urgent. I believed myself to be the division commander...My men were worn with the marches and battles of four days, with want of rest and food for the last twenty-four hours, and with sharp fighting for the last four, and were nearly out of ammunition...I [was] sensible of the responsibility involved, but confident that it was the only course for bringing my troops speedily into efficient service... To sum up all in a few words,—after the fight was ended, left without orders, and crowded off the field, I led away a handful of worn and disorganized men towards a point where, in my belief, an action might even then be going on, and brought them back within six hours, after retiring less than three miles, two thousand strong, refreshed and resupplied. Was this a breach of duty?On August 10, 1863, Revere was tried by court-martial and dismissed. Pamphlets In September 1863, while living in The Willows, Revere wrote a 48-page pamphlet admonishing his court-martial and defending his reputation. It was titled "A Statement of the case of Brigadier-General Joseph W. Revere, United States Volunteers: tried by court-martial, and dismissed from the service of the United States, August 10th, 1863." It included "a Map, a copy of the record of the Trial, and an appendix." The pamphlet had a marbled cover and was addressed to the public hoping they will "acquit him of the censure cast upon him by the court." Revere included footnotes from Stephen Vincent Benét's 1862 "A Treatise on Military Law and the Practise of Courts-Martials." Letters from different personnel about the situation are collected in the appendix. It was published by electrotyper and printer C. A. Alvord on 15 Vandewater Street in Farmingdale, New York. In "A Statement," Revere insinuates that the court-martial does not consider his decades of prior experience:I have been for thirty years a sailor and a soldier. Had I been a politician in epaulettes, plying in the camp the arts of the caucus...there might be retributive, though indirect, justice in this sentence. But I have been more versed in war than in intrigue. On all that Court, eminent as most of its members were, there was not one who was not my junior in length of employment in the United States service...At least, with such a record, I had a right to expect from the Court, even with my unheard, greater lenity than