Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-06-21

Mr. Henry r. Keenan, Gives u Cmustic Zen
Portrait Of edwin NJ. stanton,

Mr. Henry r. Keenan, Gives n Cnu-tic ZEN
Portrait Of Edwin NJ. stanton.
TO nc Editor Of the " A. World
The Sun printed the other day letter, long
ago given the public, with AN implication that
the text In news and the purport blemish
ON the late Gen. McClellan's memory. The
subject matter OF this letter--a complaint OF
Gen. Winfield Scott-has been known 10 any
one who knew anything of the events OF the
last twenty years and the letter itself can be
found In several not recent publications.
What purpose is aimed mt I'm q disparaging Gen.
McClellan's memory cannot conceive. The
letter, however, taken In relation with events
at the time to which 1t refers, does not, ~ the
iSun insinuates, prove tho commander of the
Army ofthe Potomac insubordinste nor In any
sense uumndful OF what was due a junior TO
senior officer. The facts-and no one
should know them better than the editor Of
the SuH-were: When called from his master.
ful campaign in Western Virginia to take
command OF all the forces I'm the capital Gen.
Mcclellan was cautioned by his predecessor,
Mcdowell, that Gen. Scott's headquarters
were filled with spies, who conveyed every
order and plan, soon ~ hinted, to the
rebel commanders. Mr.. Lincoln himself
cautioned the new general against letting
Scott or his headquarters staff know
any essential details of his plans,
the number OF tho Union troops,
NC. 1t was therefore by the direct order
Of the commnnderin in-chief the president,
that the commander of tho army Of
the Potomac communicated directly with
SCOTS superiors l do not mean to
imply that Gen. Scott was unfsithiul, but
that he was not trusted by Mr.. Lincoln or his
advisers was notorious at the time. Gen.
Mcdowell complained bitterly that all his
preparations for the campaign of Bull Run
and his expectation OF cooperation from
Patterson in the Shenandoah Valley were
conveyed to Beauregard and Johnston from
SCOTS headquarters. Ina note on the Col.
Drake De Kay, published this week, he in
cidentally y mentions the same thing and tells
how he adopted a special signatu re- to prevent
the forging of his name by emssaries of the
enemy from and to our lines IL Is neither
journalism nor history to print single letters
of the import of Gen. SCOTS or the late f. NJ.
Stanton, who is made 10 say in the recently
published letter that Mcclellan left the CAPT.
tai unguarded. Stanton was notoriously
AN nntruthful, vindictive marplot Without
n single capacity for the details OF war, he set
himself in correspondence to Criticise in
private and cripple in public the operations
of the commander who made the triumph of
the North possible, without HON the rants,
Shermans Hancocks, Thomases and Meades
would have fought In vain. In any other
country in Christendom such letter as this
recently revived Of Stanton would consign
the writer to the category of the Arnolds
and Wallensteins, for II shows the head of th %
war department conspiring against the chief
military official of his country while with
shameless duplicity protesting to uphold his
arms T.. Nj. Stanton cost the American peo-
pie two years OF war. To him we owe the
disasters that befel the Army of the Potomac
from May, 1862, down to May, lS6L Upon
his shoulders rest the responsibility of Pope's
burlesque campaigns and the invasion OF the
North, that amazed the North every summer
after Stanton had succeeded in displacing
Mcclellan. There will be grotesque rever-
sal of places when the history of those days Is
told by judicial minds instead of the angry
and uniformed partisans who have thus far
tortured facts to make such people as Stanton
patriots Yours obediently,
HENRY +. KEENAN,,
$40 Fifth Avenue