The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1862-01-04

House. OF REPRESENTATIVES
Washington City, Dec. Is.

" "Ii'A WIZ SaSyt DOS. 80
71the Editors Of the Chicago Tribune;
Your sense of Justice, and the friendly
relations that have always existed between
us, viii, trust, allow me brief space in
your columns to correct very great mis-.
take into which your excellent and racy
/ Washington correspondent has fallen, in
his letter published last Saturday. lie
says he has searched diligently to find
one single member of either House who
proposes TO defend Fremont that "the
most he can hope from those members
who Were on his staff in Missouri is en-
tire silence, . and that fif Mr. Colfax says
a word in his behalf, he will surprise
those who know him most intimately"
The fact is, members who stand by
Fremont are numbered by the score. My
belief, as ] have stated in each of the
four editorials / wrote on this subject, has
been that he may have mistakenly given
his confidence to some men in St. Louis,
who, though men OF great energy, abused
his confidence for their own gain ; but
that the attempt to saddle on him the
charges against Mckinstry, who was
Quartermaster-G General at ST. Louis before
he went there, and whom he had no more
power TO remove than he has to remove
you from the editorship of the Tribune,
and for whose acts he was no more respon.
sible than Gen. Mcclellan is for the off
cial acts Of the tluartermastcr- General
here, Gen. Meigs-is. in the last degree,
unjust. Probably money may have been
injudiciously expended in the Western
Department, possibly one-ienlh as much
as has been wasted in the Department Of
the potomac-thoush hope not. But
! shal! not trespass ON you, if you print
this letter, any extended defence of Free
mont He will speak for himself. Suf-
fee it TO say without making any cata-
loeue Of names, that among those in the
House who sympathze with him, and
who state openly~that they have not lost
confidence ID him as man, as IA General
or as q patriot, are Speaker Grow Thad-
deus Stevens, Chairman of the Commit
tee on Ways and Means, and the leader of
the House; John +. Potter, Chairman of
Public Lands: John Coyodc, Chairman Of
Public Expenditures; C. b. Sedgwick
Chairman Of Naval Aifairs--names which
allude to, not because they are better
than scores of others, but because they
arc widely know to your readers: / trust
you who ''know me Intimately will do
me the Justice TO believe that | never de-
serted friend because of public clamor
or adversely; aud that never hesiated at
the expression of my convictions, in or
out Of Congress. We may all Of us be
very deluded, but know that my opinion
is conscientious one, and that | would
to day gladly give my pay for this whole
Congress if Fremont had been sent to
Port Royal instead of Sherman. Let Inc
add, that if there should be a Fremont
debate here. you will probably have to
look TO the Globe for it, and not the tele-
graph. A debate on Tuesday, in which
Col. Shank, of Indiana, one of Fremont s
aids in Missouri VIM. Morris, of Penn
sylvania, and the writer hereof, pHftiei-
pated on one side, aud Col Blair on the
other side of the controversy, was not al
luded to in the Congressional proceedings
tclegr pied from here to the Associated
Press North and West
Yours truly,
r.