Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1864-06-02
a SChOrchIng Article on secre-
tary StantOn--Thc HURT Quar-
tcrnaster COrruptiOns.
From the New York World.


tcrmaster COrruptiOns.
From the New York world.l
Whether the military should be subordi-
nato to the civil authority, as our fathers
: taught, or override and trample it i'm the
dust, rs this administration practices. is n
question. of which men may take the wrong
side without. necessarily covering them
selves with inlamy; for it is but another
form OF the old question between civil lib
erty and dcspotism, on which men in some
ages of the world have honestly differed
But there is one point on which men never
differed, and on which honest difference of
opinion is impossible. Theft and embezzle
mcnt never ranked as virtues either under
a despotlsm or in democracy. No person
intrusted with any branch of military ad-
ministration can defraud the government
under which he is acting without inlamy.
or screen such frauds, if he be the head of
a department without becoming an accom-
p!lce III the frauds and sharer in the just
disgrace.
In considering the character of Secratary
Stanton, we will lay out of view for the
present, the evidence of his incapacity.
That he has, in repeated instances, com
mlttee great campaigns to Generals having
courage without brains, or courage without
experience, may be the simple consequence
OF, his theory that strategy is form of
atheism. That Pope was a failure that
Burnside was failure that Hooker was
failure; that Banks is a failure; that Sigc is
a failure; that Butler is failure that nu-
merous others intrusted by him with less
important and conspicuous commands have
been failures, may not tend to strengthen
| public confidence in the soundness Of Sec
retarry Stanton sjudgcment; but it is posi-
bic for, a man to be preposterously wrong
headed, and yet be personally honest. We
can even conceive that his illegal arrests
: might be prompted by a narrow but honest
: bigotry--like Burnside S for example, whose
uprightness of intention nobody ever doubt
ed. We lay all such matters out of view.
. 1t is not our present purpose to prove
, that Mr.. Stanton is unfit to be Secretary
Of War, but that he is unfit to hold am Office
of trust
, Why is Major Mclean, of Ohio, exiled to
the most distant and inaccessible point in
our tcrritory-Fort Vancouver, in the Pa
, clfic,' lr the extreme north western corner
Of the republic? Major Mclean was order
ed to that remote outpost last November
he being a most important witness in trial
, by court martial then soon to take place in
Cincinnati. The culprit to be tried was
Captain +. w. HURT Assistant Quarter
master III the Department of the Ohio the
charges, four in numler with some twenty
or thirty specifications, developed long
continued, widely ramifed, system of
wholesal lc embezzlement and plundcr; the
accomplices were persons having intimate
relations with a distinguished member of
the Cabinet, one Of them being H. ID.
Cooke, ofthe firm of Jay Cooke { Co., and
another partner of HURT, in the proprie-
torshp Of the Ohio State Journal, the or
gan Of Secretary Chase at Columbus. The
evidence against HURT consisted, in part, of
/, letters written to him by Geo b. Scott, an
other accomplice and sharer in the profits
Of the fraudulent transactions, some of
which letters are recitcd rcrbotim in the
specifications of the Judge Advocate, and
are important as indicating the sources of
the oral testimony which ought to have
been produced at the trial. This widely
ramiiicd and long-continued system ofheavy
frauds and embezzlcment had been traced
out by the industry of Major Mclean who,
on frivolous and dishonest pretcxt, was
spirited away to Fort Vancouver in the most
remote and out u. the way corner of our
Cooke x Co. are, and considering who the
proprictors of the ohio ,Stdtc Journal are,
the developments before that court martial,
had the trial been permitted, We're likely to
prove sufficiently awkward and cmbarrass-
ing; but that will hardly be accepted by the
country as a iustifiable reason for first spir.
ting away the most material witness in a
case Of wholesale cmbczzement, and then
quashing the proceedings, by dissolying the
court martial at Cincinnati, and ordering
the case and papers to be transferred to
Washington, several hundred miles from
the residence of the other witnesses cogpi-
zant of the facts
The gigantic scheme Of plumber and en-
bezzlcment had grown up at Cincinnati be-
fore General Burnside was transferred to
the West Under his administration, it
was tracked out and dragged to light,
court martial appointed, and the charges
and specifications drawn up by Major Bur
nett, the iudgc-advocate of the Department
Of the Ohio. The trial was to have taken
place in the beginning of December last,
and for want of a better pretext to get Ma
jor Mclean out of the way he was banish-
ed to Fort Vancouver; tor--not voting in
the October election! Gen Burnside,
who, with some weaknesses, is undoubted-
ly an honest man, opposed this extraordin-
AIRY proceedings, both on other grounds and
because Major McLean's testimony was
wanted in the approaching trial The de-
lay consequent on this opposition proving
likely to defeat the purpose of the War De-
partncnt, the trial was postponed, and Ma
Lean, in disregard of General Burnside
wishes was pcremptorily ordered to leave
at once and to inform the department what
day he would start.
We submit this simple recital of facts,
leaving leaders to form their own conclu-
sions.