The weekly Butte record., 1861-10-19
Party Before Country.

The hero of the woolly horse, the Pathfinder
and mule eater, is entertaining the attention OF
the country at present, more than any merit
he has ever displayed for it has ever deserved.
1t certainly must have been known to the
President, that outside of his having been the
first candidate Of the Republican party, that
he never made his mark by any act Of his, that
would, in the most remote manner, entitle him
TO the military honor misplaced upon him by
the head of that party. When California sent
him to the Senate of the United States, she
conferred upon him an honor unmerited by any
great achievement, and others gave him an
opportunity to make for himself name and
character that be had failed to win in the field
or on the trail But, here too, he succumbed
to the ideal Of display and Court poltesse, and
failed to be any thing more than a pigmy
among those who were thought to be no more
than his peers. In the first character that
heads this article, be has won more laurels
than in any other lie has ever assumed. As a
pathfinder, he had the happy faculty of losing
himself and his hardy U0yageurs, so soon as he
diverged from the beaten trail of either noun
tain or valley his own unwrtten history
verifes this, and he sacrificed the lives of his
men, where the merest military tyro in the
world would have been disgraced, had he per-
petrated the same unnecessary acts and sacri-
fee. In the other capacity above referred to-
we learn from his record, that he Jared sump-
tuously and enjoyed the precious morsel with
all the gusto of half-famished cayotte.
But, it is now conceded fact, among think
ing men, that the President, when he conferred
upon our hero the command of the West, com
mitted bunder for which some Of the most
loyal and efficient Union men and soldiers Of
our country have paid the forfeit of their lives,
and Others have been despotically iucarcerated
to satisfy the delicate whims of the puny ty-
rant. Give man place and power for thirty
days, in an active field, and he will prove bim>
self mouse or a man and here the people
have passed Judgment upon the hero.
The charges of Colonel Blair weigh heavily
upon the Major General, who now thinks to
achieve for himself an imperishable fame by
one battle, and thus wipe out all that stands
against him in those charges be keeps in his
pocket, when the head of the War Department
should have received them weeks ago; but
we are not one of those who think that VIC
tory over Gen. Price will be satisfactory ar
swer to the serious accusations now arrayed
against him for bis want of generalship, where
life and property have long since paid the pen
atty. The ST. Louis Republican of September
oath, we know, endeavors, in labored effort,
to excuse the short comings of the political
Major-G General, but it must be borne in mind
that, only the very day before, Chas G. Ram
sey, editor of the Evening News, had been ar
rested and imprisoned for writing the facts
and the truth in a very mild article on the fall
of Lexington. Mr.. Ramsey and his paper are
strong and loyal Union devotees; but the
shallow-pated display General, who wears his
hair parted down the centre Of his head, IA bad
sign under his martial law proclamation, ar
rests loyal editors, because they tell the truth
and be feels it, while he lets Secession sweep
in full force over a State that is true to the
Union, and he is quietly reviewing his thous-
ands of troops in full dress parade, and doing
French honors to some foreign nabob. But
be is not easy in his military clothes he has
found it necessary to dispatch his better half
(yes by far better as Minister Plenipotentiary
near the Court at Washington, to check mate,
if possible, the strong forward moves Of his an
tagonist, Blair, who threatens, with fair chanc-
es of success, to sweep the board. We predict
that any man, superior 10 the prairiedog hun
ter, who would surround himself with such
cormorants as l. C. Woods, A. A. Seloyer,
L. Haskill, Zoe. Palmer & Co, whose history
every Californian is familiar with, must, of ne
cessity, go down under the lion paw of public
condemnation.