Note 57 — Chapter XXVI · Mr. Holt Reports Upon the Case of C. C. Clay, Jr.

For months Mr. Holt’s Report was steadily refused to the public. Referring to this secretive conduct, in July, 1866, A. J. Rogers said, in the House of Representatives, “Secrecy has surrounded and shrouded, not to say protected, every step of these examinations. In the words of the late Attorney-General, ‘Most of the evidence upon which they [the charges] are based was obtained ex parte, without notice to the accused, and whilst they were in custody in military prisons. Their publication might wrong the Government.’ ...” The Secretary of War, February 7, 1866, writes to the President that the publication of the Report of the Judge Advocate General is incompatible with the public interests. “This report,” continues Mr. Rogers, “in the testimony it quotes, will show that the interests of the country would never have suffered by the dispensing with illegal secrecy, but that the interests and fame of the Judge Advocate General himself would suffer in the eyes of all the truth-loving and justice-seeking people on earth.” A. S.