Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1865-09-12
[From the New York Times. Sept. ~
Military Services and Political

II
| N One Of the things we earnestly hope will
not be done In future political campaigns
In which Generals are the candidates for
public office, is the showing by one party
that the candidate of the opposing party
acted as tool, coward, ora charlatan
during the war. There Is not an officer of
| any grade who has not his enemies; and
however great and valuable soldiers SER
vices to the country may have been, there
are men who always stand ready to slander
I him by imputations the most shameless !;
and the officer must have had a career re-
markable indeed who has not done some-
thing or left something undOne, who has
not uttered some phrase while awake or
mumbled some words while asleep, upon
which malignancy could base q falsebood
sufficiently plausible to find believers, and
especially during a heated political cam
paign.1 ~ ~
vass the candidates of both the Republican
and Democratic parties are Union Generals,
and each of them served In the late waf,-
General Cox, the Republican candidate,
achieved distinction in the early part OF the
wariin Western Virginia, and served with
distinction till hostilities closed. General
Morgan, the Democratic candidate, won
high honor in 1852, by an ingenious piece
of strategy, through which hecaptured the
rebel stronghold of Cumberland Gap, In
East Tennessee, and las late as December
of 1868, he took leading part in the terrific
assault made on the n0rthern defehses of
| Vicksbnrg by General Sherman, Suffering
from disability, he, last year, left the army,
and subsequent to that event tbecame con-
! vert to the doctrines of the Peace party
| We do not see, however, that either that
1 20,
1 Democratic candidate for the Chief Magis-
tracy of Ohio, blots out the honorable FEC
ord that he had made, or proves him to have
| been an imbecie leader, a military quack,
or an epauletted poltroonst lYetace are sorry
10 see that there are partisan, Reppbltcqn jour
mails in Ohio ictch do not ScrupLe 10 assert loud
~ that General ihorgan'S military career tods
| euey thing that pqs dispgceful Asa matter
Of coarSe, o, the OPPOSITE baEty wflfretaliate by
/ showing that General Cox was acheat aud
man of straw. And as the campaign
| grows hotter (if It grow hot), we shall
probably have the. record of tile candidate
| Of each party blackehed blythe blowers of
| the opposite party, in such style that those
who know nothing ofeither, might suppose
them both to be fntolerable fools and cow
| ards.
We have no doubt that If General Grant
| were to run for. the only office which he
| ever desired-the Mayoralty of Galena-
theanti-GFanters ofthat place would show
that he was absent at the battle.of Donel-
son; absent-minded at the battle OF Shiloh;
that he never fired off a single canlion at
Vicksburg; that he never shot off a. musket
at the battle of Chattanooga; that his sword
was bloodless during the. Wilderness CAM
paign !. that he was asleep when Richmond
fell; and that during the whole war he has
seen to do little beside the smoking of
cigars. Many of these charges, being true,
could not be well tontradcted; and soon
yiction would be carriedif TO the minds of
many of the :. intelligent voters". of Galena
that Grants military record demonstrated
his incompetence to keep hotel.
In short, if this thing which has been be-
gun in Ohio, be practiced byipoliticalspar-
ties in all future cases in which our late
military leaders are candidates for positions
In the public service, ten years will not
have passed before a large proportion of
those who have been battling for their,
country in the field, shall have been brand
ed before jeering world as brainless pol
troons. We hope never TO see our soldiers
subjected to such indignities; and the pub
lie of all parties should frown down the first
attempt, and every other attempt, at such
treatment. Better for them that they had
fallen upon the fields on which they fought;
for no one will ever dare to attempt to tear
the 1aurels from the brows of their dead
comrades--frOm the brows of such men as
Sedgwick and Kearney, as Lyon and Ian
der, as; Reynolds and Mcpherson And
those who fell were no truer soldiers than
are those who still live. E2g@2 9.if, LEfiuo W