Many felt it was a setup and soldiers and the community came up with the money to replace what was missing within four days. Shafter accepted the money, then convened a court-martial on September 17, 1881. In December 1881, the court-martial found Flipper innocent of the main charge, but another charge was added during the trial, and he was found guilty "of conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman", and sentenced to be "dismissed from the service of the United States". It was more than a harsh sentence. In two prior situations involving white officers who had been found guilty of embezzlement, neither officer was dismissed nor dishonored. The letters exchanged between Mollie Dwyer (Nolan's sister-in-law) and Flipper were used against Flipper. Relationships between whites and blacks were strictly forbidden in the viewpoint of the white officers on the board. Despite appeals, and with the denial of a lighter sentence from President Chester A. Arthur, Flipper was drummed out of the army with a dismissal, the officer equivalent of a dishonorable discharge, on June 30, 1882. For the rest of his life, Flipper contested the charges and fought to regain his commission. After the military After his dismissal, Flipper remained in Texas, working as a civil engineer in El Paso. In 1898, he volunteered to serve in the Spanish–American War, but requests to restore his commission were ignored by Congress. Flipper spent time in Mexico where, according to folklorist J. Frank Dobie, he attempted to discover the location of the legendary lost silver mine of Tayopa. Upon returning to the United States, he served as an adviser to Senator Albert Fall on Mexican politics. When Senator Fall became Secretary of the Interior in 1921, he brought Flipper with him to Washington, D.C., to serve as his assistant. In 1923, Flipper went to work in Venezuela as an engineer in the petroleum industry. He retired to Atlanta in 1931, and died in 1940. He was buried in the family plot at South-View Cemetery, but in February 1978 he was exhumed and reburied in his home town of Thomasville. Legacy In 1976, descendants and supporters applied to the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records on behalf of Flipper. The board, after stating it did not have the authority to overturn his court-martial conviction, concluded the conviction and punishment were "unduly harsh and unjust" and recommended that Flipper's dismissal be changed to