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 excuse is there for his error? There are two things which every conscientious man will be careful to guard against; the first is, saying anything to the prejudice of another, which he knows to be false; and the other is, saying anything to the prejudice of another, which he does not positively know to be true.

And did Gen. Hooker positively know his report to be true and just? He could not know to be just what is proved to be unjust? But would it have been impossible to ascertain the truth? I lived within five minutes' walk of his head-quarters. My Brigade Commanders were all within call. I saw him almost every day, and a single question would have elicited a satisfactory explanation. The question was not asked. Five minutes' conversation with his own Aides, Capt. Hill and Lieut. Oliver, would have removed the error. Was the error so dear to him, that he shielded it with silence against the truth? But to me it is a mystery how that error could stand against the force of his own recollections. Were they, too, shut out, when that paragraph was penned? They would, indeed, have ill comported with the sensational dash with which the diction of the censure is flavored.

You will admit that this is not the way in which a should be declared destitute of courage and valor—troops belonging to a Division which on three battle-fields lost far more killed and wounded than it counted men, when I was put in command, and than it counts men to-day; and that this is not the way to treat an officer, not one of whose subordinates will say that, when he was in a place of danger, his General was not with him. This is a levity which would not be admissible in the ordinary walks of life—much less in the military world, where every question of honor is weighed with scrupulous nicety.

When looking at this most strange transaction, every impartial observer will ask himself, “What can have been the motive of this?” If the battle had been lost, we might have found the motive in the desire of the Commander to throw the responsibility upon some subordinate whom he might select as the unfortunate victim of his embarrassments. This indeed would not be noble, nor even excusable, yet we can find the springs of such acts among the ordinary weaknesses of human nature. But we were victorious; the results of the action were uncommonly gratifying. And that Gen. Hooker should then sit down, and coolly endeavor to consign a fellow-soldier, and part of his command, to shame, and affectingly ornament the scene with the fanciful pyrotechnics of a terrific infantry fire flaming around imperiled companions—for that I seek the motive in vain. Every candid mind will admit that such an act, on such an occasion, can have been called forth by one of two things only—either the grossest misconduct