[437] make a personal explanation. Obtaining the consent, he first sent my letter to be read at the clerk's desk; then, answering it briefly, submitted fifteen formulated charges. Though he might possibly have been checked, as he was going farther than a “personal explanation” called for, yet my friends-and I had a great many on the floor of the House-insisted on my having an opportunity to answer, and so did not rest until Mr. Wood's charges, which were substantially those that had appeared in the Cincinnati Gazette, had been sent to the Committee on Education and Labor. Furnished with able counsel on both sides, Mr. Wood and I brought my case before this committee of Congress having a membership of ten in number. The Hon. Samuel M. Arnell, of Tennessee, was chairman. The committee met behind closed doors in a commodious room in the basement of the House side of the Capitol, nearly every day for three months, and had brought before them hundreds of witnesses, giving, as I much desired, every opportunity to the prosecutors to bring to light their accusations. The committee by a vote of 8 to 2 sustained me and closed a faithful review of the fifteen charges by these remarks:
The committee has thought it proper to deal, primarily, with the charges referred to them by the House. But it would be unjust to the gallant officer and faithful public servant who has so honorably passed the severe ordeal to which he has been subjected, daily, during the last three months, to close this report with a simple verdict of acquittal. No approximately correct history of civilization can ever be written which does not throw out in bold relief, as one of the great landmarks of political and
