Year: 1863




We have received from the publishers, Msssrs.
Murphy Il Co., Of Baltimore, copy of 81 Reply
to the Review of Judge Advocate General HoLT
of the Proceedings, Findings, and Sentence of the
General Court Martial in the case Of Maj r Gen
FITz JOHN PORTER; and vfndeation of that
officer" by the Hon. REvERDY JOHNSON.


Since the trial of General Porter's distinguished
namesake and relative, the late Commodore David
Porter, in 1925, our feelings have not been as
much enlisted in any case before military court
in that of the above brave and brilliant officer,
who was tried in this city in December last on
the charges of disobtdience of orders and failure
to bring up bis army corps to attack the enemy
surprised or panied, strong as both sensations
were-we well remember-at the sentence of the
court which condemned the veteran naval hero
than we confess we were at the finding and extreme
sentence of the court which recently condemned
his gallant nephew and accomplished soldier TO be
cashiered and forever expelled from the honorable
profession to which he was devoted and which he
had SO highly adorned. Our surprise in the latter
case indeed, amounted to astonishment; for from
what we knew personally Of General Porter, COM
bined with what we occasionally read of the pub
lished testimony during the trial, together with
what we casually heard in society from officers Of
the army, we were not only unprepared for YER
dict Of guilty, but fully anticipated one of entire
acquttal and we lelieve that the general expec-
tation of the public the same, all corroborated
and even confirmed into feeling Of certainty by
the brief time (only an hour or two) in which the
court made up its judgment after hearing the de-
fence, as well as the submitting the case by the
This impression we believe was 50 prevalent with
most persons not OF the court, that the puolic
amazement was not less than our own when the
real, bitter sentence was first announced. Our
minds were embarrassed between our own strong
convictions on the one hand, and on the other our
respect for the characters of the few members Of
the court of whom we possessed any personal
knowledge, sustained as their finding was by the
subsequent elaborate argument Of the eminent and
able Judge Advocate. We could not study the
voluminous ourselves, nor could we fully COM
prehend the morale of it; our judgment was
silenced, but not convinced.


Thus this remarkable and interesting case rested
until few weeks since, when the distinguished
REvERDY JOHNSON, the friend and former counsel
of General Porter, moved by his love of justice,
by his interest in an important cause in which he
had been concerned and defeated, and by his set
tied conviction that grievous judicial wrong had
been inflicted by the sentence of the court, less
than by friendship and admiration for the victim
of that sentence, ventured upon full examination
of and reply to the Review" of tae Judge Advo-
cate General, on which the approval of the SEN
tence of the court by the President based, and
vinaication Of General Porter himself. This re-
ply and vindication fills eighty closely printed
pages but, volumnous it is, it will be read by
al far-minded men who have read the argument
Tor the prosecution and feel an interest in the
merits of the case. We shall ourselves do so !;
alt ough we have as yet examined il but cursoriy
sufficiently, however to perceive that it is marked
by the intellectual force and clearness of all the
writings of the distinguished author