noon
`` I 've been let in to too many floors , major , '' said he . `` You 'll have to excuse me . '' And so Burleigh , with his Louisiana captain , had driven off to the fort , where Newhall asked for Griggs and was importunate , nor did Griggs 's whisky , freely tendered to all comers of the commissioned class , tend to assuage his desire . Back had they gone to town , and then came the cataclysm of noon . In broad daylight , at his official desk , in the presence and hearing of officers , civilians and enlisted men , as the soldier lawyers would have it , a staff official of high rank had been cowhided by a cavalry subaltern , and that subaltern , of all others , the only brother of Folsom 's fair guest , Jessie Dean -- the boy who had saved the lives of Folsom 's son and his son 's imperiled household , and had thereby endeared himself to him as had no other young soldier in the service . And now , what fate was staring him in the face ? Released from arrest but a day or so before upon the appeal of the officer whom he had so soon thereafter violently assaulted , Marshall Dean had committed one of the gravest crimes against the provisions of the Mutiny Act .