' 4-73 ma Jb95 •«'/ % illBRARYOF CONGRESS.! W ~~ — -— — — m ^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | ii A. REPLY TO THE HON. REVERDY JOHNSON'S iUtk 0tt the iKlmittijsittatian IN THE CASE OP Fitz Jolm Porter, CONVICTED OF SHAMEFUL MISBEHAVIOUR BEFORE THE ENEMY. .1^7^ .- BALTIMORE: PRINTED BY SHERWOOD & CO 1863. A Reply to tlie Hon. Keverdy Johnson's Attack on tlie Administration. That a document purporting to be purely legal should call for a response such as this presented to the people of Mary- land, requires some explanation. In the first place we have to say that the Hon. Reverdy Johnson's reply to Judge Holt's review of the Fitz John Porter case is not in any sense a legal document. Mr. John- son's right, as an attorney, to appear in this case terminated when the evidence and finding passed from the Court to the hands of the President for approval. That the President should place the evidence before tlie Judge Advocate Gen- eral for a review, in no wise authorized Fitz John Porter or his attorney to tender an argument, as the President is in no position to hear such, or act upon its suggestions. In the trial the Hon. Reverdy Johnson had not only the last word, in accordance with the usages of courts martial, but had the only word, as the Judge Advocate declined addressing the Court. Mr. Johnson's duties as an attorney terminated witli the last words of his defence before the tribunal that tried Fitz John Porter. Not content with this, however, he appealed, not to the Presi- dent, but the public, and wants out of the case to make one against the Administration. In other words, the work we seek to answer is not a lawyer's brief, but a political pamph- let — conceived as such, jjriuted as such, seized upon, repub- lished, and widely circulated, to bring into contempt the Administration, which the author does not support. We find charged that for some evil purpose — 1. The President of the United States packed the Fitz John Porter Court. 2. That he corruptly rewarded the members op this Court for their dirty work by promotion, for which they were not worthy, and but for this service avould never have been so promoted. 3. That this President neglected or refused to examine the evidence in the case, but referred it to his Judge Ad- #4 vocATE General, that an argument might be made sustaining THE FINDING, AND EXCUSING THE CONDUCT OP Mr. LINCOLN. 4. That this Judge Advocate General, to gratify the President, or from some other evil motive, distorted or concealed the evidence, so that Fitz John Porter has been sacrificed in the army, and greatly damaged in public estimation. These are grave charges, and if sustained, would prove the Administration a corrupt one, and Mr. Lincoln unworthy the support of honest men. To give them support, Mr. Johnson does not confine himself to the evidence brought before the Court. An attorney engaged in a legal investiga- tion would have been bound by such limits, established by long usage and a correct sense of justice; but the unscrupu- lous politician, seeking not to defend a client, but to attack an adversary, has no such restraint. Fortunately, a brief statement of a few facts, puts at rest this unprincipled assault upon the Administration. This will be found in the republication of three editorials which originally appeared in the "Washington Chronicle," and have evidently been prepared with great care, and, consider- ing the provocation, temperate and dignified. One fact overlooked or unknown to the author of these articles we hasten to state. At page 6 of this scuri'ilous and scandalous pamphlet, is found the following alleged excuse for its })ublication : "Pending the trial, the evidence of three of the leading "■ witnesses of the prosecution, Major General Pope, Brigadier '' General Roberts, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas C. H. " Smith, was secretly and anonymously published in Wash- "ington, in pamphlet form, with a title-page, which, as evi- " dently intended, would lead the reader to suppose that it " contained either all the evidence in the case, or that the "evidence it did contain, was in no particular rebutted by " other proof" Now, we have in our possession a copy of the pamphlet thus referred to^ and we invite all who feel any interest in knowing the truth, to call and examine it for themselves.* Such examination cannot fail to satisfy them, that every statement made in regard to it, by Mr. Johnson, is wholly false. Instead of its containing the testimony " of three of the leading witnesses of the prosecution," as alleged, it con- tains the entire evidence of all the witnesses — fifteen in num- ber — who were examined in behalf of the Government, up to the time wlien tlie prosecution closed. It gives not only the testimony, in full, and unabridged, but all the decisions and »A copy of this has been deposited at the Baltimore Mercantile Library. proceedings of the Court, and is, word for word, as far as i t extends, the same record published afterwards by order of Congress. There was no secrecy whatever about its publica- tion. It passed through the press as other pamphlets do, and was distributed in the ordinary way. It was no more " anony- mous " than is the record published by Congress. The title given to it by the printer was : " Proceedings of a Cenera , Court Martial for the trial of Major General Fitz John Por- ter," and this title was strictly accurate. It did not declare or intimate that the pamphlet contained the loliole of the pro- ceedings, and had it even done so, such declaration or intro- duction could have misled nobody, since, at the time the pamphlet appear'ed, the trial was notoriously in progress, and witnesses for the defense were from day to day being exam- ined. If, however — whicli is denied — the tendency of the title- page had been to mislead, such tendency was at once correct- ed by the contents of the pamphlet itself Those who did not read it, could certainly have received from it no improper impression to the prejudice of Porter, and those who did read it, found at its conclusion the following entries : " The prosecution here closed." " The accused said : I have not been able to conclude my *^' preparations to enter upon ray defense. I therefore ask of "the Court a delay, until Wednesday morning next. From " that time forth, I expect to be able to push matters forward. " The Judge Advocate stated that the Goveimment had issued " summonses for some of the witnesses desired by the accused. "It had, however, exercised its discretion in regard to others "in active service, preferring to delay calling them from the " field until they were actually needed here. " He would make every effort now to have them sent for at " once. " The Court accordingly adjourned to 11 A. M., on Wednes- " day next." And with these words the pamplilet concludes. Now, how utterly insincere and calumnious to say, that " the reader " of a pamphlet' thus concluding, could "suppose that it con- tained all the evidence in the case," when it expressly de- clared that it contained only that for the prosecution, and that the examination of the witnesses for the defence would not begin until the Wednesday following? The reason for publishing this pamphlet immediately on the close of the testimony for the prosecution was in every way commendable. Soon after the commencement of the trial, garbled extracts and perversions of the evidence began to ai)pear in the interests of Porter, in various newspapers y under liis influence. In reference to these deceptive practices, we find the following entry recorded in the proceedings of the Court on 6th December : " The Judge Advocate here mentioned to the Court that '' gross inaccuracies in the publication of the testimony "given before this Court by Major G-eneral Pope, had been '"' brought to his notice as having occured in several newspa- " pers. ''Wheupon the Court was cleared. " After some time the Court was re-opened, and the Judge "Advocate announced that in view of the statement made, " the Court desire the President of the Court to caution re- " porters, that if incorrect reports of evidence and proceed- " ings in this Court continue to appear in the public press, *' the Court may find it necessary to take such action as will "correct the above. " The President thereupon accordingly cautioned those re- " porters who were present." Notwithstanding this warning, the practice of garbling the testimony was continued, so that when the prosecution closed, the public was in possession of little more of the evi- dence than that which was supposed to be favorable to Por- ter. It was to correct the false impressions thus unworthily made, that this pamphlet was issued, and the country was thus put in possession of the whole testimony and proceed- ings of the Court, accurate and unabridged, up to the mo- ment when the accused entered upon his defence. In the well recognized line of his duty, a high-minded lawyer would hesitate preparing a defence in behalf of Fitz John Porter. But these are not ordinary times, and this is no ordinary case. Look at it. An officer educated by the public, a poor boy picked from the masses, and trained at jmblic expense, to be, not a soldier but an officer, and as such has honors thrust unwon upon him. Of all men this one at least, should have proved true to the kind Government and the trusting people to whom he owes so much. Yet, in the Ee- public's hour of sorest need, when the roar of rebel artillery was echoed from the walls of the Capitol, and our worn out forces were being pressed to defeat, he turned his back U!)on the field, and marched his fresh troops away, when their aid would have insured us a victory. For this he was arrested, tried and condemned, and now we find a gentleman of the United States Senate seeking to shield the traitor from the merited scorn of our people by unblushing falsehood, distortion of evidence, and an appeal to prejudice, that fail in their object, and succeed only in mak- ing their author a partner in the shame. This, too, when the strict duties and fixed rules of his profession cannot be plead in excuse. To the trying position of a paid attorney, he adds the odium of a volunteer friend. This place is of his own seeking, and he must hear the con- sequences. As if aware of the odium that would necessarily follow the attempt to shield a traitor by means so unworthy, we have at intervals, and in the close of this extraordinary "book, strained and grotesque eulogies of the Union. They are as applicable to the case as the many falsehoods, deliberately stated, which, since the trial, have been promulgated. What the evidence may have been, we are not called upon to consider. From it every one has a right, as had the court, to draw his own conclusions. This review is confined to re- futing the charges male by the learned counsel since the close of the investigation ; and having done so, we leave him to the better judgment of the public [From the Washington Chronicle of September 19, 18G3.] THE HON, REVERDY JOHNSON AND HIS "REPLY." Our attention lias been drawn to a pamphlet recently issued by this gentleman, professing to be " a reply to the review of Judge Advocate General Holt of the proceedings, findings, and sentence of the general court martial in the case of Major General Fitz John Porter." It consists, exclusive of the appendix, of eighty-two pages, and is the fruit of some seven months' meditation and research. Its prominent char- acteristic is a blustering self sufficiency, accompanied by an audacious and insolent spirit, as marked as its perversions of the law and the testimony are shameless. As a mere ebuli- tion of disappointed professional zeal, or even as a coarse as- sault upon the sensibilities and conduct of a number of our most faithful and distinguished public men, it would not be entitled to any serious notice, and certainly should receive none at our hands. It assumes, however, a much graver character than this. Mr. Johnson, having failed as the coun- sel of Porter to impress his views upon the Court, now seeks to appeal from the sentence pronounced on his client to the American people, in the hope of being able to invoke upon that sentence discredit and condemnation. It is a deliber- ate and most elaborate effort on his part to destroy public confidence in the military justice of the country, and to hold up before the world, as a martyr^ him whom the records of law and truth denounce as a dishonored criminal. It would be a national calamity were he to succeed in this unhallowed endeavor. The strength of our Government consists in the popular faith in the integrity of those who administer it, and that man who labors to impair this faith, without the fullest measure of proof, is a public enemy. The writer of this pamph- let, though claiming to appear in the character of a mere citizen, and sheltered, as he doubtless feels himself to be, by his national reputation as a lawyer, and by his position as a member of the United States Senate, has nevertheless been true to his original role of counsel, and as such faithfully represents the obtrusive egotism and malignity of his con- victed client. He tramples upon the many distinguished men coanected'^with this trial, as heedlessly as a maddened bull 9 paws the sands beneath his feet. He cliarges necessarily a want of integrity in the court by declaring that it must have determined on the sentence " before a word of the de- fence was heard;" he intimates by the most unmistakable implications, that its members, or a part of them at least, were rewarded — corruptly, of course — for the sentence they had pronounced ; that the principle witnesses were also re- warded for the testimony they gave ; that the President was guilty of both "weakness and injustice," and performed his high duty of approving the record without having examined or understood it, and that the Judge Advocate General was "prejudiced throughout," and had unfairly prepared his re- view for the President, to which the accused had no oppor- tunity of replying. The prominent witnesses, too, of the Government, though men of unsullied honor and lives, are treated with contemptuous sneers and stigmatized with the most offensive epithets. No such wholesale and ruthless aspersion of the motives of public men, acting under oath, has occurred in our history, and it is sufficiently evident that the Hon. Reverdy Johnson has engaged in an undertaking which must be considered large even for his powers, great as they are acknowledged to be. It is not our purpose to follow the course of his feeble and tortuous logic, but to meet him at several of the more salient angles of his windings, and to demonstrate how absurd and insincere is the pretension which this pamphlet makes to subject the review of the Judge Advocate General "to the ordeal of reason and truth." From the complaining spirit which pervades this pamphlet, many may infer that the court martial which tried Porter was forced upon him, and that he had no opportunity of re- sisting its organization as announced by the Government. — No conclusion could be more unjust. Had objections existed to any member of the court, it was his privilege to present them, and they would have been considered and allowed if ascertained to be well founded. At page 4 of the printed record, the following entry occurs : " The Court then proceeded to the trial of Major General Fitz John Porter, United States Volunteers, who was called before the c«urt, and, having heard the order appointing the court read, was asked if he had any objection to any member named in the detail. The accused replied that he had no objection." Those who were present on this occasion have not forgot- ten the unusual earnestness with which this answer was made. - Before the trial began, the Hon. ReverdyJohnson met one of the highest military officers of the Government — and one to whom it was especially proper that such a declaration should be addressed — and, alluding to the order appointing the court, he said : " We have seen the detail for the court, and 10 Gen. Porter is perfectly satisfied with it. He regards them ALL AS MEN OP THE HIGHEST HONOR AND INTEGRITY.'"' And why should not the accused and his counsel have been satisfied with the court? In view of the magnitude of the trial, the Government had been anxious to secure a court not only high in rank, but equally high in reputation. They were all generals, and two of them of the same grade with the accused. They had all served their country loyally and well in the field, and in private life they were as free from stain or repioach as the Hon. Reverdy Johnson himself can possibly claim to be. They were compromised neither by military nor political cliques, and everytliing connected with their history was a pledge that they would honestly keep their oath, " well and truly to try and determine according to the evidence " the case submitted to them. They per- formed that arduous and most responsible duty patiently, conscientiously and fearlessly, and the record which they have left of their action will abide any test to which it may be subjected. For the purpose of refreshing the recollection of our readers, we give the names of the members of the court in the order of tlie detail, viz : Major General D. Hunter, United States Volunteers, Pres- ident. Major General E. A. Hitchcock, United States Volunteers. Brigadier General Rufus King, United States Volunteers. Brigadier General B. M. Prentiss, United States Volunteers. Brigadier General James B. Ricketts, United States Vol- unteers. Brigadier General Silas Casey, United States Volunteers. Brigadier General James A. Garfield, United States Vol- unteers. Brigadier General N. B. Buford, United States Volunteers. Brigadier General L. P. Slough, United States Volunteers. The impression made, and doubtless intended to be made, upon the country by this pamphlet, is that Porter and his counsel considered themselves aggrieved by the manner in which the trial had been conducted, and that they were not satisfied witli, if not intensely indignant at, the spirit and rulings of the court. Nothing could be further from the truth than such an impression. Porter's defence, as read be- fore the court and printed, contains not one of the imputa- tions or complaints so elaborately presented in this " reply" The ruling of the court excluding his telegrams had been withdrawn, and all this testimony, about which so much clamor is made by Hon. Reverdy Johnson, had been received and considered ; his argument in the defence had been per- mitted to go to the court without any reply ; so that, alike in 11 the examination of witnesses and in the discussion upon their testimony, the accused had enjoyed every advantage tliat it was possible for him to claim. The bearing both of himself and counsel, indicated, unequivocally, that they were not only content, but delighted with the manner in which the case had been conducted and submitted. On this point we are not left to inference. A day or two after the trial, and before the sentence had been ])romulgated, or was known, the Hon. Reverdj' Johnson, speaking of the trial, used in the presence of several high officers of the Government* this lan- guage : " Whatever may be the result, neither General Por- ter NOR HLS friends CAN HAVE ANY GROUND OP COMPLAINT AGAINST THE COURT. I CONSIDER TUB TRIAL TO HAVE BEEN PERFECTY FAIR." These were remarkable words, and because they were re- markable, they have been well remembered. They were spoken unsolicited, openly, and with an honorable frankness and emphasis. They were truthful^ too — no motive for perversion and calumny having then arisen. They were uttered by one who, as senior counsel, had gone through the whole trial ; was familiar with every incident that had oc- curred in connection with it, and with the bearing alike of the court and of the Judge Advocate General. These incidents were still fresh in his memory, and in their presence, and in despite of any irritations which he might have encountered as counsel, he declared that the " trial had been perfectly fair." After the lapse of seven months, this same honorable gentleman writes a pamphlet of eighty-two pages, the lead- ing object of which is to prove that this same trial was most unfair, and that his oppressed client has been sacrificed as the victim of passion or corruption, or of both. What re- sponse shall be made to such an appeal from such a quarter ? That the opinion so distinctly announced was sincerely en- tertained, there can be no doubt. Nothing has since occurred to change that opinion. All the facts on which it rested were as well known to the author of this pamphlet then as they are now. Are we not authorized, therefore, to believe and affirm that the Hon. Reverdy Johnson regards the trial now as he did at its close, as " perfectly fair T' What a posi- tion to be occupied by a member of the United States Senate ! If we mistake not, the judgment of the American people will be that this stab at his country's honor has reached his own. We shall resume this subject hereafter. [From tlie "Wasliington Clironiele of Septemljex- S3, 1863.] While it is very clearly intimated in Mr. Johnson's pamph- let that Porter has been sacrificed for his political opin- *Amoiig them Major-General Halleck. 12 ions, and that his condemnation was resorted to by the Ad- ministration as a " a safety valve " for the " harmless escape of the indio;nation impending" a