240 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (THE FITZ-JOHN PORTER CASE.) 



Touching the alleged failure of Porter to 

 obey what is known as the joint order of 

 McDowell and Pope of Aug. 29, 1862, and 

 what is known as the 4.30 order of the snme 

 day, Mr. Logan took new ground. He did not 

 maintain that Porter could, as Pope imagined, 

 attack Jackson's left before the arrival of 

 Longstreet, but he maintained that it was his 

 duty to obey orders at all hazards, and that if 

 he had done so his attack, even if his corps 

 were sacrificed, might have given the Union 

 army as a whole the victory. He said : 



"On the 29th of August, 1862, as shown by 

 the almanac, the sun set at 6.36 P.M. If it 

 was sundown no sooner than 6. 30, there is not 

 a man in the Senate-chamber but what knows, 

 unless it was a rainy night or a very cloudy 

 night, or something of that kind, that it was 

 daylight I might say almost up to eight o'clock. 

 There was nothing in the world in the month 

 of August at that time, when the sun set at 

 6.36, to prevent the movement of troops for 

 two hours later than the time he claims he re- 

 ceived this order. If he could not have done 

 any better he might have sent part of his com- 

 mand. If he had even lost a part, if they had 

 been captured, it would have been carrying out 

 the order to some extent, it would have been 

 showing his desire at least to feel the enemy ; 

 but he did not even do that. The only order 

 he gave after receiving this order was to put 

 his troops in position at once to attack, and 

 the very moment the order was given, before 

 the two regiments were put in position, he 

 gave an order for them to come back and go 

 into camp for the night. 



"That was the manner in which he obeyed 

 the order ; and yet we are told that he did not 

 disobey this order ; that he did not violate the 

 order ; that he ought to be excused ; that he 

 was wrongfully convicted ; that Mr. Lincoln 

 did wrong in signing the warrant to convict 

 him ; that Garfield did wrong on the court- 

 martial to convict him ; that everybody has 

 been wrong ever since except the few people 

 who lately have got very sentimental and be- 

 gin to talk about time, about twenty years 

 having passed. True, twenty years have 

 passed, and if it was left to me one hundred 

 and twenty years would pass before ever I 

 would reverse a court-martial that had the 

 facts before them as that one did that excited 

 the country in reference to the wrongs that 

 this man had perpetrated upon our army. 



" Mr. President, there is one thing that I de- 

 sire to mention to the Senate. The military 

 law, in order to have an efficient army, must 

 be, in the first place, a stringent law, and, in 

 the second place, it must be rigidly enforced 

 and executed. The articles of war that exist 

 in this country to-day are similar to the arti- 

 cles of war in countries where the best armies 

 exist. These articles of war are based on those 

 of ancient Rome, where the best army the 

 world has ever seen was organized. 



44 The only theory of an army is that when 



organized it must be composed of men who 

 rtiake that their profession, so that when they 

 go into the army they go with their lives in 

 their hands ; they must go without regard to 

 whether they will be killed or die with yellow 

 fever or anything else. They must go into the 

 army with the understanding that they will go 

 wherever they are ordered. If they are or- 

 dered down on the border of Texas when the 

 yellow fever is raging, and there is a necessity 

 for their going there to protect the borders, 

 they must go ; that is the rule. If it was left 

 to them, of course they would not go ; and the 

 border might be overrun. 



44 So the rule is that an order must be obeyed. 

 It is not a question as to whether the man 

 who obeys the order shall die, be shot, shall 

 never return home again, but the question fur 

 him is, ' How can I obey the order ? How am 

 I to do it ?' The only way to do it is to try to 

 do it. If it is a lawful order he is bound, at 

 least, to attempt to obey it. So it was in ref- 

 erence to these orders. If this man on the 

 night of the 27th had taken his troops at one 

 o'clock and moved them for the six miles when 

 there was nothing on the road, and could not 

 have gotten any farther, and it was impossible 

 for him to pass any farther, that would have 

 been an excuse to his commanding officer that 

 he tried to obey it, that he started at one o'clock ; 

 but he did not do it. Hence he did not try to 

 obey the order, he treated the order as a dead 

 letter. So as to the joint order and the 4.30 

 order, instructing him to push forward in the 

 direction of Gainesville, and also to attack. If 

 he had gone forward, if he had moved forward 

 until he struck the enemy, had fired into the 

 enemy, and found them too heavy for him, and 

 had to fall back, then there might have been an 

 excuse for it. He could have said, ' I tried, but 

 my force was not heavy enough.' 



4 ' If he had fought and been whipped, and 

 come back and said, ' I am whipped ; I had to 

 surrender, or I had to retreat,' that would have 

 been all right ; but the idea that a man shall 

 come back and say, ' I did not attack because 

 if I had I would have been whipped,' is prepos- 

 terous. No soldier that is fit to command an 

 army will ever make any such excuse. If you 

 allow this to be an excuse for disobedience 

 of orders, you may organize your army just as 

 soon as you choose; you may organize 50,000 

 or 100,000 men and send them down on the 

 border of Mexico, if we should be in trouble 

 with our sister republic God knows I hope 

 we never shall be but if it should be in the 

 sickly season, and you order that army down 

 there with this man excused, with this man 

 restored to the army, having disobeyed these 

 orders, every man who chooses to say so says, 

 * I will not go ; I will not go because the yel- 

 low fever is an obstruction ' why is it an ob- 

 struction? 'I shall die; I will not obey the 

 order.' You go before a court-martial, and 

 they say the order should be obeyed ; but yon 

 go before Congress and say, ' I could not obey 





