Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-04-09
General Porter's vindication.

The celebrated Fitz John Porter case
which has agitated army circles and more
or less the whole country for the last seven
teen years, has at last come to an end, al
least so far as the main issues involved in
the case are concerned. The board oil
the President TO re-examine the case have
made their report. With entire unanimity
they have come TO the conclusion that he
was unjustly convicted by the court martial
that tried him. They think the disparaging
expressions he used respecting General Pope,
his superior commander, were indiscreet
and indefensible, and that to that indis-
erection was due in a very great measure the
Misrepresentation both of his motives and
conduct and his consequent condemna-
ton" The board close their report by stat
ing that in their opinion "justice requires
at the Presidents hands such action as may
be necessary to annul and set aside the
findings and sentence of the court martial
in the case of Major Fitz John Porter, and
to restore him to that position of which the
sentence deprived him, such restoration to
take effect from the date of his dismissal
from the service" This decision does not
evoke the sentence Of the court martial by
which he was dismissed from the army.
The President can now remit the penalty
imposed by the court martial so far as it
disqualified him from holding a commission,
but he cannot restore him to the position
from which he was dismissed. This can
only be done by Congress, and it will also
be for that body to decide whether General
Porter shall receive his back pay-now
amounting to about $4,000.
This case having been so long pending
that the details have passed out of the pub
lie mind, we re-state the prominent points
involved. After leaving the Peninsula the
various parts of the army of the Potomac
reported to General Pope on the line between
Richmond and Washington, while Lee
started his army northward on that same
line. In August StoLewall Jackson's corps
was marched around Pope's army and reached
his rear, and was thus, by the act of its COM
mander, completely isolated from its sup
ports, and for about week it was thus sep.
arated from the other parts of the confeder-
ate army, and lay actually at the mercy OF
the superior numbers between it and Gen
eral Lees other corps. Any energetic COM
mander would have crushed it in three days,
and it could not have gotten away. General
Pope conceived the intention to destroy it,
but moved so deliberately and with so much
vacillation that the opportunity slipped
through his fingers. Before Pope was ready
to strike Lee had come up and joined Jack
son, but Pope did not know that he had
joined him. Consequently he went ahead
as if jackson was to be alone forever, and
when he at last was ready to hit jackson
his blow fell not on one isolated corps, but
on the whole rebel army, and the blow
failed, of course. Porter was ordered to fall
on flank of Jacksons army but another
corps had come between him and that flank.
Longstreet's whole corps was where Pope
thought Porter would find Jackson's flank.
Pope did not know the fact, and Porter did.
That Porter acted on his knowledge rather
than on an order based evidently on an err
ror is now declared to have saved the army.