that the President of the Unites States could have been in any way, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, instrumental on that day in instilling into the mind of General Pope, or into any other mind, the venom with which these charges reek. In refutation of any such foul column, I point triumphantly to the fact that on the 5th of September I was, under the direction and by the authority of the President of the United States, invested with the command of 18,000 men, to guard a portion of the defense of Washington. In the same view, and for the same purpose, I point triumphantly to the further fact that, after acting in that high and honorable post to the 12th September, I proceeded, under the same authority and direction, to share in the labor and peril and to rejoice in the glory of that noble army which drove the massed rebel force out of Maryland, in the hard fights of South Mountain and Antietam, and that in that army I held the command of my former corps, augmented by a new division. Did all this indicate that I was looked upon on the 4th of September, as this testimony would seem to indicate, by that highest authority, as a man guilty, or capable of being guilty, of the offenses now charged upon me? In the same view, I point to the telegram which I received from General McClellan, and which is upon the record of this court, in evidence, with an explanation by General McClellan, indicating an apprehension in the mind of the President, on the 3rd of September last, that there might be some unkind feeling between the two armies then in Virginia. That telegram, when I received it, I did not fully understand as a message addressed to me; but now I know, by General McClellan's testimony, that I was selected and trusted by the President as the proper officer of the Army of the Potomac through whom General McClellan's great personal influence with that army might operate effectually to remove any such unkindness, if any should unhappily be found to exist. In view of these facts, I exhort General Pope to find some other and better explanation for his so suddenly distemperoid mind than he has in his testimony above cited given, or than his subordinate officer, my accuser on this record, has been able in this trial to prove.

I come now to say a few words of the testimony of General McDowell. I shall speak of him as a witness with entire calmness and candor, because, though I speak with regret, I shall speak with no disrespect. His testimony, taken as whole, has astonished me beyond measure. I feel that it h as done me more harm and more wrong - I charitably hope unintentional wrong - than has been done to me all the rest of the testimony of the prosecution put together. In saying this, I of course, lay wholly out of view that I cannot but consider as the ravings of Lieutenant-Colonel Smith - I believe he is lieutenant-colonel - about his fifteen minutes first and last interview with me on the morning of the 28th at Manassas, when he thinks that he saw in my face that I had a crime on my mind, and comes up here to encumber the record of this honorable court with that and similar rubbish about my being a traitor, because, forsooth, I thought it would hurt General Pope if he left his wounded behind, and because I seemed indifferent about getting ammunition, which he knew at the very time that I had just made a requisition for (although he didn't know what this court know and what the record shows), that I had just sent out two of my officers to look after it, and because he thought it was a monstrous thing that I should have intimated the possibility of the army falling back toward Alexandria, and that it might, perchance, find the ammunition there, in case that the wagons laden with it should have gotten so far our of their way, and finally, because I seemed to him to have a sneering though perfectly courteous