Court-martial of Fitz John Porter - Porter Attempts To Clear His Name

Porter Attempts To Clear His Name

The conviction, rather than ending the controversy, served only to extend it. Coupled with the disastrous loss at Fredericksburg, the near mutiny of Burnside's officers after the Mud March, and the resurgence of the Democratic Party, which was increasingly calling for negotiated settlement, the trial severely unsettled the public perception of competence in the army and administration. The New York Times even went so far as to question the loyalty-inspiring capabilities of West Point as an institute, though it took the conviction as proof that the vast majority of West Pointers were loyal, unlike Porter.

Porter immediately set about attempting to overturn the conviction. He set about extensively surveying and mapping the battleground to develop a comprehensive map of every tree, bush, and hill in the vicinity of his corps. Then he began meticulously transcribing testimony of anyone he could get to cooperate in order to record exact positions during the battle. With the help of his friends, especially the increasingly powerful McClellan, he began petitioning famous figures to write letters on his behalf. They also used their influence to try to get state and local lawmakers to pass resolutions condemning the U.S. government for dismissing Porter.

He also tried to draw attention to the make-up of the court and argued that a Republican administration had fixed a court to rule against him in order to protect its own interests. Not long after he had testified as an administration witness against Porter, McDowell's court of inquiry exonerated him of wrongdoing at the Second Battle of Bull Run and recommended he be returned to command. Several of the other officers on the court received promotions shortly after the trial.

But Porter's actions were met with furious counter-actions. Stanton repeatedly blocked any attempt by the government to re-investigate the matter and saw to it that officers who spoke out in support of Porter were punished. In the Republican press especially, Porter was savaged as a traitor who had escaped the punishment he had deserved. The New York Times opined that not only was Porter's crusade to overturn his conviction immoral in that it encouraged dissent in the ranks, but that the general himself ought to have been executed.

When the war ended, Porter wrote to both Lee and Longstreet asking for their assistance in the matter and also petitioned to be allowed access to captured papers of the Confederacy. Both Lee and Longstreet replied, Longstreet in great detail, and Porter used the evidence to garner supporters to send petitions to President Andrew Johnson asking for a new trial. Resolutions demanding his case be reopened and equally fierce denunciations of those resolution had swirled on the local and national level, barely slowed since January 1863, but Porter supporters – now including such famous generals as Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and George H. Thomas, which contributed greatly to their rapid decline in popularity with their own party – were finally gaining enough headway to reexamine the issue.

However, the President had no power to hold a new trial and, despite his support for Porter, during Grant's term he was unwilling to revisit the decision in any fashion, perhaps to appease Republican supporters. Finally, in 1878, President Rutherford B. Hayes commissioned a board under Major General John Schofield, who had briefly replaced Stanton as Secretary of War after Johnson forced him out, to investigate.