, and the
colonel did not know of the result till he had gone home, and in an
assembly of personal friends who called upon him ostensibly to cheer
him in his doleful despondency, his wife brought the little drama to
its _denouement_ by presenting him with the appointment in their
presence.
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