The Buchanan County Guardian

Removal of Fremont

The removal of General Fremont from his command of the Western army has struck a chill to the patriotic heart of the Northwest. In our own vicinity it has been received with the deepest indignation, and condemned as not only untimely and injudicious, but as a most apparent and unjustifiable act of persecution. Unless there is better grounds for removing Gen. Fremont than those given by FRANK BLAIR and Gen. THOMAS, it will be very hard to satisfy the people of the Northwest that the act was one prompted by the best interests of the national cause. And why, unless these charges are all, do we not hear of others? We have a right to believe, that when men so evidently prejudiced, so evidently acting through personal feeling, have attempted a specification of charges against another, that they have detailed the worst of which he can be accused. And the people cannot but believe, that if there was anything more culpable in the course of Gen. Fremont than that which Messrs. BLAIR and THOMAS have given to the public, they would have sought it out and published it with their respective statements. They feel, therefore, that they have a right to look upon these charges as the sole excuse for his removal, and they fully believe that the causes assigned are in many instances frivolous the charges mostly unjust, and the whole movement contemptible and scandalous.

Gen. THOMAS's statements, in some instances, offset themselves, when, for instance, as in one place, he charges Gen. Fremont with purchasing an unnecessary number of mules, and then blames him for taking the field without proper means of transportation. His statements as to the quality of the arms purchased by Gen. FREMONT are also fully disproven, and a specification about some blankets, upon which he lays great stress, has been explained to everybody's entire satisfaction by Quartermaster Davis, who made the purchase in his official capacity, and proved the blankets worth all they cost, and Gen. FREMONT not at all responsible. As to the defeat of Lyon and MULLIGAN, the people are conversant with the facts, and have long since exonerated FREMONT, or at least have held him no more responsible than other Generals for reverses. And as to the charge of incapacity, freely made against him by both THOMAS and BLAIR, they look in vain for such evidences of energy displayed in any other military department of the army, as has been displayed in Missouri. Gen. THOMAS lays much stress upon what he calls the "reluctant opinion" of Gen. Hunter that FREMONT is incompetent for his extensive command. And yet the Chicago Journal says that the fact is notorious that Gen. HUNTER, while in Chicago, before he went to Missouri, and before he knew anything of Gen. FREMONT's operations, sneered at the Pathfinder's military ability. The real gist of the matter seems to be that Gen. Fremont has been crushed between the aspirations of ambitious politicians, and the jealousy of our army aristocracy, which claims a monopoly of leadership in this contest.

The confidence, the love, the enthusiasm, which Gen. FREMONT has excited in his troops, proved him possessed of one of the first requisites of leadership. That enthusiasm was worth everything to the army and to the cause. It would have carried the army over difficulties which it would otherwise shrink from, and would have given it victory where victory was at all possible. That enthusiasm the enemies of FREMONT have quenched, and have thereby added thousands to the force of the enemy. They have likewise struck a great blow at the confidence of the people in the integrity and judgment of their rulers, which will be severely felt, we fear, in future enlistments.

A nobler, a more elevated patriotism than that manifested by FREMONT in laying down his command, cannot anywhere be produced. Mercilessly abused and hounded as he had been, by his enemies, and on the very eve of accomplishing the object for which he had so desperately striven—a conflict with the enemy—with an army whose affection for him gave him almost unlimited power over it, he yet cheerfully, uncomplainingly, bows to what he feels to be the greatest injustice, obeys the order of supercedure without a murmur, and soothes his men to duty by asking them to continue as they had begun, to give to his successor the same cordial support they had given to him, whereby he might remain, as then, proud of them. He has been at least great in delivering up his command, even though he may not have been so in conducting it. The country will yet reward his patriotism and integrity.