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MAJOR ANDERSON.
Some journals have so far forgotten themselves as to censure Major Anderson for his removal from the defenseless work called Fort Moultrie to the strong fortification known as Fort Sumter. While chivalrous voices even in the Cotton States are loudly proclaiming thatthe gallant Kentuckian could not have acted otherwise than he has done, Governor Floyd, of Virginia, has carried his pique so far as to resign his post in the Cabinet in consequence of Major Anderson's proceeding.
We tender to President Buchanan our respectful sympathies on the loss he has sustained in the resignation of Governor Floyd. It is a bereavement which he will feel sensibly if, during the brief remainder of his administration, he should have occasion to sell or to buy new sites for military forts. Judging from the past, Governor Floyd's resignation will not diminish the safety of the property of the Government; though it may militate against the prospective profits of the contractors with the War Department. As we learn from the message which Governor Floyd condescended to transmit to Congress, the late Secretary of War was a man of such exuberant patriotism that he could not contemplate the attitude of an army contractor without, emotion, and was ready to issue his own acceptances rather than see the firm which supplied flour to the troops put to any temporary inconvenience. The loss of such a patriot can not but be viewed with anguish; still, this is a country of remarkable recuperative powers, and the ingratitude of republics is proverbial. Mr. Buchanan must nerve himself to the trial: we once lost the City of Washington, and recovered from it; may we not hope to survive the retirement of Floyd?
If Major Anderson, laden with the responsibility of holding the United States forts at Charleston, had remained at Fort Moultrie, which he could not defend, leaving Fort Sumter, which commanded it, to be seized any day by the Revolutionists, he would have proved himself a very poor soldier. By acting as he did he proved himself good soldier, and, in all human probability, be saved the lives of the seventy odd men under his command.
The journals which accuse him of double-dealing forget that he made no contract with any one save with the United States, and that contract was to hold the United States forts in the harbor of Charleston. That contract he has fulfilled. In forty-five minutes he can destroy Fort Moultrie; in forty-five weeks the South Carolinians can not take Fort Sumter.
The silly talkers who dare to couple his name with the word coward are men who dare not meet him face to face and impugn his conduct. He has proved his courage over and over again in Florida, under Taylor in Mexico, and again under Scott in the same country. Southern army officers unanimously concede that the United States has produced no more gallant soldier than Major Robert Anderson. It is to be hoped that he may not have to add to the long list of his gallant exploits a successful defense of Fort Sumter with an insufficient force against an overwhelming body of insurgents. Still, if he be attacked, it will be better to be with him than against him.
