dgery, the consummate skill as
a tactician, with which he labored night and day, at the camp near
Buffalo, to prepare his brigade for the career on which it was about
to enter. After a brief interval he again led that brigade to the
glorious victory of Bridgewater. He bears now upon his body the wounds
of that day. It had ever been the characteristic of this officer to
seek the post of danger--not to have it thrust upon him. In the years
preceding that to which I have specially referred--in 1812 and
1813--the eminent services he rendered were in the positions which
properly belonged to others, but into which he was led by
irrepressible ardor and jealousy of honor.

"Since the peace with Great Britain the talents of General Scott have
ever been at the command of his country. His pen and his sword have
alike been put in requisition to meet the varied exigencies of the
service. When the difficulties with the Western Indians swelled into
importance, General Scott was dispatched to the scene of hostility.
There rose up before him then, in the ravages of a frightful
pestilence, a form of danger infinitely more appalling than the perils
of the field. How he bore himself in this emergency, how faithfully he
became the nurse and the physician of those from whom terror and
loathing had driven all other aid, can not be forgotten by a just and
grateful country....

"Mr. Chairman, I believe that a signal atonement to General Scott will
one day be extorted from the justice of the House. We owe it to him;
but we owe it still more to the country. What officer can feel secure
in the face of that great example of triumphant injustice? Who can
place before himself the anticipation of establishing higher claims
upon the gratitude of the country than General Scott? Yet he was
sacrificed. His past services went for nothing. Sir, you may raise new
regiments and issue new commissions, but you can not without such
atonement restore the high moral tone which befits the depositories of
the national honor. I fondly wish that the highest and lowest in the
country's service might be taught to regard this House as the jealous
guardian of his rights, against caprice, or fanaticism, or outrage
from whatever quarter. I would have him know that in running up the
national flag at the very moment our daily labors commence, we do not
go through an idle form. On whatever distant service he may be
sent--whether urging his way amid tumbling icebergs toward t