Year: 1878


letter. From all parts of the country north
of Mason and Dixon's line the reports are
uniform that the heat Is unprecedented. The
parallel OF Washington, st. Louis and Gin
cinnati seems to be the isothemal line of the
chief ferocity Of the solstice, but even In this
latitude-about 47o 30-there has been for the
last two weeks very fair foretaste
of the fate which awaits the Christian
statesman in eternity. Even my placid
mill-pond and eool-shaded pasture 80
glowingly-or rather so refreshingly-de-
scribed in previous letter, have succumbed
to the all-pervading caloric, and If the season
were not 30 far advanced should be looking
out for quarters still further on toward the
North Pole. But the weather is not the sub
iect set out to write about, and the foregoing
preliminary egotism is thrown in by way of
solace to those who, reading these few lines in
the baking atmosphere of the Gulf coast,
might imagine that they were written in the
cool, and therefore envy the writer. I have
an idea that


THE ADJOURNMENT OF THE POTTER COM


MITTEE


to meet at Atlantic City, on the Jersey coast,
was calculated with a view to facility of se-





Show me the able but impecuniOus Louisiana
Radical who would not be willing to swear
anything, and in any desired quantity, for
the sake OF two weeks sOIOurn at Tom
ScOtt's nice new watering place on the Jersey
sands-and found. Give the jerks woman
a chance to combine business with pleasure,
and | shudder to contemplate the possible ac-
tivity Of her tongue. My impression is that
under such circumstances she could be in
duced to ''exonerate" all the Radical scOun-
drels living or dead, from John Brown to
John Sherman. But even this is not my sub
ject. What / really set out to write about
was


THE FTTz JOHN PORTER REHEARING,


together with some of the developments incl
dental to it, touching the administration of
the Union army during the first two years OF
the war. 1t sutfices to say, as to the original
trial, that it was one Of those proceedings
which so delighted the base and cruel soul of
Stanton. The fact is gradually growing in
history, as time lapseS and the fog Of passion
! and prejudice lifts from the moral face OF the
earth, that


EDWIN M. STANTON


was by all odds the basest and meanest
miscreant ever clothed with power in this
| country and full deserving to rank with some
Of the most approved monsters of antiquity
or of feudal despotism. 1t was, OF course,
| impossible in country like
ours and dealing with men of
American blood and fibre to initiate the
l
| ton fairly exhausted the material at his hand
and the possibilities of the situation. Circun-
| stances made Porter the most conspicuous of
| the victims of his baseness but he was by no
means the worst abused Of them. Porter was
good soldier Of the old-fashioned West
Point type, bred in the days of shell jackets
and leather stocks, and accustomed to the
ramrod as gauge OF the position OF a soldier.
| We all know the type. Beauregard and Joe
Johnston, in the South, were of that breed of
| sOldiers; men, you know, born for pro-
fessOrs of etiquette or theology, and
| trained out OF their sphere in
the regulations Of war; possessing no military
| tact, no innate faculty for combination. and
no initiative genius; fighting battles in the
woods by scales OF logarithms, and working
out campaigns by triangulation! Well, Por-
| ter was that sort of a soldier. His friends, of
whom I am certainly one, never claimed for
conscientious martinez, with whom the least
sin possible Of all would be that with which
| Pope charged him, to wit: disobedience of
orders and infractiOn OF the maxim OF
undoubtedly the most ridiculous fraud that
as he was against that Gustav
Adolph of our time, Stonewall jack
as completely foreordained as the fate of a
soul was under the doctrines Of Jackson 8
Calvinism His mission was truly described
by our rugged old Sedgwick-whO, by the
way, was the nearest approach to jackson in
everything but religion, that fought under
our flag. Pope's mission was curtly described
| by this sturdy old warrior as that of Saving
the enemyp If had time and space and the
| weather were not so hot, would regale you
and keep you laughing for the next six weeks
with about six columns of anecdotes anent
this farcical Falstaff Of the Union army,
| MAJOR GENERAL JOHN POPE,


Major Gen. Comdg," as he is said to have
signed himself once when his ''maj0r general
ship" was new and lay heavy Oh his military
stomach. Suffice to say, that he seemed eX-
pressly created by the Almighty for the uses
Of defeat. From the time when he announced
| that his headquarters were 'in the saddle, :"
till the last gun Was fired, his hindquarters
were always toward the enemy, and the prin-
cipal part Of the troops unfortunate enough
| to be under his command were generally
quartered at Andersonville or Salisbury. In
fact SO strong did the habit of getting whipped
grow upon him that it became second nature
until even the hOrsejOckeys Of peaceful LeaY-
enwOrth got into the fashion Of thrashing him
| while he was stationed there.


| AS matter Of course Pope became
| THE FAvORITE OF STANTON.


It was natural that this should be 50, because
Pope was about as much Of soldier as Stan
| ton was statesman, and his qualifications
as military man were on q par with STAN
| toms character as a gentleman. In due course
OF time and in the chronological order OF Popes
1
is known in the reports; the second Bull
| Run" Of the Federals and the


| MANASSAS"


of the COnfederates in colloquial parlance
There was nothing wonderful or even peculiar
in this defeat Of Pope to signalize it beyond his
other defeats, except as to the numbers en-
gagged and the consequences involved, which
| happened to be large and important enough to
require scapegOat. Porter was selected for
this duty partly because he was most conven-
lent for Pope, but mainly because he was
known as one Of McClellan's friends.


and was hence obnoxious to Stanton. Ac-
cordingly, by private understanding, Pope
preferred the charges and Stanton selected
the court carefully, with view to conviction
There was one thing in which Stanton was
certainly great, one art of which he was su.
preme master, and that was the packing d
military tribunals to serve his Internal ends
This court that "tried' Fitz John Porter was
the masterpiece of Stanton's diabolical inge
nuity and the chef d8agre Of his fendisf
nalignity. Its presiding officer was


DAVE HUNTER;


the soldier who won his spurs by burning