A Gallant Exploit Source:
Lieut. Joseph A. McLean, of this city, now with his regiment (the 88th) at Alexandria, performed a gallant exploit last Saturday night. It appears that a shot was fired in a house of bad repute, about half past 11 o'clock. Lieut. Col. McLean, Captain Reeside White, and Lieut. Hergosheimer, with a guard, entered the house and found two captains of the Sixty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers drunk. After considerable trouble the guard succeeded in getting them into the street, when one of them backed himself into the street, alongside the house, and swore he would kill the officer of any of the guard who would attempt to arrest him.
Just at this time Gen. Montgomery came along, and finding how matters stood, called on the guard to do their duty. One of the captains at this time raised his pistol and pointed it towards the General. Lieutenant Colonel McLean struck and grappled the arm of the drunken man, but he succeeded in discharging two loads of his revolver at the General, fortunately without effect. The Lieutenant Colonel threw him across the steps, the Captain still maintaining the grasp of the pistol, when Captain White struck him a severe blow across the head with the barrel of his revolver, which compelled him to relinquish his hold upon the pistol. He jumped up and showed fight when one of the guard pierced him with his bayonet. Even after this, in conveying the drunken Captain to the Provost Marshal's office, the guard was compelled to knock him down eight or ten times. But for Lieut. Col. McLean's intrepidity, Gen. Montgomery would no doubt have been killed. The rowdy Captains will doubtless be cashiered.
© Alice J. Gayley, all rights reserved
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