THE COURT-MARTIAL OF LT. COL. CHARLES T. TROWBRIDGE
by Cheryl Trowbridge-Miller
"Going through
the military file of Charles T. Trowbridge, I read that he'd been court
martialed - twice! What? Our beloved colonel? The story gets better.
It seems that the father of a confederate soldier wrote a letter to
President Johnson and to a Brigadier General stating that the colonel
had ordered the execution of his son, but that the son had committed no
crime. The son had been on a train and there was a "colored" man on the
train, so the son ordered the man off the train as there were "ladies on
the train." The "colored" man, a soldier in the regiment of the
colonel, refused to exit the train, so the son was forced to stab him.
Then, in the goodness of his heart, he allowed more colored men to get
on the train to remove their friend. BUT NO - they removed the son and
took him to the colonel, told the colonel the story and inquired as to
what they might do.
Colonel Trowbridge ordered the man tied to a
tree, had his men line up, then shouted "Fire!" 'Nough said. The
father goes on to write that failure to court martial and indict the
colonel for murder would bring nothing but "dishonor to the South." He
is fully acquitted in the first court martial which thoroughly upsets
the Brigadier General and he orders that there be a second court martial
and a murder trial. All the while they actually have the colonel locked
in a prison. He is acquitted a second time AND the jury finds that the
colonels military title should be restored, and that he must be given
back payment for all the while that he had been stripped from his
command.
The official record of the Brigadier General states
that he finds it incredulous and insane that the colonel has been
acquitted twice, and he goes on to say that he'd order a third hearing
if he thought he could find a jury to convict him, after all there were
"ladies on the train", but feared he'd be unable to. He writes, "I am
FORCED to release... and to pay ..."