Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/131

 who bear no responsibility in this matter and have always executed orders with promptness and spirit.” I then asked, “respectfully and earnestly,” that General Hooker properly exonerate Colonel Hecker and his brigade from the accusation cast upon them, or that a court of inquiry be granted to probe the matter to the bottom. Thus I made the cause of my subordinates my own, fully resolved to expose the calumny and calumniator and not to spare him.

The court of inquiry was granted, but with ill grace. In the first place it was ordered to include in its investigation all the operations connected with the fight at Wauhatchie, which would have required the collection of great masses of testimony obscuring the real issue and consuming endless time. I remonstrated, and the order was satisfactorily changed. But in the second place the composition of the court might have been resented as an indignity to me. Among its members there was not a single officer of my rank, and all of them belonged to General Hooker's command. But this I permitted to pass without any protest, relying upon the justice of my cause. As I expected, the testimony of the many witnesses called demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt or cavil the absolute truthfulness of the story as I have told it above: That General Hooker had ordered me to march my command to the relief of Geary; that I started at the head of Tyndale's brigade to execute this order, having directed my other two brigades to follow me; that then, being attacked near his camp, General Hooker disposed by later orders of these two brigades for other purposes; that he ordered me to take and occupy a gap in the hills with the only brigade, Tyndale's, left me; that Colonel Hecker finally sent off to Geary, had acted strictly according to General Hooker's and my personal directions; that Hecker could not by any possibility have reached Geary before the end