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 circumstances such a censure would not be considered just, what must be your opinion of the censure in Genl. Hooker’s report ?

Although the parallels are striking, I will confess that the circumstances described are only made up for the sake of argument, in so far as I do not know that Genl. Halleck in the first, or Genl. Thomas in the second case, gave any direct orders to Corps Commanders.

Before closing I deem it my duty to call your attention to one feature of this business, which has an important bearing, not only upon my interests, but upon yours and upon those of every subordinate commander in the Army. We are bound by the iron chains of military discipline. The superior has it in his power to do all manner of things which may work serious injury to the honor and reputation of the subordinate, and which the latter is but seldom at liberty to disprove, and almost never able to resent. The greater in this respect the power of the superior, the more is he in honor and conscience bound to use his power with the utmost care and discrimination; for the honor and reputation of every subordinate officer is a sacred trust in the hands of the superior commander.

The most formidable weapon in the hands of the latter is his official report of campaigns and actions. It is universally received as documentary history, as the purest fountain, from which the future historian can take his most reliable information. Praise and censure conveyed in such a report are generally looked upon as based upon irrefutable evidence, and they ought to be. Every conscientious commander will therefore consider it a sacred duty before making an official statement affecting the honor and reputation of a subordinate, to scrutinize with scrupulous care the least incident connected with the case, and when at last, after weighing every circumstance, he has arrived at the conclusion that his duty commands him to pronounce a censure, he will weigh every word he says, so as to be perfectly sure that he does not say a word too much. For it must be considered, that public opinion is generally swayed by first impressions, and an injury once done can but rarely be repaired by a subsequent modification of language.

And now I invite you to apply this criterion, which certainly is a just one, to the report of Gen. Hooker. That this report is severe in its reflections on a body of troops, nobody will deny. By solemnly excepting them in a general commendation of courage and valor, it stigmatizes them as destitute of the first qualities which the soldier is proud of. That the report is a just one, who will, after this investigation, assert?

I am far from saying that Geo. Hooker knowingly and wilfully reported what was false; his position ought to exempt him from the suspicion of such an act. I have not entertained that suspicion for a moment. But what