Vindication of Judge Advocate General Holt

Download or read book Vindication of Judge Advocate General Holt written by and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Vindication of Judge Advocate General Holt: From the Foul Slanders of Traitors, Their Aiders, Abettors, and Sympathizers, Acting in the Interest of Jefferson Davis When the minority report of Rogers upon the examination made by the Judiciary Committee into the testimony alleged to implicate Davis in the assassination of Prisident Lincoln was published, it was so shameless in its perversions and falsehoods and so malignantly slanderous in this tone that, in common with the loyal press of the country, we treated the paper with the silence and contempt which it so well deserved. It was felt that neither public justice nor the reputation of long-tried and faithful officers of the Government could suffer from utterances so foul, made in the interest of the rebellion, and under the inspiration of the relentless hate which traitors everywhere bear toward all loyal and true men. The imputation upon the integrity of the Military Justice was not indeed distinctly and broadly affirmed in this report, though it was again and again covertly insinuated. Encouraged, however, by the silence of the press and of Judge Holt, this imputation has now audaciously assumed a phases so entirely novel and decided as to make it due to public opinion that some notice should be taken of it. It is clear that a conspiracy has been formed to defame the Judge Advocate General and the Bureau of Military Justice, and to invoke upon him and the testimony which has been discredited such a measures of popular condemnation as, it is hoped, will give some support to the movement now so vigorously pressed for the release of Davis. At the bottom of this conspiracy, or actively in executing its purposes, is Sanford Conover, who, after having been fully proved guilty of subornation of perjury, has unquestionably sold himself to the friends of Davis, and is seeking with them to destroy the reputation of a public officer whose confidence he gained, as we shall hereafter see, by the most solemn protestation, and which confidence he afterward most treacherously abused. The new feature in the operation attention consists in the manufacture of various notes containing calumniatory allusions, with dates and averments, and insinuation to suit, which purport to have passed between Conover and his suborned witnesses; and that Conover is directly engaged in this guilty work is proved by the publication, in connection with these notes, of letters addressed to himself by the Judge Advocate General, and which could only have left his possession to be distorted and used, as they have been, in furtherance of this conspiracy. We have now before us the Spring field Republican of August 14, the New York Herald of August 24, and the National Intelligencer of the same date, in which the notes referred to appear. These are one signed "M.," which bears date April 17, 1866, and is addressed to Conover; one signed "William Campbell," and addressed to Conover dated "St. Albans, Vt., Nov. 19, 1865;" one by the same without date; one signed "Carter," addressed to Conover, and dated "Quartermaster's Office, April 27, 1866;" one signed "Joseph Snevil," addressed to Conover, under date of "Westehester House, Nov. 14, 1865;" one signed "S. Conover," addressed to Patten, under date of Ephrata Mountain House, June 8 1866," There are also two brief letters from the Judge Advocate General to Conover, the one dated March 17, 1866, and the other April 26, 1866. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com