Colonel Robert Selden Garnett to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, November 5, 1853

WEST POINT, NEW YORK, November 5th, 1853.

MY DEAR COUSIN: Before Congress meets and you become pressed with business incident thereto, I wish to mention a matter to you in which it may fall within your power to be of some service to the Army. I allude to the organization of the Committee on Military Affairs in the Senate. The point is to have any man in the Senate placed at its head in preference to General Shields.¹ As long as he continues at its head the Army can expect nothing at the hands of Congress. We are abundantly satisfied of Gen [era]l Shield's friendly intentions towards us. But he appears to have no weight or consideration in the Senate, and is disposed to be led about by the staff and other idle officers about Washington City. The wild and conflicting schemes which he proposed in rapid succession during the last two sessions of Congress fully show this. A little knowledge is said to be a dangerous thing, and Gen[era]1 Shield's military knowledge and experience is precisely of this sort. It can be well spared. Under his auspices two of the most unequal and unjust laws that Congress has ever enacted with regard to the Army, were passed, and we have no desire to have any more of the General's Military experience. We have nobody to urge as his Substitute, the best men being already at the head of more important Committees. All we ask is to get rid of Gen[era]l Shields and ditto of Weller.²

I trust that you have not relinquished all hope of establishing a Board of Accounts. I have had some experience in a small way in this matter, and I am fully satisfied of the inadequacy of the present system of adjusting Accounts with the Gov[ernmen]t, or rather of not adjusting them for half of them never will be settled. My best regards to all at Fort Hill.

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¹ James Shields, a Senator in Congress from Illinois, 1849-1855; from Minnesota, 1858-1859; from Missouri, Jan. 24, 1879, to Mar. 3, 1879.

² John B. Weller, a Senator in Congress from California, 1852-1857; governor of California, 1858-1860; minister to Mexico, 1860-1861.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 157