Hancock toward the unfortunate mother and daughter on the morning of the execution. The following are extracts from his sworn statement : "On our way from the White House to the Arsenal I noticed mounted soldiers at intervals along the route." These were the couriers stationed by order of General Hancock to convey to him any notice of reprieve from the President. At the Arsenal gate, he accompanied Anna Surratt to bid her mother farewell, met General Hancock, who spoke to Anna, and, in a voice of subdued sadness told her that he feared there was no hope of Executive clemency. He informed Mr. Brophy that he had, however, stationed mounted men all along the line to the White House, for the purpose of hastening the tidings should the President at the last moment relent and grant a reprieve for Mrs. Surratt. He also stated to Mr. Brophy that, should a reprieve be granted by the President, it might be directed to him as Commandant of the Department, and he would be at the Arsenal till the last moment to give effect to the same should it arrive.

Mr. Brophy further states that he is "impelled by a sense of duty to add his testimony to other in vindication of one who has been most unjustly assailed for alleged misconduct of which no brave man could possibly be guilty. That he is not a politician, but loves justice and feels that he has done an act of simple justice to as knightly a warrior as ever 'saluted with his spotless sword the sacred majesty of the law.'"

And now, my dear sir, I believe I have covered all the points of your inquiry in as brief and candid a manner as the importance and gravity of the subject demanded.

GENERAL HANCOCK NOT RESPONSIBLE.

There are many facts connected with the trial and execution which I have omitted as not within the scope of our inquiry. This much, however, is fully established-that General Hancock was in no wise responsible for the organization of the military commission that condemned Mrs. Surratt to death; that her trial and execution rested entirely on the will and determination of the President and his constitutional advisers, and that General Hancock in all matters pertaining to the same had no discretion or responsibility whatsoever, nor could he, from his official position, have influenced or controlled them in the slightest de

gree. He never attended the sessions of the commission, but was busily engaged in the diversified and extensive cares of the military command which required his entire time and attention. As I attended the commission every day of the trial I know that he was never seen about the rooms of the commission. General Hartranft attended on the commission daily, and this he did as special provost marshal, so as to be under the immediate direction of the President and Secretary of War, instead of the military commandant of the post.

DICTATES OF PARTY.

The trial and execution

In conclusion permit a single reflection. spoken of were demanded at the time by the whole Republican party. The intensity of the public feeling and the infuriated demand for the execution of the condemned parties cannot now be realized, and President Johnson, Secretary Stanton and Judge Advocate General Holt, who had the entire control of the matter, were acting under the dictates of that political party and simply carrying out its imperative demands., How humiliating to the intellect of the country the reflection that the same political party that had the entire responsibility for the atrocious murder of that innocent woman should now, for mere political effect, attempt falsely and most wrongfully to injure a brave soldier, who so often perilled his life to save the Union, by charging upon him misconduct for having in some way participated in that act which that whole party demanded and approved at the time!

Respectfully yours,

JOHN W. CLAMPITT.

THE

CHAPTER XII.

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

HE nomination of Gen. Hancock at the Cincinnati Convention on the 23d of June, 1880, was spontaneous, if not unexpected. It was in no one sense the result of organization. It had no established bureau, literary or financial. It came from two States, widely separated, from Vermont in the far East, and South Carolina in the far South. It is therefore the double harbinger of Union. It is the union of sentiment and sections. It is the union of Federal and Confederate, of the veteran that fought for and the veteran that fought against the old flag. It is the union of an ultra-Republican with an ultra-Democratic community.

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, on the 26th of January, 1830, in the Senate of the United States, in his reply to Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, used these celebrated words, which apply with singular fidelity to the two commonwealths that started for Hancock. Paraphrase this splen