of Major General Fitz John Porter, and to restore him to the positions of which that sentence deprived him-such restoration to take effect from the date of his dismissal from the service.

Very respectfully,

J. M. SCHOFIELD,

Major-General, U. S. Army.

ALFRED H. TERRY,

Brigadier-General U. S. Army.

GEO. W. GETTY,

Brevet Major-General, U. S. Army, Colonel Third Artillery.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, June 5, 1879.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith the "proceedings and report" of the Board of Officers, convened by Special Orders, Numbers 78, Headquarters of the Army, Washington, April 12, 1878, in the case of Fitz John Porter. The report of the board was made in March last, but the official record of the proceedings did not reach me until the 3rd instant.

I have given to this report such examination as satisfies me that I ought to lay the proceedings and conclusions of the board before Congress.

As I am without power in the absence of legislation to act upon the recommendation of the report further than by submitting the same to Congress, the proceedings and conclusions of the board are transmitted for the information of Congress, and such action as in you wisdom shall seem expedient and just.

R. B. HAYES.

CHESTER A. ARTHUR, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting:

Whereas on the tenth day of January, 1863, Fitz John Porter, then major-general of volunteers in the military service of he United States, and also colonel of the Fifteenth Regiment of Infantry and brevet brigadier-general in the United States Army, was, by a general court martial, for certain offenses of which he had been thereby convicted, sentenced "to be cashiered, and to be forever disqualified from holding any office of trust or profit under the Government of the United States;"

And whereas on the twenty-first day of January, 1863, that sentence was duly confirmed by the President of the United States and by his order of the same date carried into execution;

And whereas so much of that sentence as forever disqualified the said Fitz John Porter from holding office imposed upon him a continuing penalty and is still being executed;

And whereas doubts have since arisen concerning the guilt of the said Fitz John Porter of the offenses whereof he was convicted by the said court-martial, founded upon the result of an investigation ordered on the twelfth day of April, 1878, by the President of the United