s of a West Point clique, and of West Point
engineers,--not _very much_ with their hearts in the people's cause;
9th, that that clique of West Point engineers from McClellan down to
Halleck prevents any truly higher military capacity getting a free
untrammelled scope, (General Halleck with all his might opposes giving
the command of the army to Hooker,) and this Halleck, an engineer from
West Point, who never saw a cartridge burnt or a file of soldiers
fighting, to-day decides the military fate of our country on the
authority of a book said to be on military science, but if such a book
had been written by any officer in the armies of France, Prussia or
Russia, the ignorant author would have had the friendly advice from
his superiors to resign and select some pursuit in life more congenial
to his intellectual capacities; further, this Halleck complains in
following words: "that they (the Administration) made him leave a
profitable business in San Francisco, and pay him only 5,000 dollars
to fight THEIR (not his) battles." So much for a Halleck. 10th. That
the West Point clique of engineers, the McClellans, the Hallecks, the
Franklins, etc., have brought the country to the verge of the grave,
as stated by Senator Lane.

Such were the facts established by the patriotic and not
would-be-wise Senators; and there is an illustration recorded in
history as proof that the above not engineering Senators were right
in their assertions. Frederick II. was in no military school; the
captains second to Napoleon in the French wars were Hoche, Moreau,
and Massena, all of them from private life.

--The clique of engineers has the Potomac Army altogether in its
grasp, and has reduced and perverted the spirit of the noble
children of the people. Oh, the sooner this army shall be torn from
the hands of the clique the nearer and surer will be the salvation
of the country.

The clique accuses the volunteers; but the clique, the engineers in
power have disorganized, morally and materially, and disgraced the
Army of the Potomac. They did this from the day of the encampments
around Washington, in the fall of 1861, down to the day of
Fredericksburgh. Fredericksburgh was altogether prepared by
engineers; at Fredericksburgh the engineer Franklin did not even
mount his horse when his soldiers were misled and miscommanded--by
himself.

--Stragglers are generated by generals. Besides, to explain
straggling, I quote from a _genuine_ book on genui