Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-08-05
Ill Fortunes of Hancock Biography.

claim that he, having unlimited military
power, declared his subordinatiOn to the
civil authority, and thereby they brought
to the front that he used his military
power to depose Republican civil Off
GERS. legally chosen, to give power to
Confederate Democrats, and that he be-
came a military politician, issuing dem
agogue stump speeches in the form of
general orders, and setting up that unre-
constructed rebel States had powers su-
perior to Congress.
1t was the ex-COpperhead Inscriptions
to Gen. Hancock as the superb soldier"
that led the mind of the patriotic SOL
diers of the WAT to the circumstance
that Gen. Hancock is one of an aristo-
cratic class, created by government IA
voritism that he was given a peculiar
rank and public pay at the age of six
teen, in which he entered on line of
advancing pay and promotion for life,
as certain as if he were born heir to no.
biiity and and an estate; that while citi-
Gems sacrificed their business to save
their country, and served it with enthu-
siastic patriotism, and then were turned
out to rebuild their ruined business, he
kept the high rank and munifcent pay
which their services had brought him :;
that he is of a class distinguished by a
spirit of caste which has no sympathy
with popular government or popular in
teHigence, or patriotic soldiers that he
in particular arrogated to himself all the
privileges of his caste, and surrounded
himself with the pcmp and circumstance
and personal service which his high
rank and command of men gave him,
and thus that his superbness is just that
quality which a million of volunteers
who fought the war have no admiration
for.
The silly Democratic attempt to give
Gen. Hancock halo by representing
that he is a descendant of John Han
cock, who signed the Declaration of In
dependence, has brought from his faith
er's neighbors the curious information
that the first appearance of Gen. Han
cocks father in that community was rs
a little boy, brought to the district
school by John Roberts, rich and gay
bachelor farmer, who announced his
name as Benjamin Franklin Hancock,
and afterward told the curious neigh
bers that he was his adopted son and
heir, and refused to answer their in
quiries further. They had their reasons
for supposing that Roberts was his real
father by a pretty housekeeper, who had
s~dddenly disappeared at a time which
would be coincident to the birth of this
adopted Benjamin.
The jackdaw would not have been re-
marked if the Democrats had not stuck
peacock feathers upon him. This bach
elor irregularity begot stout, beefy
progeny, and is no reproach to Gen.
Hancock. His father had enough of
esquire John Roberts" in him to follow
his inclination and marry the daughter
of Il bitter Democrat at the cost of being
discarded by his father by adoption, who
was Federalist. Party politics were
very bitter in those days, and the Dem
ocrats were regarded as of the lower or
ders. Benjamin Franklin Hancock was
lazy, and the spirit which got him mar
ried did not lift him in the world. He
settled down into a country village
schoolmaster, and his twin sons were
born in the school house. Afterward he
became an attorney in very black Dem
ocratic town. The worst thing in Gen.
Hancock's pedigree is that his father
was malignant Copperhead in the war,
carrying his hate of the Union soldiers
so far as to interfere as one of the di-
rectors of toll bridge company to de-
mand toll of body of volunteers cross
ing the bridge to take the railroad to go
to the war, and by consent of the other
directors crossing free.
In this we gee the taint in the blood
which led Gen. Hancock to become the
tool of Andrew johnson in his fight
against Congress, and to use his military
position to crush Republicans in Louis
lana, and to put the rebels in control.
For this service Johnson removed a
Republican from place in the Internal
Revenue Office at Norristown, and put
Gen. Hancock's father in the place,
which he held till death. All these
things are brought out by the foolish
course of Democrats in trying to bedeck
him with false feathers. Gen. Han
cocks real history is very simple. His
sympathies were Democratic and pro-
slavery. He held Office, rank, and pay
for life, under a government which
made these favors secure, and in circum-
stances which gave rapid promotion
with little regard to soldierly ability.
He stuck to these favors.
He served without any exhibition of
patriotism or zeal for the cause, never in
any separate enterprises or commands,
and never in any battle but a defensive
one, or in which his was a defensive OPP
Grafton. He became Major General
when he had hardly heard gun fired in
battle. 1t is rank to which very few
attain in any great military nation, and
then only by long and distinguished ser
vices, and which is equivalent to an
English peerage. He sat down in this
soft seat for life, while as able soldiers
returned to homes to rebuild ruined bus
iness, to support their families. After
the war, in the difficult work of reha-
bilitating the rebel States, he developed
the odious character of an army politi-