The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1880-10-09
GEN. GRANTS DEGRADATION.

and reported the people peaceably disposed
and willing to submit to the general govern
ment, but few months afterwards, attaching
himself to the republican malignants, Joined
them in their cry that the south were still un
repentant and rebellious. He got his foot into
it next when he accepted the appointment OF
Johnson to the war Office and agreed to hold
It until the supreme court decided that John
sons removal of Stanton was legal, and then
lsneakingly and mendaciously broke his
pledge. lie put his foot into it again when he
authorized the statement that he would not be
the candidate Of the republican party for a
third term unless the nomination was rendered
him spontaneously by the convention, and then
authorized Logan to say tibet his name would
be kept before the convention to the fortieth
| or 140th ballot If necessary. But the ugliest
dirtlest and nastiest mess he ever got lnto-in.
voving not only what among military men Is
the objectionable oiIense, conduct unbecom.
ing an officer and gentleman" in shameless.
lly sanderng fellow solder-but also involv-
ing mean, low partisan vituperation and glar'
ing mendaclty,-is that INTO which he finds
himself dragged through the leakiness or
Itrcachcry or supcrservjccablc ofilcousness of
clerical fraud, the somewhat notorious DR.,
IC. H. Fowler. The Doctor, it seems, in com.
Ipany with friend called on Gen. Grant at Ga
subject of conversation becoming politics, in
the course of it he made some very dtsparag-
ing remarks about Gen. Hancock. Speaking
of Gen. Hancock at Gettysburg he SAID "He
IIancock) did not select the battle-ground but
thought of retiring from Cemetery Ridge,
when Slocum came up and superseded him
in command" He also SAID "lIancock was
never more than fair corps commander and
was never thought Of for any great place"
"lIe was never suggested as competent to com
mand the army of the Potomac" "When, in
the convention that nominated Mcclellan he
got vote tor president, he got crazy to be
president" ale is ambitious, vain and weak"
And then he gives glaringly untruthful his
tory of the issuing of lIancOck's famous order
No. 40 in New Orleans, though he admits that
the order itself was faultless. And the delight
ed Doctor proceeds to detail much more of the
same kind of disgraceful rubbish.
Now to say nothing of the deplorable exhi-
bitIon Grant makes of himself by INDUCING
in such frivolous and splteful utterances
against fellow officer were they even true,
much the ugllest feature of the case is that
some of them are sheer falsehoods and all flat
ly contradicted by his own repeated utterances
within the past six months. In one noted dis
patch soon after IIancock's nomination he
SAID "Hancock's military and civil record is
good the record of his party Is bad" In an
other he said: mo better or safer man could
be elected to the chief magistracy than Gen.
Hancock" Then rs to his statement that
Hancock did not choose the battle-ground at
Gettysburg Gen Secum, in an interview with
an Enquirer reporter at Cincinnati on Wed.
nesday said; "If Gen. Grant said that, then
Gen. Grant lles for | was there and know.
| heard Hancock say, This Is the spot to make
the fight and here we will make it, and | Ger
talnly never superseded him" Doubtless this
is asisevere on Grant as it is possible for Ian
guagc to be, but when man desccnds to the
low depths III which the Fowler publication
leaves him, his friends are precluded from
complaining If indignant and disguised gen.
Nemen spit him in the face and call HIM a liar
There is one slightly redeeming fact in the
case, that when the Fowler publication was
first made, Grant had a sort of dim and stupid
perception of the deplorable altitude in which
it placed him, and undertook, in an interview
with Il Chicago Times reporter, to impcach the
accuracy of the Fowler report; but the further
he went in the way of making corrections, the
worse mess he made of it, SO that substantially
he admits the accuracy of the first report. 1t
is a most painful spectacle. The N, Y. Herdld
says Of it:
The person who gave to the public the re
port Of Grants conversation concerning Gen.
Hancock certainly did him no service, but a
great injury. 1t will not raise Gen Grant in
the esteem even of republicans to see him de-
scendng to the abuse of fellow soldier,
whose gallantry and devotion to the union he
has on previous occasions freely acknowl-
edged.
The Philadelphia INES, another independ-
ent paper, says:
Ilencctorth Gen. Grant can rank only with
the desperate politicians who deludcd HIM to
defeat at Chicago and whose friendship must
be fatal to all his hopes OF political success in
the future. lie has eifaced all the little gild.
ing that was left on tie third term banner, and
that is an achievement for the country, but it
Is at a fearful cost of once freely proiiercd
homage to cur great citizen and soldier
The Chicago Times, ~ Y. WOrld and other
leading journals see IN it mo doubt correctly
an attempt on the part of Grant TO thrust Gar.
field aside as the prominent figure IN the pend
ing presidential contest and to bring himself
into prominence as new issue involving a
contrast of Uancock's policy IN Louisiana IN