supplemental report of the joint committee on the conduct of the war in two ...

eminent skill and vigor, and to have accomplished greater results than any one believed possible with such a force and under such circumstances, and whose triumphant success was only lost by the bad conduct of those who had been just rewarded for their treachery by the very object they sought to accomplish by it. While I myself did not then and do not now admit that the necessity existed for sacrificing an officer who had done his duty, and rewarding those who had betrayed him and the country, and while I equally disavow the belief that, under any circumstances, a great government is excusable in doing such wrong to a faithful officer and offering such rewards to successful treachery and bad faith, I acceded to the manifest wishes of the government, and cheerfully accepted a position full of trial and bitterness, in the hope that the country might reap the expected benefit which could alone justify (if indeed anything can justify) such silence and such forbearance as was required from me. It was plain to me that the sense of injustice and wrong to be done me by such a course weighed heavily upon the members of the government, and that it was with the extremest reluctance that they decided upon measures which seemed to them necessary. Under such circumstances patriotism and the sense of duty, which I trust have always guided my conduct in this war, left me no alternative consistent with either except to submit in silence. I made no effort whatever to change or modify the course resolved on, except to ask that I might not be retained on service with the army under General McClellan. All other consequences I was ready to accept. I was accordingly relieved from duty with that. army, and ordered to the command of the department of the northwest. Of course the amnesty to General McClellan embraced all those who had so grievously sinned in his behalf. I trust I have borne with patience and fidelity the bitter lot imposed upon me, rendered far more bitter by the fact that the sacrifice was made in vain. Within two months it was actually found necessary to depose General McClellan from his command, and bring Fitz-John Porter to trial.

From the beginning I have had an abiding faith in the intelligence and justice of the people, who are sure, sooner or later, to arrive at the truth, and this confidence in the certainty of final, though perhaps tardy, justice has sustained me throughout the long period of misrepresentation and abuse which followed my departure from the east. I think I may say with confidence that in all these proceedings the Secretary of War yielded, as I had done, to the mistaken views of others. From that day until this I have never applied to the government for any command or position, and think I can say with equal truth that I have discharged the duties to which I was assigned with zeal and fidelity.

Of the feelings of an officer thus withheld from active participation in a war which was to decide the existence of his government, it is unnecessary to speak. I am sure my worst enemies will not charge me with absence from the front by any act or inclination of my own. I have made but one intimation to the government in regard to these matters since the day I yielded up the command in Virginia. In the last days of January, 1863, when the trial of Fitz-John Porter had closed, and when his guilt had been established, I intimated to the President that it seemed a proper time then for some public acknowledgment of my services in Virginia from him—such as he had so often made to me and to others in private-as would relieve me from the misconception and misrepresentation which I had so long borne in silence. While the President did not say so in direct words, he indicated very plainly that it was yet necessary for the interests of the country that matters in this respect should remain as they were. Since that day I have never, personally, by letter, or through others, made any sort of reference to the subject to any of the authorities in Washington or to the public. I considered it a duty I owed to the country to bring Fitz-John Porter to justice, lest at another time and with greater opportunities he might do that which would be still more disastrous. With his conviction and punishment ended all official connection I have since had with anything that related to the operations I conducted in Virginia.