The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-30

soldiers were put in stables and pg-pens, when the
rebels had good, comfortable quarters? A. In front
Of Gaines house there were hve or six buildings.
The first one was kind OF pig-pen. The next was
was used az hospital by the Twenty Massa-
chusetts. They had four men die there in one
week. The surgeon complained to me that he
wanted something there as a dslnfectant, but he
couldn't get 4 The next building was large airy
was used for the Rebel privates.
O. by whose authority vas that done? A. General
Andrew Porter always directed these things. The
orders were supposed to come from General
Mcclellan, through hun.
Such is the poisonous rubbish which goes
into history for some Bancroft of the twen-
tioth century to dig up.
After the failure on the Peninsula the
cloud of unmerited detracton settled more
heavily on McClellan's head, and while Lin
coin, serious for once, was invoking Gods
blessing on him ''for saving the army" the
Presidents associates" at the Capitol were
busy with their work of special defamation.
Nobody ever thanked him for Antietam, and
his near friend, Fitz-John Porter, was sacri-
feed without a scruple. Holt was at hand
to do what the committee directed, and
Holt was Lincoln's and Stanton's willing in
strument.
Next came Fredericksburg; and when John
Cochrane and Newton hurried to Washington
to poison anew Lincolns susceptible mind
against Burnside, their earliest visit was to
the committee, and they were secretly exa-
mined to try to prove his incapacity, and,
incidentally, that of his lieutenants on that
day of disaster-Franklin and Meade. Frank
lin was especially obnoxious, being the steady
friend of Mcclellan, and, what was quite as
bad in the Judgment of Covode, Pennsyl-
vania Democrat. Hooker's performance was
brief He was at first rather pet. He was
no friend of Mcclellan. On the 18th of
March, 1868, less than two months before he
was hurled back with slaughter across the
Rappahannock, the record says that "Major-
General Joseph Hooker was examined, and
thus it reads:-
O. To what do you attribute the failure OF the
Peninsular campaign? A. l do not hesitate to say
that it is to be attributed to the want OF generashp
on the part OF our commander.
He was in high feather. Poets who sneered
at ''Tardy George" sang odes to Fighting
Joe," and the dithyrambic, literally, of
''Hookers Across" was on every loyal lip.
But the chance shot which knocked the house
about his ears at Charlottesville, leaving
him senseless, while Jackson chased the
moral Sickles and the pious Howard from the
field, put an end to poor Hooker's popularity,
and the Covode iunta went to work to try to
show, calling Henry Ward Beecher as their
witness, that he was drunk. 1t was gross in
| justice.
But nowhere was the spiteful agency of
! this committee more manifest than in the
case of General Meade. He gained victory
and saved Washington and Philadelphia-but
what of that He, too, was deceived by
those he trusted. He retained near him the
chief of staff of his predecessor, and the
trust was betrayed. His secret counsels were
revealed; and the names of the men who
thus injured him were Butterfeld and Plea
sonton-both pets of the committee, of Lin
coin, and of Grant But it was this Covode
committee which fomented and promoted
all this. They examined witnesses to in
culpate Meade, then summoned him, and
never informed him of what had been said
against him. 81 understand, said General
! Meade, ''that such and such person has
been examined against me. demand to
kno " what they said, and to have a chance of
reply"-and the committee were compelled to
yield Yet, after all this, General Meade went
to Georgia and did the biddings of the radi-
Gals who once were so ready to destroy him.
The only soldiers who escaped inculpation at
the hands of this committee were Halleck,
Pope, Butler, and Grant, and of the exploits
of this body and his share of it Covode is
proud. We are glad of the chance his foolish
farewell gives US to put on record our judg-
ment on him and his associates, and to ex-
press our contentment that they are fast, one
by one, sinking in obscurity.