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



247 



a failure to attack, a failure to advance and go 

 to the assistance of the troops in battle, and 

 the charge of having retreated during the ac- 

 tion, whether you call it a battle or a series of 

 actions, on the 28th of August ; and these high 

 military authorities declare that upon the study 

 which they have given this has become a new 

 and different case. The case on which this 

 man was tried is not the case which is now 

 presented to those who in any responsible sit- 

 uation have to try it. 



" Mr. President, it seems to me, on a full ex- 

 amination of this evidence, that the evidence 

 is such as to afford a fair support to that opin- 

 ion. I recognize the great military authorities 

 that are opposed to it. I do not think if I were 

 to select mere authority on which my judgment 

 was to be guided that I should select two men 

 in the United States on whom I would place 

 higher reliance than two members of the pres- 

 ent Committee on Military Affairs, the Senator 

 from Illinois (Mr. Logan) and the Senator from 

 Connecticut (Mr. Hawley). The Senator from 

 Illinois is himself an illustrious soldier. He is 

 himself accustomed to deal with evidence as a 

 lawyer. The training of his life, both civil and 

 military, has fitted him to deal with such ques- 

 tions. And I do not think that any authority 

 on the other side as mere authority is entitled 

 to greater weight than his. I should also place 

 very great reliance in such a case upon the 

 opinion of my distinguished and illustrious 

 friend from Connecticut, who concurs with 

 the Senator from Illinois in this case. But it 

 does seem to me, looking at the case as well as 

 I am able to do, that the newly-discovered evi- 

 dence, whether the conclusion as to Porter's 

 guilt or innocence might be the same, does 

 lake out a case so different in the circum- 

 ices that it warrants us in passing a law 

 r hich shall permit the President if he see fit, 

 id the Senate if hereafter it shall see fit, to 

 How this man for the little remnant of his 

 lays to be restored to his old profession. 

 " Then yon. come to the specification in re- 

 ird to the disobedience of orders on August 

 Tth the 6.30 order. Who can believe that if 

 le other facts in the cace had been out of the 

 ray the court or President Lincoln ever would 

 have sentenced this man to the severe punish- 

 ment to which he was sentenced on that find- 

 ing alone? Whether it be true or not true 

 that the military law required an attempt to 

 march over that road that night, encumbered 

 with wagons to the extent to which it was, the 

 extent being in dispute, or not; or whether 

 that officer, being an officer with a separate 

 command, receiving his order from a superior 

 ignorant of the precise condition of things 

 which he had to meet whether the military 

 law and custom permitted him under such cir- 

 cumstances a discretion or not, this thing is, it 

 seems to me, well established, that a very large 

 number of able, honest, experienced military 

 men were in the habit of exercising and in the 

 habit of permitting the exercise of such dis- 



cretion ; and who can believe that he being 

 wrong in an opinion in regard to a state of 

 facts in which, if he was wrong, Grant is 

 wrong, in which if he was wrong Longstreet is 

 wrong, in which if he was wrong Terry is wrong, 

 in which if he was wrong Schofield is wrong 

 and Getty is wrong who can believe that if 

 this single specification stood alone, General 

 Porter would have been condemned with this 

 severity of sentence ? 



" Mr. President, we are not wiping out the 

 sentence of Fitz-John Porter. That man has 

 tasted for twenty years the bitterness of that 

 judgment. No cup of death was ever presented 

 to human lips which, it seems to me, could be 

 so bitter as that which has been the daily and 

 the nightly draught for twenty years of this 

 officer, who, at least, once and some time de- 

 served well of the republic. 



" Will the Senator from Illinois say that the 

 President of the United States, in pardoning 

 this man, meant to affront or did affront the 

 great and mighty shades of Lincoln and of Gar- 

 field? He thought that in the doubt upon this 

 question it was time at least that justice should 

 stop and that mercy should have her place. 

 Over that name honored for generations in the 

 military and naval history of this country you 

 can hardly look upon the stars and stripes on 

 our flag that you do not think of the name of 

 Porter for twenty years has rested the burden 

 of this shame, worse than death, worse than 

 torture, and no act of Congress, no act of God 

 can wipe that away. 



" Not Fate herself can o'er the past have power, 

 But what has been has been. 



" And he has had, in shame and agony he 

 has had his hour. 



" Now, Mr. President, I do not know what 

 bitter passion, I do not know what prejudice, 

 I do not know what honest love of country, I 

 do not know what feeling of a patriotic and 

 generous soldiery may be encountered by the 

 vote I am about to cast. I know this, that I 

 would rather incur almost anything myself 

 than to incur the disapprobation of some men 

 whom I shall seriously grieve by the conclu- 

 sion to which I have come. It is not an easy 

 thing for a Republican, a partisan, a man 

 whose life has been given to the advocacy and 

 the support of the doctrines of this party, to 

 incur the disapprobation and the condensa- 

 tion of his political friends who sit about him 

 on a great question of state ; but I thank God 

 that after hesitation and doing my best to dis- 

 cover what my duty requires he has given me 

 the grace to perform it. 



"I do not believe, studying- this testimony, 

 that the burden of this condemnation ought to 

 rest longer upon the head of this man unless 

 on such re-examination of the facts as it will 

 be the duty of President Arthur hereafter to 

 give, and on such re -examination of the facts 

 as it will be the duty of the Senate .hereafter 

 to give, one or the other (for it will require 

 the concurrence of both to restore him) should 



