THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
the same desire suggested itself again, and it would probably have been accomplished, had I insisted. But upon sober consideration I rejected it. The matter became the subject of some correspondence, in which I declared that, however welcome such a transfer upon other conditions might have been, I could not consent to it now, for it might be regarded as a voluntary confession on my part that the outrageous slanders circulated about us were founded on fact, and that I accepted for my men the responsibility for the disaster. I asked, and would continue to ask, for one of two things: either the publication of my report, or a court of inquiry, so that the truth might come to light. Under then existing circumstances, I was satisfied with my command as it was and where it was, and I held it to be my duty to myself and to my men to stand with them right there until the cloud hanging over us be lifted.
The one way most surely and most quickly to restore the morale of the Eleventh Corps would have been to give it another commander whom the men could trust and respect. But that might have destroyed the myth that the “misconduct” of the soldiers of the Eleventh Corps was wholly accountable for the failure at Chancellorsville; and that the ruling influences would not permit.
The mist hanging over the Eleventh Corps and the events of the 2d of May, 1863, has at last been dissipated by historical criticism—not as soon as we had hoped, but thoroughly. The best military writers—notably Colonel Theodore A. Dodge of the United States Army—have, after arduous and conscientious study, conclusively shown, not only that the Chancellorsville defeat was not owing to the discomfiture of the Eleventh Corps, but that the conduct of the Eleventh Corps was as good as could be expected of any body of troops under the circumstances. The most forcible vindication of the corps,
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