POPE
ALLEGES THAT U. S. GRANT’S SUPPORT FOR FITZ-JOHN PORTER,
WHO WAS COURT-MARTIALED DURING THE CIVIL WAR BASED ON POPE’S CHARGES,
“WAS A WALL ST. CONVERSION & WHILST NOT QUITE SO SUDDEN AS
ST. PAUL’S,
WAS FOLLOWED BY THE SAME BLINDNESS....
‘THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL IS MONEY’ AND THE PURSUIT OF IT WITH
TOO MUCH EAGERNESS
TENDS TO STRANGE & DEPLORABLE RESULTS”
JOHN
POPE. Autograph
Letter Signed to General J. C. Smith, St. Louis [MO], 5 October 1887.
3 pages, 8" x 5".
An extraordinary
letter from John Pope, the Union general who had been in command at
the second battle of Bull Run. He writes about the views of Ulysses
S. Grant on the court-martial of General Fitz-John Porter for disobeying
orders during that battle; Pope had lodged the charges against Porter,
blaming him for the Union’s disastrous loss. After being found
guilty, Porter fought for years to have the judgment overturned. In
1879, he was exonerated by a board headed by General John Schofield,
and in 1886, after more controversy, as his case had become a political
issue, Porter was finally reinstated in the army.
At the
date of this letter, Pope had recently retired from the army. U. S.
Grant had died in July 1885, his last years marked by bankruptcy and
illness.
“Having
in mind our conversation when you were here last week I enclose you
some correspondence [not present] which will no doubt surprise
you,” Pope declares. “In Genl Grants last letter
to Porter not long before Grant was taken sick, he (Grant) stated that
he had never examined Porters case, being engaged elsewhere, & that
his opinion of the case was based on something I had written to him.
Nothing could well be farther from the truth as the enclosed letters
positively prove.
“I
need say nothing of Genl. Grants conversion to Porters cause,”
Pope continues. “It was a Wall St. conversion & whilst
not quite so sudden as St. Paul’s, was followed by the same blindness
which Grant did not have long enough to recover from. At all events
the reasons he gives for changing his mind on that subject, have no
existence & never had. The ‘statement’ of Porter which
Grant refers to, was precisely that he presented to the Schofield Board.
‘The root of all evil is Money’ and the pursuit of it with
too much eagerness tends to strange & deplorable results.”
Pope concludes with the note that the “President has come
& gone & we are still alive to tell the story – I shall
not undertake it however as it would interest you no more to hear it,
than me to tell it.” Grover Cleveland was President at this
date.
The letter
has a few traces of prior mounting, but is basically in very good condition.
$1500.00
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