that, after all,
he also was innocent and brave.

In my opinion, no government can be regarded as just to its army
unless it provides, under appropriate conditions, for the rehearing
of cases that may be tried by court-martial in time of war. Perhaps
it may most wisely be left for the President and Congress to
institute appropriate action in each individual case. That is a
matter for mature consideration. My only desire is to suggest the
necessity for some such action, whenever reasonable grounds for it
may be presented. I have no respect for the suggestions sometimes
urged that labor and expense are sufficient grounds for failure to
secure justice to every citizen or soldier of the republic, whether
at home or abroad.

SENATOR LOGAN'S EXPLANATION

Soon after General Logan's last election to the Senate, I had a
very interesting and unreserved conversation with him, at his house
in Chicago, in respect to his action in the Porter case. He spoke
of it with evident candor, acknowledged that his view of the case
was probably wrong, and as if to excuse his mistake, volunteered
an explanation as to how he came to take that view of it. He told
me that when he found that the case might probably come before
Congress, he wanted to prepare himself in advance as far as possible
to deal with it justly, and to defend the right effectively. Hence
he went to General Grant to obtain the best possible view of the
military questions involved. General Grant gave him the theory of
the military situation and of the operations of the opposing armies,
as well as that of Porter's own conduct, which had been presented
to, and evidently accepted by, the court-martial, as presenting
the true merits of the case. General Logan accepted that theory
as unquestionably correct, and bent all his energies to the
construction of unanswerable arguments in support of Porter's
condemnation.

At that time neither General Grant nor General Logan knew anything
of the new evidence which was afterward submitted to the board of
review. Logan's powerful arguments in the Senate were based upon
the preconceived idea of the case, supported by such part of the
new evidence, as well as of the old, as could be made to support
that view. In reply to my statement that he had unquestionably
been led astray, he said that that was quite probable, but that
Grant was responsible, and that it was then too late to cha