power over the orders to naval officers, grievously oppresses the staffcorps of the navy.

The present paymaster-general has been made the victim of such oppression, conspiring with the political animosity of the Secretary. The chief of the B. N., O. D., O. N. I. inspired the pursuit and furnished the instruments. A disreputable member of the pay corps was employed as a land detective on sea pay. A subservient and expectant court of inquiry was appointed, and its labored and unfair report was improperly made public; a court-martial was organized, with a president selected solely because of his avowed political opinions; and even then, disappointed in the result, the Secretary and the officer "next to the Secretary" continued to pursue the members of the court-martial, even unto death by suicide, trying to force them to render a severer sentence. The paymaster-general at the worst had only acted mistakenly in trivial matters, in accordance with not infrequent usage, by which the government suffered no injury, and the whole proceeding is personal, political, and line-officer persecution.

The Secretary of the Navy would not have been led into such a blunder, or into any maltreatment of the staff-corps, or into any one of the numerous mistakes of which he is now repenting, if he had not surrendered himself so completely into the hands of the Bureau of Navigation, Office of Detail, and Office of Naval Intelligence.

It is painful thus to delineate with severe and truthful language the present condition of the "Office of Detail" in the Navy Department. It has been the hope of officers and civilians familiar with the situation that the chief of the Bureau of Navigation, at the expiration of his term, would voluntarily go to sea, even if he grasped for himself the most desirable command,-that of the "Chicago." No person can take the Navy Register of February, 1885, and glance at the two columns of sea-service in the list of captains without seeing plainly what is the imperative duty of the twelfth captain on the roll. That he should continue to avoid sea duty, and succeed by subserviency and intrigue in remaining permanently the autocratic controller of the detail of the whole navy, is not merely discreditable to him and to the cabinet minister who allows him such prominence and power, but the whole truth must be told; it also shows the weakness of the great body of naval officers who are timidly submitting to a vicious arrangement which they could by legitimate influence easily overthrow. In times of war they have shown themselves patriotic and brave, and would so prove again; but, in peace times, the events of the last six months certainly demonstrate that they sometimes fail to do their whole duty to the service and the country. It remains to be seen what view the Congress will take of those events and what support it will accord the navy.

A CIVILIAN.

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC BEFORE

RICHMOND.

A CORRESPONDENCE WITH GENERAL MCCLELLAN, AND TOUCHING FITZ-JOHN PORTER.

MOST readers of THE UNITED SERVICE have probably read in the Century Magazine for September an answer to certain statements and reflections cast upon the action of the cavalry and its commander at the battle of Gaines' Mill, in an article signed F. J. Porter in that magazine for June. The answer was restricted to matter contained in that article, and was written early in June. A month earlier I had a correspondence with General McClellan-to be found in this communication -on the subject of another outrage committed by F. J. Porter, and in which General McClellan seems to have given him very effectual aid.

I propose now to give a succinct, connected account of my injuries at the hands of these officials, always in close concert, and in power very great, but fortunately brief.

Porter in his official report, July 7, 1862 ("Rebellion Records," vol. xi. p. 225), states that very late in the day, while victorious, the left of his line was "thrown into confusion by a charge of cavalry coming from the front,"-meaning some repulsed troopers of the Fifth United States Cavalry; adding, "to this alone is to be attributed our failure to hold the battle-field and to bring off all our guns and wounded." He states, however, that General Cooke, "doubtless misinformed, ordered the charge ;" and thus attributes, or even hints, at nothing worse than a blunder.

Nevertheless, three days before its date, July 4, he had written to General McClellan, "I was also informed that as soon as this disaster was created, he directed his command at once to return and cross the river, which he did without an effort to check the tide of frightened men, and setting a bad example to the troops."

This cruel attack-substantially belied by his official statement three days after, which would probably soon come to light-was effectually concealed from me-never heard of-for twenty-three years! it was

then published in an imperishable government record, into which no correction can at this date be admitted.

In the Century Magazine Porter makes a less injurious statement on this point. Thus: "Most unaccountably this cavalry was not used to cover our retreat or gather the stragglers, but was peremptorily ordered to cross to the south bank of the river.”

To this very deliberate charge, repeated substantially with a long interval, I replied at the first possible opportunity, and the Century published in September the evidence of two witnesses who were present throughout. But of General W. Merritt's letter only some extracts were published, because of its reference to matter not published in the Century; nearly the whole of it is given, farther on, as it was contained in the McClellan correspondence. Colonel J. P. Martin, Assistant Adjutant-General, wrote me, April 30, 1885, “The charge of your cavalry did stop the advance of the enemy, and this enabled Porter's troops to get off the field. I am by no means alone in the belief that the charge of the cavalry at Gaines' Mill, on June 27, 1862, saved Fitz-John Porter's corps from destruction. . . . You did not direct your command at once to cross the river.' . . . Your command, at least a part of it, was the very last to cross the river."

This evidence of two witnesses of the highest character proves beyond any question or cavil this railing charge to be not only wholly false, but without any foundation; whether malicious, the reader may pronounce. But consider, Porter's letter was written in a camp where numerous officers and men of the cavalry reserve were present, and it was the plain duty of any one making such charges to have inquired if they were true. If he had desired the truth the charge would not have been made.

As to his other injurious but scarcely intelligible statements in the Century, mostly the same as in his "report," I disproved them all in that magazine for September,-all that were worthy of anything but ridicule, or, in one case, of pity, as very decidedly indicating insanity, perhaps only monomania. But on one important point I will repeat with more detail.

I should premise that Porter evidently resolved to claim, substantially, a victory in this battle; that all that was short of it resulted from disasters caused by the blundering cavalry; and this almost incredible idea was suggested by a chronic and active enmity to its commanding general, and encouraged by full confidence in the support of his never-failing friend, the major-general commanding. But no actual bad results from the cavalry repulse had been reported by any battery commander, or probably ever seen, except by Captain Weeden, First Rhode Island Light Artillery. Porter himself, in the extract below, first claims to have seen them. In his official report he uses the expression, "As I have since learned;" it became, then, important to

him to strengthen this point, even to assert it; and apparently to color and emphasize his assertion, he connects with it a circumstance,"-a very important one, likely to fix one's memory.

...

In the June Century, p. 322, Porter writes, "Even in this last attack we successfully resisted. except in one instance. Near the centre of Morell's line . . . our line was penetrated and broken. Just preceding this break, to my great surprise, I saw cavalry, which I recognized as ours, rushing in numbers through our lines on the left, and carrying off with sudden fright the limbers of our artillery, then prepared to throw an irresistible fire into a pursuing foe."

"Through our lines" means infantry lines; and just below he says, "in no other place was our line penetrated or shaken;" but in the next line to my quotation he contradicts all, and says, " with no infantry to support, . . . such of the remainder of these guns as could be moved were carried from the field."

Now as to Captain William B. Weeden. In vol. xi. Part II., "Rebellion Records," p. 282, he reports, "The right and centre sections . . . from the rear of Griffin's brigade opened fire when our first line retired. After a few rounds they changed position one hundred yards to the rear and in line with the other artillery. After firing some forty rounds we saw the enemy turning the left of the batteries." The smoke had made it impossible "to direct the fire. The batteries were limbering to the rear in order to retire, . . . when the cavalry, repulsed, retired in disorder through and in front of the batteries." And not before the first break " near the centre of Morell's line;" not as the "artillery then prepared to throw an irresistible fire into a pursuing foe," but after!

[But then Captain Weeden adds, ". . . Men were ridden down and the horses stampeded by the rush of the cavalry. The whole line of the artillery was thrown into confusion. Commands could be neither heard nor executed, and different batteries were mingled in disorder. One piece of my battery mired in the woods."

Of this lurid picture I only remark that, notwithstanding the very natural proneness of all commanders to excuse, at least account for, defeat or loss, not another battery commander of "the whole line" mentions in his report this stunning catastrophe; and that it seems to have set the key-note of Porter's report on the subject.]

Brevet Brigadier-General Blake writes, as quoted more fully in the Century, "At sundown you advanced the brigade under a warm fire; . . . the infantry of the left wing had then disappeared from the top of the hill."

Brevet Brigadier-General W. N. Grier, who commanded the second line, wrote me December 9, 1879, "I saw no infantry anywhere when we were marching to the front."

General Griffin, of Morell's division, reports (p. 313, vol. xi.

Part II.), "It may be proper to mention that the artillery, by order of General Porter and under my direction, opened fire upon the enemy advancing upon our left, but it was too late. Our infantry had already commenced to fall back, and nothing being left to give confidence to the artillerymen, it was impossible to make them stand to their work. The brigade was rallied." Now, in truth, this statement, from a very high source, refutes the charge at every point.

Colonel Martin wrote me March 21, 1870, "General Porter himself leaving before you did."

Thus Porter's own admission, Generals Griffin, Blake, and Grier, and Captain Weeden all clearly agree in proving Porter's statement as to the time of the cavalry charge and repulse-so very important in connection with the other allegation as to its effects-was without foundation in fact; and these same eye-witnesses equally prove to be wholly untrue his main statement as to the disasters inflicted on the artillery by the repulsed troopers. Generals Merritt, Blake, and Grier, and Colonel Martin substantiating in fact the very reverse; as General Merritt writes of Porter's 4th July letter, "In fact, the very reverse of every statement made in the above-mentioned letter is true."

It is a pity that Porter's unique report should not be more read, and more carefully. It is a very uncommon production, and I fear that the casual average reader misses some very amusing reading. I am tempted to illustrate this, to collate some of the brilliant points. In his official report (Part II. vol. xi. p. 225) is found, "As if for a final effort the enemy massed his fresh regiments on the right and left and threw them with overpowering force upon our thinned and weary battalions,"

but "all appeared to be doing well, our troops withdrawing in order to the cover of the guns (!), and victory, so far as possession of the field was concerned, had already settled upon our banners." Here are defeat and victory in two consecutive paragraphs (very mixed of course).

Having thus snatched victory from Lee's and Jackson's innumerable hosts, his army is beaten by a repulsed fragment of the half of the Fifth United States Cavalry; "the artillery on the left were thrown into confusion by a charge of cavalry coming from the front. With no infantry to support, these and the other batteries limbered up and moved to the rear."

The infantry long gone, the artillery thus driven off by his own cavalry, he evidently admits, even proves, a bad defeat?

No indeed! In the next paragraph (p. 226) he proceeds," Thus was accomplished, with defeat and heavy loss to the enemy, the withdrawal of the right wing of the army in execution of the orders of the major-general commanding."

His Century article is much in the same vein, with pleasant variations; thus, p. 322: "The troops on the left and centre retired, some