Excerpt from A Brave Soldier, a True Patriot, a Noble Man, Defended Against Partisan Malice: Reply of Hon. Reverdy Johnson to the Paper Which Judge-Advocate Holt Furnished to the President, Urging General Porter's Condemnation The President, then, could not but have paused before approving such a sentence, and asked himself how it was possible that Porter, the idol of his men, the boast of the army, the pride of his chief, and the recipient of honors which, from a sense of public justice and gratitude, he had corr ferred upon him for distinguished and valuable services rendered his country in a most perilous crisis, should all at once have been so recreant to his past patriotism, so forgetful of his then well-earned and universally acknowledged fame, as to have committed acts almost before the ink was dry upon the parchments containing his commissions, and whilst the public heart was so gladdened by his deeds of skill and daring, as to demand, in the judgment of a Court composed of brother officers, that he be cashiered, and forever disqualified from holding any office of trust or profit under the Government of the United States. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.