The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-07-01
A "Patri0t SOldier.''
A Brief Review of his Political Record
from 1864.

IORTLAND, June ZJtn, 1910.
General Charles W. Roberts, Bangor:
GENERAL:-The Democratic State Conven-
tion, whose proceedings L witnessed as re-
porter, selected you as a candidate for Govern
or for the reason that you were 'Patriot Sol
dier." You were certainly not chosen for any
personal knowledge of state policies or for any
experience in civil or legislative life, about
which your partisan friends had great deal to
say before your candidacy was resolved upon.
L observe that since your nomination, they
have been discreetly silent in regard to that
point, and several criticisms which were quite
ready for Gen. Connor, in case Mr.. Talbot
should have been his competitor, may now be
considered as indefinitely postponed. 1 be-
lieve your warmest friends DO not advocate
your election on any ground of your personal
fitness for the place.
Ostentatiously selected because of your war
record, shall not be accused of violating the
suggestions of delicacy or the laws of propriety
if subject that record to a searching examina-
ton. When the war broke out in 1861, you be-
longed to a respectable militia organization
that had been in existence for several years,
and you promptly united with your fellow
members in rendering your services to the gov
ernment. The Republicans anxious to recog-
nizs your patriotism as Democrat, warmly
assisted in procuring for you the high commits
sion of Lieutenant Colonel in the regiment of
the gallant and lamented Jameson. On his
promotion to the rank of Brigadier General
Republican influence gladly advanced you to
the command of the regiment. I do n 1T init
mate that you ever failed to do your duty in
that position, or that you were wanting in true
soldierly qualities. 1t is with great satisfac-
ton, on the other hand, that l recognize and
record your personal bravery and your general
| popularity with your command 1t was how
| ever, the misfortune of your military career
| that you were associated with Fitz John Por-
| ter, that you eagerly attached yourself to his
| fortunes, and that the special concentrations
which may be quoted on your behalf come
largely from that disgraced and degraded Off
Ger. The Fifth Army Corps was composed of
| splendid troops, your own Second Maine rank
| ing among the best, but believe that it is the
| general conclusion among soldiers that the
great misfortune of the Corps was that it fell
for time under the command of Fitz John
| Porter, who ended his military career by being
cashered when the judgment of many good Of
| ficers was that he should have been shot. L OBJ.
serve that Porter very appropriately turns up
as an office-holder in highly lucrative posi-
tion under the present Democratic regime in
| New York.
| Your resignation, General, was ill-timed for
a "Patriot Soldier" You left the service when
the help of every man was needed; when
every man was implored to stay; and
when Gen. Hooker said that ''every officer
| was indispensable to his commando You re-
signed when you had been out but little over
year-and when the fortunes of the army and
of the Union itself were at the lowest conceiva-
BILE ebb. No patriotic man can even now, after
the lapse of thirteen years, recall without a
chill of horror, the condition of the Union
cause in 1862 Our army driven from Virginia.
after the untold disaster of the Peninsula; held
at bay everywhere in the Southwest: Ken
lucky and Missouri in partial revolt; with such
discouraging reaction among the people as tc
very nearly involve the loss of Congress aEd
the consequent power to raise armies and levy
taxes. Then was our peculiar and momentou.
peril. And il was just then, General. that yor
turned your back on the Union cause. Anc
| you came home without having your name as
sociated with one decisive victory for the Unior
arms.
AS reader of history, General, if you eve
waste any of your valuable time in that inno
cent recreation, you may learn from that good
old writer, v GEMS, that the officers who in
sisted in the Revolutionary Army, upon re
signing their commissions in the autumn O
I777, and during the ensuing terrible winter a
Valley Forge, were never forgiven by the pa
triots of that day. And Washington himself
of proverbay prudent speech, cassed then
with an ignominious herd whom l will not men
ton lest might seem TO apply derogatory
epithet to yourself-and of that you know 1 an
incapable. But it is nevertheless noticeable
coincidence General, that these dissatisfied
and disloyal officers turned their backs OF
the Revolutionary Army after about the sam,
period OF time that distinguished your own ser
vice that moreover they left as you did, when
the American aud patriot cause was very dark
and in the Judgment of many, hopeless.
But resignng your commission just as Fit:
John Porter was cashiered, Il do not say be
cause of it) was not the worst feature of you