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LIFE 
 
 
 BENJAMIN F. BUTLER 
 
 BY 
 
 T. A. BLAND, M.D, 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 
 
 1879. 
 
E^^^ 
 
 .3«' 
 
 1 
 
 Copyright, 1879, 
 By T. a. bland, 
 
 AU rights reserved. 
 
TO 
 
 THE FRIENDS 
 
 OF 
 
 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, AND JUSTICE, 
 
 WHEREVER FOUND, 
 
 Cfjis i3ooft is Smccreig CnscribcK, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY is the meat and marrow of history, EHmi- 
 nate personality from the chronicles of a nation, and 
 they would disappear from active society. 
 
 What to us were a history of Greece, without a record of 
 the lives of Socrates, of Pericles, and Xenophon ; of Rome, 
 without Caesar, Cicero, and Seneca; of England, without 
 Shakspeare, Cromwell, and Newton ; or of America, without 
 Washington, Franklin, Lincoln, and other immortal spirits 
 whose courage and wisdom laid the foundations of this 
 grand Repubhc, and whose statesmanship and patriotism 
 have preserved it ? 
 
 The virtues are but glittering generalities, beautiful abstrac- 
 tions, not active forces, until incarnated in human form. 
 Men endowed with intelligence, patriotism, integrity, philan- 
 thropy, courage, in large measure, are by that fact ordained 
 representatives of grand ideas, accepted leaders of their fel- 
 lows ; and when the times are right for a bold forward march 
 in the never-ending campaign of progress, ' or a vigorous 
 assault upon the ever-existing strongholds of injustice and 
 oppression, the masses find their leaders, and follow them to 
 victory. 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Now it is Leonidas, at the pass of Thermopylse, holding 
 back the myriad hosts of Persia, through the patriotic cour- 
 age of three hundred men, who recognize him as the em- 
 bodied hope of Spartan Hberty. Again it is Tell, defying the 
 arrogance of Gessler, in the name of the freedom-loving sons 
 of Switzerland. Anon it is Cromwell, leading the Puritan 
 armies to the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty in the name of 
 justice and religion. Then it is Washington, marshalling the 
 patriot hosts of America against the hired minions of George 
 the Third. These men were the chosen executors of the will 
 of God, the instruments by which he delivered his people 
 from bondage. 
 
 The foes of liberty, justice, and equality; the Tory element 
 in American society ; the men who believe in the aristocracy 
 of wealth, and the right of the rich to rule and rob the poor ; 
 those who hold that moneyed men and rich corporations 
 should control the finances of the country, and that all legis- 
 lation upon this important subject ought to be dictated by 
 bankers and brokers, — these, taking advantage of the honest 
 and unsuspecting people, while they were setthng the ques- 
 tion of negro-slavery by the sword, intrenched themselves 
 in the strongholds of the Government. They bribed the 
 venal and deceived the ignorant public men, to such an ex- 
 tent, that Congress, the Supreme Court, and the President 
 became their slaves. They have ordained the platforms of 
 both the Republican and Democratic parties for the past 
 fifteen years, and dictated the policy of each succeeding ad- 
 ministration. Under their selfish manipulation, the govern- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 ment has been practically subverted, and justice, the parent 
 of liberty, is no longer a guide to the nation. The produ- 
 cing and enterprising classes are taxed to support a privileged 
 class of untaxed, non-producing capitalists, as well as to sus- 
 tain a large standing army whose chief excuse for existence 
 is that it may protect the grasping and arrogant few against 
 the possible vengeance of a plundered and oppressed people. 
 And, while thus heavily burdened, our property is depre- 
 ciated, and our debts correspondingly increased, by the 
 deliberate action of Congress, and the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, through the contraction of the currency. The men of 
 enterprise are thus bankrupted, the wage-laborers brought to 
 the verge of famine, and the farmers are rapidly sinking from 
 the comfortable state of independent yeomen, to that of 
 tenants at will. 
 
 The groans of the oppressed fill the air ; the prayers of 
 the poor ascend to Heaven ; and the demand for justice is 
 taking shape in the form of a new party of the people. 
 Among the representatives of this new party, Gen. Benjamin 
 F. Butler stands out as the great leader, — the man who, of 
 all men in this country, combines the qualities of a leader 
 such as is demanded by the exigencies of the times ; a large 
 brain, untiring energy, unswerving integrity, indomitable will, 
 dauntless courage, independence of character : a man of 
 intellectual power and executive force ; a man who has con- 
 victions, and dares maintain them ; a man who can be held 
 to the support of a party only so long as it represents the 
 principles which won his allegiance ; a man who prefers 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 defeat in the right, to success in the wTong ; a man whose 
 personal, pohtical, and mihtary record invites criticism, and 
 defies slander, and whose personal popularity is such as to 
 make his name a tower of strength among the honest masses. 
 It is such a man whose brilliant yet unfinished career is 
 briefly sketched in this volume. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ancestry, Birthplace, and Boyhood 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 His Career as a Lawyer ' 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Gen. Butler's Political Record before the War . . 18 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Gen. Butler's Record as a Soldier 36 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Capture of Baltimore 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Gen. Butler is promoted to Major-General, and put in 
 
 Command of Fortress Monroe 49 
 
 CPIAPTER VII. 
 The Capture of New Orleans 67 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Gen. Butler's Career in New Orleans .... 72 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Gen. Butler gives Employment to the Poor, thus pre- 
 venting both Famine and Pestilence .... 86 
 
O CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Gen. Butler and the Secessionist Women of New Or- 
 
 leans 
 
 PAGE 
 
 96 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 The Execution by Hanging of W. B. Mumford . lor 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 Gen. Butler in the Role of a Diplomat. — He proves 
 
 MORE THAN A MaTCH FOR THE FOREIGN CONSULS . . I05 
 
 CHAPTER XIH. 
 Gen. Butler makes an Effort to restore Confidence 
 
 AND Prosperity throughout the State . . .no 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Taking the Oath of Allegiance. — The People of New 
 Orleans required to define their Position. — More 
 Trouble with the Consuls, etc 125 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Gen. Butler dealing with the Negro-Question. — Gen. 
 Phelps thinks him an old Hunker on the Subject, 
 AND resigns. — President Lincoln's Private Orders 
 to Gexn. Butler, the Secret of his Policy, etc. . 131 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 Gen. Butler takes Command of the Army of the James. 
 
 — His Career before Richmond 144 
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 Gen. Butler as a Financial Reformer . . . .161 
 
 CHAPTER XVHL 
 
 Gen. Butler as a Friend of the Working-Classes . .177 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Gen. Butler's Campaign for Governor in 1878 . . 185 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Conclusion 194 
 
LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCESTRY, BIRTHPLACE, AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 IF ancestry and birth determine one's national and 
 provincial status. Gen. Butler is a full-blooded 
 American Yankee. 
 
 His grandfather, Zephania Butler, was a native 
 of Connecticut, and commanded a company during 
 the War of Independence ; and the sword of this 
 old Continental hero now hangs in the library of 
 the general at Lowell. 
 
 His paternal grandmother, a daughter of Col. 
 Cilley of Revolutionary memory, belonged to the 
 distinguished New Hampshire family of that name. 
 
 His mother, Charlotte Elison, was the daughter of 
 Richard Elison from the North of Ireland, whose 
 ancestors settled in New Hampshire at once after 
 the battle of the Boyne, wherein one took part. 
 There is no question about the general's coming of 
 patriotic fighting-stock. 
 
 Capt. John Butler of Deerfield, N.H., father of 
 Gen. Butler, commanded a cavalry company in the 
 
 7 
 
8 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 war of 1812, and was with Gen. Jackson, being sent 
 to him before the battle of New Orleans. After the 
 war he took to the sea as a West-India trader, and 
 died of yellow-fever on board his vessel in 18 19. 
 His fortune was chiefly in his ship and cargo, and 
 but little of it ever reached his widow and children. 
 Hence upon the intelligence, energy, and virtue of 
 the mother depended the fate of the two sons, An- 
 drew Jackson and Benjamin Franklin Butler; the 
 latter being at the time of his father's death but 
 five months old, he having first seen the light at 
 Deerfield, N.H., Nov. 5, 18 18. The future hero was 
 a small, sickly, quiet, but very studious boy. He 
 took to books naturally. His passion for study was 
 so great that he devoured and digested all the books 
 and pamphlets in the town. The Bible was the 
 favorite book with his mother, and Benjamin de- 
 lighted her heart by committing large portions of 
 it to memory ; but so he did the history of the Rev- 
 olution, and many other favorite books, of prose and 
 poetry. 
 
 If current legends are to be credited, his studious 
 habits did not prevent his engaging in the active 
 sports of boyhood. It is also stated on excellent 
 authority, that, though small and sickly, he won many 
 a victory over larger boys, in the bloody battles of • 
 the street and playground. He seldom or never • 
 fought on his own account, but as the champion of 
 the weak and the timid, and especially the poor and 
 despised urchins, so often imposed upon by cowardly 
 and snobbish bullies. 
 
ANCESTRY, BIRTHPLACE, AND BOYHOOD. 9 
 
 The city of Lowell, Mass., was founded in 1821 ; 
 and seven years later Mrs. Butler removed to the 
 new manufacturing village, and opened a boarding- 
 house, which proved so successful that she was able 
 to aid her son to the advantages of a liberal education. 
 
 When ready for college, Benjamin set his heart on 
 West Point Military Academy ; but his mother, wish- 
 ing him to become a Baptist minister, sent him to 
 Waterville College, Maine, where he spent four years, 
 graduating at the age of twenty, 1838. 
 
 His intellectual grasp and activity were so great 
 that he not only mastered easily the regular lessons, 
 but the ample college library also, leaving the insti- 
 tution an educated young man in the broadest and 
 truest sense. He was a leader among the more 
 literary students, and through his influence some 
 important reforms were inaugurated in the college 
 societies. His mind was of the original and inde- 
 pendent type, and so comprehensive and clear, that 
 he saw many defects and errors in the ideas and 
 rules by which the college was governed, as well as 
 in the system of theology proclaimed in the chapel. 
 He believed that to develop and train the mind, and 
 supply it with information upon all useful subjects, 
 is to educate it : hence he was not willing to limit 
 his opportunities to the curriculum of college studies. 
 
 To him the Calvinistic theology taught by the 
 president and professors of the college was too nar- 
 row and dogmatic to deserve the name of religion ; 
 which, to him, meant practical reverence for God, 
 through obedience to his laws. 
 
lO LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 One of the professors delivered a sermon in the 
 chapel, in which he said, " i. None but the elect 
 can be saved. 2. Of so-called Christians, probably 
 not more than one in a hundred will be saved. 
 3. Heathen people will have more consideration of 
 the Almighty in future life than men of Christian 
 nations who hear, but do not profit by the word of 
 God." 
 
 The rules of the institution enforced attendance 
 upon chapel-services, and after hearing this sermon 
 young Butler petitioned the faculty to relieve him 
 from further attendance upon preaching : giving as a 
 reason, that, according to the proportion stated, not 
 above six persons in the college could possibly be 
 saved ; and as there were nine worthy professors, all 
 of whom were doctors of divinity, it would be pre- 
 sumptuous for him, a poor student, to even hope for 
 the remotest chance of salvation : hence in attend- 
 ing church he was only making his damnation more 
 certain and terrible. Two or three of the faculty 
 could appreciate the humor, if not the logic, of the 
 petition ; and this saved the young theological re- 
 former from expulsion for irreverence. 
 
 On leaving college, young Butler weighed but 
 ninety-seven pounds, and gave little promise of the 
 vigorous manhood he has since developed. 
 
 The first thing he did was just the right thing. 
 He went to sea with an uncle of his, captain of 
 a fishing-schooner. The cruise lasted four months, 
 during which the young student worked hard, ate 
 immense rations of codfish, and came back home 
 
ANCESTRY, BIRTHPLACE, AND BOYHOOD. II 
 
 robust and healthy. From that time to this he has 
 enjoyed excellent health ; and his constitution is un- 
 doubtedly one of the most vigorous and enduring to 
 be found anyv/here. 
 
 He has maintained that vigor by obedience to the 
 laws of health, Jn matters of diet, exercise, &c. He 
 is regular and temperate in his habits : hence the 
 secret of his ability to do more brain-work than 
 almost any other man in this country. 
 
12 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HIS CAREER AS A LAWYER. 
 
 ON being thwarted in his wish to obtain a mili- 
 tary training, young Butler wished to become 
 a physician ; but, before leaving college, this purpose 
 was abandoned, and on his return to Lowell, from 
 his fishing-voyage, he entered upon the study of the 
 law. His poverty compelled him to teach school at 
 intervals, to meet personal expenses, until qualified 
 to practise in the local courts. He was regarded an 
 excellent school-teacher; and, long before he asked 
 for admission to the bar, he had won considerable 
 reputation as an attorney in minor causes. His 
 first clients were factory-girls who felt themselves 
 wronged by oppressive corporations. At first these 
 poor girls came to young Butler for advice because 
 they were not able to pay regular lawyers' fees, and 
 were sure of his sympathy and advice, whether they 
 could pay him or not. He took their cases, and 
 usually won them ; which fact attracted attention, 
 and brought him other clients. Sometimes he would 
 get two or three dollars for trying a cause : at other 
 times his fee would consist entirely of profuse and 
 grateful thanks. 
 
HIS CAREER AS A LAWYER. 1 3 
 
 He worked and studied about eighteen hours a 
 day, taking no recreation save such as he found in 
 the exercises of the miUtary company to which he 
 belonged, and which he joined as a private soon after 
 he commenced the study of the law. This company 
 was called the City Guard, and was a part of the 
 famous Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts militia, 
 mobbed in the streets of Baltimore on the memora- 
 ble 19th of April, 1 86 1. It is worthy of note, that 
 Gen. Butler rose, step by step, from the rank of pri- 
 vate to that of brigadier-general, in the militia of his 
 State, before the war. 
 
 Mr. Butler was admitted to the bar in 1840, at the 
 age of twenty-two, and almost immediately took a 
 leading position in the profession, both in point of 
 ability and business. 
 
 His well-known and active friendship for the 
 laboring classes rendered him unpopular with the 
 aristocracy, and especially with the mill-owners. But 
 his great ability, and almost marvellous success in 
 winning cases, alarmed them ; and a committee, 
 headed by the attorney for the principal corporations, 
 waited upon him. The old attorney said, " Mr. But- 
 ler, you are a very smart young man, and, if you 
 pursue the proper course, you are destined to achieve 
 both fame and fortune in your profession ; but it is 
 rich corporations, and not poor factory-girls, that* 
 enable an attorney to have a large bank-account." 
 Butler's reply was characteristic of the man. He 
 said, " There are always two sides to a lawsuit. If I 
 am not for you, I shall be against you ; and you can 
 take your choice." 
 
14 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 About this time the factory-girls, to the number of 
 three thousand, struck for a reduction in the hours 
 of labor, a day's work being thirteen hours. 
 
 The girls appointed a committee to invite young 
 lawyer Butler to address them in the grove. He at 
 once accepted. He said, **Your grievances are great, 
 your claims just, but you are not likely to bring your 
 employers to terms by the rash measure you are 
 taking. Your places can be readily filled, and you 
 cannot afford to be thrown out of work. A strike is, 
 at least, a doubtful and generally a desperate meas- 
 ure, and only to be resolved upon as a last resort, 
 when oppression is no longer endurable or otherwise 
 curable." He advised them to return to work, and try 
 remonstrance, and, if that failed, appeal to the legis- 
 lature to limit the hours of labor. The girls took 
 the advice of their friend and advocate, and Butler 
 received the thanks of their employers for his sensi- 
 ble speech. This incident served to enthuse him in 
 favor of a law limiting a day's work to ten or eleven 
 hours ; and it was mainly due to his efforts as a mem- 
 ber of the Legislature of the State, that the eleven- 
 hour law was passed. 
 
 Gen. Butler possesses the qualities of a lawyer in 
 the highest degree, — quick perception, comprehen- 
 sive, and tenacious memory, a causative and logical 
 mind, a keen sense of humor, force of character, 
 and unswerving devotion to his clients. 
 
 He takes no case until he understands it ; and 
 then he bends all his powers to it, with faith in, 
 and determination to win it. He believes in law ; and, 
 
HIS CAREER AS A LAWYER. 1$ 
 
 like Socrates, he acts on the principle, that, whether 
 the law is good or bad, it should be executed : it is 
 the business of the law-maker, not 'he attorney, to 
 alter the statutes. He takes every advantage in favor 
 of his client, the law gives him. There is a prevalent 
 notion that he is a tricky lawyer. This is false, 
 utterly false. It doubtless had its origin in the 
 minds of small attorneys, who, failing to cope with 
 him, grew envious, and avenged themselves by slan- 
 dering him. His great success is due to his ability, 
 profundity, energy, and pertinacity. He grasps the 
 case in its entirety, sees its weak and its strong 
 points ; and, as the testimony develops, he analyzes 
 it, and uses it to the best possible advantage. A 
 strong point in his favor is found in the fact, that 
 the courts and the members of the bar recognize 
 ,his ability and profound knowledge of law to so 
 great an extent that they yield to his opinions when 
 not sure of their own. They fear him. The follow- 
 ing incident, related by an old soldier in a letter to 
 the author, illustrates this proposition. He says, — 
 
 " Some years ago I had leased a house in Boston, which 
 proved to have a leaky roof ; and the first rain-storm seriously 
 damaged my goods, and rendered myself and family uncom- 
 fortable. I asked the landlord to repair the roof. He refused. 
 I then refused to pay the rent until the repairs should be made. 
 His attorney informed me that I would be sued unless I paid 
 the rent by twelve o'clock on the following day. I was almost 
 in despair ; but my wife said, ' Go and see Gen. Butler.' I did 
 so, finding him at his home in Lowell at nine o'clock in the 
 evening. I said, ' General, I am an old soldier, of whom you 
 never heard. I am in trouble, and I came to you for advice.' 
 
l6 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 It was a rainy night, and my boots were muddy ; but he invited 
 me into his parlor, and, in the most kindly manner, asked me 
 to state my case, saying, ' If I can help you, I will.' I showed 
 him my lease, and gave him a history of the case. He said, 
 ' You have a good case. Don't pay a dollar until full damages 
 are allowed, and the roof repaired.' I said, ' General, I am not 
 able to pay you much, but I want you to be my attorney till 
 this matter is settled.' — 'Go home. Rest easy: at twelve 
 to-morrow keep your appointment, and tell the attorney for the 
 landlord that your attorney advises you to stand a suit.' I 
 said, ' How much is your fee ? ' — 'I don't charge you any 
 thing.' — 'But suppose the matter comes to trial?' — 'Have 
 no fears of that. They will settle on your terms when you tell 
 them I have the case.' At the hour appointed, I met the 
 attorney and the landlord. They were uncompromising, till I 
 said, ' Well, I have made up my mind to let you sue ; and my 
 attorney assures me I shall win.' — 'Who is your attorney?' — 
 ' Gen. Benjajnin F. Butler^ They trembled at the sound of 
 his name ; and, after a brief conference with his client, the 
 attorney told me they would settle on my terms." 
 
 It would not be difficult to fill this volume with 
 anecdotes similar to this. 
 
 Gen. Butler gets large fees, — of course he does, — 
 from rich men and corporations, in important cases ; 
 but he is thus enabled to advise poor people without 
 pay. His services command large fees, because they 
 are of great value. In speaking of this subject, in 
 defence of Gen. Butler against his foes during the 
 late campaign, Wendell Phillips said, " Men say he 
 took a large fee in the case of the Farragut award. 
 If those interested in that award had been offered 
 Dawes's services for five thousand dollars, or But- 
 ler's at a hundred thousand, they would have eagerly 
 clutched at Butler's." 
 
HIS CAREER AS A LAWYER. ^ 1 7 
 
 He adds, " There is no man in public life who does 
 as much gratuitous work as Gen. Butler. It is rare 
 indeed that a poor man who has a grievous wrong to 
 be righted leaves his office without a gift of Butler's 
 services." 
 
 Gen. Butler has long been recognized as the ablest 
 lawyer at the bar of his own State, and one of, if 
 not the ablest, in America : hence it is but natural 
 that he should have grown wealthy by the legitimate 
 pursuit of his profession. He is not only a success- 
 ful attorney, but a good business-man. He has 
 made judicious investments of his surplus earnings, 
 chiefly in manufacturing enterprises. He owns no 
 bond, he lends no money on interest ; he is not a 
 monopolist, but a man of enterprise, who invests his 
 money where it benefits others as well as himself. 
 He is liberal in his habits, as well as benevolent, but 
 not extravagant ; he is neither reckless nor niggardly, 
 but generous, prudent, industrious, and temperate. 
 He is exceptionally free from the secret, as well as 
 open vices, of public men. He has the brain of a 
 Franklin, the firmness of a Jackson, the intellectual 
 force of a Bacon, the integrity of an Aristides, and 
 the ripe scholarship of a Gushing. 
 
1 8 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GEN. butler's political RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER is a democrat by nature and edu- 
 cation. His whole being rebels against, repu- 
 diates, and despises arbitrary despotism and aristo- 
 cratic assumption. He believes in universal suffrage, 
 equal rights, and just laws. He indorses unreserved- 
 ly the sentiments of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and he stands by the provisions of the Consti- 
 tution. He made himself, when a boy, familiar with 
 the history of the world. He traced the conflict of 
 political ideas, from the time governments began to 
 be formed, to the present age. He noted the basis 
 of this conflict, and the slow but steady progress 
 from absolute tyranny through limited monarchy to 
 republicanism. He discovered that the law of evolu- 
 tions applies to politics as well as to natural science. 
 He is, therefore, a reformer, but not a revolution- 
 ist. He believes in law, not license ; order, not 
 anarchy. He thinks Jefferson a better guide than 
 Hamilton in matters pertaining to the interpretation 
 of the Declaration of Independence, and the ques- 
 tions involved in and settled by the Revolution. 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. I9 
 
 History teaches him that the doctrines of the old 
 Federalists formed the basis of the Roman republic, 
 which proved a failure, leaving the last state of that 
 country worse than the first ; while the doctrines of 
 Jefferson and his compatriots are substantially those 
 upon which the Swiss republic is based ; and this 
 has stood unshaken amid surrounding despotisms 
 for five hundred years, and still stands, a proud vindi- 
 cation of the principles of freedom and justice as 
 applied to government. 
 
 The general's father was a political as well as mili- 
 tary follower of Gen. Jackson ; but he died in his 
 son's infancy. Massachusetts was a Whig State, 
 and Lowell overwhelmingly a Whig town : hence it 
 is not logical, indeed, would be very absurd, to con- 
 clude that Gen. Butler allied himself to the Demo- 
 cratic party with a view to popularity or office, or 
 any other personal advantage. 
 
 He has been called a demagogue ; but only by 
 those who do not know the meaning of the epithet, 
 or, knowing it, wilfully and maliciously pervert it. 
 His entire political career is a defence of his charac- 
 ter against so vile a charge. He is in excellent 
 company, however. No fact of history is more clear 
 than this, that every great man who has practically 
 believed in the doctrine of equal rights, and shown 
 his faith in this doctrine by defending the rights of 
 the poor against the oppressions of the rich, has 
 been denounced as a demagogue ; notably, in modern 
 times, by three classes, — partisan priests, partisan 
 editors, and partisan politicians : in other words, by 
 
20 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 clerical, editorial, and political demagogues. It is a 
 common remark, that Gen. Butler is the best abused 
 man in America ; but those who have made them- 
 selves familiar with the history of partisan politics 
 know that Thomas Jefferson was equally, if not more 
 violently, abused. The opposition clergy only de- 
 nounce Butler as a demagogue, and advise the people 
 not to vote for him. They said Jefferson ought to 
 be hung to the nearest tree ; and in 1804, as he was 
 peacefully travelling in his own carriage across the 
 State of New Jersey, the preachers of Trenton, by 
 violent denunciations, so wrought upon the passions 
 of the people that his carriage was mobbed, and he 
 narrowly escaped with his life. 
 
 Gen. Butler has been on the wrong side of some 
 questions; but he was honestly so, and just so soon 
 as convinced of his error he changed his position, 
 and acknowledged his error. He was wrong on the 
 slavery question before the war. The reason for this 
 error was, that he never regarded it as an abstract, 
 but simply as a constitutional, question. 
 
 The Constitution recognized the institution of 
 slavery ; and he maintained, that, as the Constitution 
 is the supreme law of the land, its provisions must 
 be maintained, and all rights guaranteed by it pro- 
 tected. The Constitution of the United States is 
 the national charter ; and it were treason for any 
 individual or state to nullify or violate its plain pro- 
 visions. In this doctrine he was sustained by the 
 great statesmen of both the great parties, as well as 
 by the opinions of the fathers who framed the gov- 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 21 
 
 ernment, and ordained the Constitution. Gen. But- 
 ler's doctrine has been, and is : If constitutions or 
 laws are wrong, change them ; but, while they exist, 
 maintain them, and obey them. He believed that it 
 was an outrage to require factory-girls and other 
 operatives to work thirteen hours a day ; yet he 
 advised them against strikes, saying, ''Change the 
 law." 
 
 He became a candidate for the Legislature on that 
 issue, and was triumphantly elected. A few days 
 before the election, a committee of workingmen 
 called at his office, to say that a notice had been 
 posted in all the mills, that all who voted the Butler 
 ticket would be discharged. Here was violation of 
 law and of right threatened by his opponents. Op- 
 pression was to be maintained by bull-dozing, though 
 this word had not been invented then. He said, 
 ''Announce me for a speech to-morrow night." The 
 audience was immense, expectation on tiptoe. He 
 began by saying, — 
 
 " I am no revolutionist. Revolution is war, the destruction 
 of property, the shedding of blood. The accumulations of my 
 lifetime are invested in this city ; and its value, its continued 
 existence, and the value of all property, and the peace and 
 safety of the whole community, depend upon the peaceful 
 labors of the men before me. I do not counsel revolution or 
 violent measures ; for I do not, I can 7tot, believe that the notice 
 posted in the mills was authorized. Some ignorant underling 
 lias done this with the hope of propitiating the favor of distant 
 masters; misjudging them, misjudging you. The owners of 
 the mills are surely too wise, too just, or at least too prudent, to 
 authorize a measure which absolutely extinguishes government, 
 
22 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 which invites, justifies, and necessitates anarchy. For tyranny 
 less odious than this, men of Massachusetts, our fathers cast 
 off their allegiance to the king, and plunged into the bloody 
 chaos of revolution ; and the directors must know that the sons 
 stand ready to do as their sires have done before them. But if 
 it should prove true that this infamous notice ivas authorized, 
 if men are to be deprived even of the enjoyment of the primeval 
 curse, 'By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread,' 
 for exercising the right of an American citizen to vote as tlieir 
 conciences dictate, then, woe to Lowell ! The place that 
 knows it now shall know it no more forever ! To my own 
 house, I, with this hand, will first apply the torch. All I have 
 I consecrate to the flames." 
 
 The effect of this speech was magical. The audi- 
 ence were so stirred, that for a few moments it 
 seemed that nothing could prevent the burning of 
 the City at once. But they were in the hands of a 
 master in whom they trusted ; and when he closed 
 by saying, *' My friends, go home, obey the laws, do 
 no act of violence ; and, when election-day comes, 
 vote as your judgment shall dictate, without regard 
 to personal consequences. Wait till overt acts of 
 treason to liberty and law shall come from the other 
 side." The notice disappeared at once, and Butler 
 was elected. He has served two sessions in the 
 House, one in the Senate, and was also a member 
 of the State Constitutional Convention ; and his 
 record is that of a sound statesman and honest re- 
 former. 
 
 Gen. Butler ran for governor of Massacliusetts 
 twice before the war, receiving the first time fifty 
 thousand votes, but the other time only six thousand. 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 23 
 
 This was in i860; and the reason for his small vote 
 was, that he opposed the nomination first, and after- 
 wards the election, of Douglas to the presidency. 
 The general took such interest in politics, that he 
 always attended the national conventions of his 
 party; beginning with the convention of 1844, which 
 nominated Polk for the presidency. He was some- 
 times on the platform committee : hence his hand 
 and head had much to do with shaping the national 
 policy of the party. He believed that the perpetua- 
 tion of the Union, and the protection of the people's 
 rights, depended upon the continued dominance of 
 the Democratic party. He recognized the fact that 
 the Whig party was the legitimate child and suc- 
 cessor of the old Federalist party, inheriting the 
 aristocratic ideas of Alexander Hamilton and John 
 Adams : hence he could not regard it as a safe custo- 
 dian of the rights and interests of the toiling masses. 
 He saw also that the constitutional guaranties of the 
 slave States were not respected by that party, as a 
 party; and he held^t sound doctrine, that, so long as 
 the slaveholders had rights under the Constitution, 
 those rights should be respected. 
 
 James Parton, in his book entitled '' Gen. Butler 
 in New Orleans," says, "The basis of Gen. Butler's 
 interest in politics is an entire and fond belief in 
 the principles upon which this government was 
 founded, and an intense desire that the great experi- 
 ment should gloriously succeed. Among educated 
 Americans there are two kinds of men, democrats 
 and snobs. Gen. Butler is a democrat. In the very 
 
24 Lli^E OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 Strength of his attachment to democratic principles 
 is to be found the cause of his having ignored the 
 rights of the negroes for so long a time. He 
 thought any question of their rights was petty in 
 comparison with the mighty stake of mankind in the 
 union of these States, and the triumph of demo- 
 cratic institutions. The only danger to the Union, 
 he thought, arose from the agitation of questions 
 respecting slavery ; and he and his colleagues strove 
 with all their might to avert or defer it." He adds, 
 "In his speeches on the slavery question there is 
 candor, force, and truth ; and their argument is un- 
 answerable if it be granted that slavery can have any 
 rights. There is nothing in them of base subser- 
 viency, nothing of insincerity, no vote-catching 
 vagueness." Gen. Butler was not a friend of slavery, 
 but of the Union and the Constitution. He had no 
 sympathy with the violent methods adopted by the 
 slaveholders to suppress free speech and crush oppo- 
 sition. He condemned all such measures as undem- 
 ocratic. He denounced the assault of Brooks upon 
 Sumner, in the public places of Washington, in lan- 
 guage strong and unmistakable ; and he was one of 
 the first to call upon the stricken senator, to assure 
 him of his sympathy for his sufferings and his indig- 
 nation at the dastardly act. 
 
 When the news of the John Brown raid on Har- 
 per's Ferry reached Lowell, a public meeting was 
 held, and Gen. Butler invited to address it. The fol- 
 lowing extract from that speech shows the spirit of the 
 man, and indicates clearly his position at that time : — 
 
 1 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 2^ 
 
 " It is well for us to be assembled here. Let us proclaim to 
 all men, that the Union, first and fairest of all the good gifts 
 of God, must and shall be preserved. That it is a duty we 
 recognize, and will fulfil, to grant to every part of this country 
 its rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, and due by the 
 compact ; that v/e will, and every part of the country shall, 
 respect those institutions of any other part of the country with 
 which they and we have nothing to do, save to let them alone, 
 whether they are palatable to us, or not. . . . Thus doing our 
 duty, and claiming our rights, and granting those of others, as 
 any man will do who is a just man, must not the Union be 
 perpetual? Let no man mistake upon the matter. This Union, 
 this Republic, the great experiment of equal rights, this power 
 of self-government by the people, this great instrument of civili- 
 zation, the banding together of the intellectual and political 
 power of those races which are to civihze the world by their 
 energy of action, is not to fail, and human progress be set 
 back a thousand years, because of the difference of opinion as 
 to the supposed rights and interests of a few negroes. This 
 Union is not like a family, because its members must never 
 separate, and divide the homestead. It is not like a partner- 
 ship, because it contains no elements or periods of dissolution. 
 It is not like a confederation, because it contains no clause or 
 means by which one or more of its members can withdraw. It 
 is either organization j)r chaos. It may crumble into atoms : it 
 cannot be spht in fragments. A despotism may arise upon its 
 ruins, but little snarling republics can never be made from its 
 pieces. . . . To us no star in our glorious banner differeth 
 from another star in glory ; but all must and shall shine on to- 
 gether in one constellation, to bless the world with its benign 
 radiance forever." 
 
 Are these the words of a demagogue, or the sen- 
 timents of a statesman } the rantings of a fanatic, 
 or the calm wisdom of a philosopher.? Gen. Butler 
 attended the Charleston Convention in April, i860, 
 
26 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 with a fixed determination to make no concessions to 
 the South beyond those contained in the Cincinnati 
 platform of 1856; and as a member of the Committee 
 on Resohitions he proposed the following : — 
 
 '■'■Resolved^ That we, the Democracy of the Union, in conven- 
 tion assembled, hereby declare our affirmance of the Democratic 
 resolutions unanimously adopted and declared as a platform of 
 principles at Cincinnati, in the year 1856, without addition or 
 alteration ; believing that Democratic principles are unchange- 
 able in their nature when applied to the same subject-matter." 
 
 This resolution was lost by one vote, — sixteen 
 States for, and seventeen against it. Gen. Butler 
 earnestly desired that the convention should har- 
 monize upon a platform and a candidate ; but, beyond 
 the Cincinnati platform, he could offer nothing to 
 the South. He became disgusted with Douglas, or 
 rather with his friends who represented him in the 
 convention, because he saw a disposition to offer 
 more than the South asked. They were willing to 
 concede any thing for the sake of the nomination 0: 
 the Little Giant of squatter sovereignty. But the 
 representative men of the party, and especially of 
 the South, were averse to Judge Douglas ; they dis- 
 trusted him, and their distrust increased in proportion 
 to the overtures made by the Douglas delegates. 
 
 There were three platforms reported to the con- 
 vention ; one from the majority, one from the mi- 
 nority, of the committee, and one from Gen. Butler, 
 who had refused to indorse the report of either 
 faction of the committee, but stood by the Cincinnati 
 platform. He made a speech in favor of his report 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 2/ 
 
 and in opposition to the objectionable features of the 
 others. He said, — 
 
 " If the Cincinnati platform is so defective, why did you give 
 it such enthusiastic support in 1856? I am told that it is capa- 
 ble of two interpretations. Wh}^, sir, when Omniscience sends 
 us a divine law for our guidance through life, and our hope in 
 death, for almost two thousand years men have been engaged 
 in giving different interpretations of that law, and they have 
 sealed their faith in their own interpretations with their blood. 
 They have burned each other at the stake as an evidence of the 
 sincerity of their faith." 
 
 Speaking of the majority report, he said, — 
 
 " Our opponents will see in it, what I hope Southern gentle- 
 men do not mean, — the re-opening of the African slave-trade ; 
 and it will be so construed that no man can get rid of the inter- 
 pretation. It will be proclaimed from every stump, flaunted 
 from every pulpit, thundered from every platform, in the North, 
 until we, your friends, — and in no boasting spirit I say, with- 
 out us you are powerless, — the last refuge of the constitutional 
 rights of the South, are stricken down powerless forever ; so 
 that without modification it would be impossible for me to adopt 
 the report." 
 
 He proceeded to review the resolutions presented 
 by the Douglas wing of the committee, showing how 
 weak and silly they were, — a mere web of sophistry 
 to catch gulls. He punctured the carefully worded 
 resolutions. 
 
 " Leaving the whole matter of slavery in either States or ter- 
 ritories to the Supreme Court, suppose, gentlemen of the North, 
 the Supreme Court should decide that slavery exists in Massa- 
 chusetts, that it was forced upon us by the Constitution of the 
 United States : what would you do about it ? 
 
 "And you, gentlemen of the South, suppose in the course 
 
28 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 of a few years the Supreme Court should become anti-slavery, 
 and make a decision that slavery nowhere exists by natural law 
 and that men can hold no property in man : what then ? Are 
 you prepared to abide by the decision ? " 
 
 At this point a delegate from Maryland, Mr. John- 
 son, interrupted him by saying that it became a man 
 representing a State that never gave a Democratic 
 majority, to be modest about offering advice to a 
 Democratic convention. Gen, Butler is most happy 
 at retort, and he w^as ready now : — 
 
 " You may taunt me with the fact that I am speaking for 
 poor old Massachusetts, who has not given a Democratic vote 
 since the days of Jefferson: she did give a Democratic vote 
 then. By that vote the South acquired the rich inheritance of 
 Louisiana; and I see here from the Gulf States men whom but 
 for that vote 1 never would have had the pleasure of meeting, 
 except as subjects of Napoleon III. 
 
 " Then do not taunt me with speaking for a State that cannot 
 give an electoral vote. I feel bad enough about it. ^J do not 
 like to be taunted with it. I think it especially unkind of my 
 friend from Maryland, because he violated the well-known 
 maxim, that the pot should never call the kettle black." 
 
 Mr. Johnson replied, "While Maryland obeys the 
 laws of the Union, as she has ever done, she con- 
 siders herself equal to all other States ; but, when 
 she refuses to acknowledge the force of the Consti- 
 tution, she will then be more modest m the expres- 
 sion of her opinions." 
 
 "Comparisons are odious," responded Gen. Butler; 
 " but I say that any man in Massachusetts can walk 
 up to the polls, and vote as he pleases, without dan- 
 ger of having his head broken by a club." 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 29 
 
 Gen. Butler's report was adopted by a large major- 
 ity of the convention, 230 to 40. The next thing 
 was to nominate a candidate to stand upon it. The 
 result is a matter of history. 
 
 Gen. Butler, in his report to his constituents on his 
 return from the convention, says, — 
 
 " With the facts before me, and impressing upon me the 
 conviction that the nomination of Judge Douglas could not. be 
 made with any hope of safety to the Democratic party, what 
 was I to do ? Yielding to your preferences, I voted seven 
 times for Judge Douglas, although my judgment told me that 
 my votes were worse than useless, as they gave him an appear- 
 ance of strength in the convention which I felt he had not in 
 the party. 
 
 " I then looked about me, with a view to throwing my vote 
 where, at least, it would not mislead any one. I saw a states- 
 man of national fame, who had led his regiment to victory at 
 Buena Vista, a Democrat with whom I disagreed in some 
 things, but with whom I could act in most, -r loving his country 
 first, his section next, but just to all, so that, through his 
 endeavors in the Senate of the United States, Massachusetts 
 obtained from the General Government several hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, her just dues deferred for forty years, — a feat 
 which none of her own sons had ever been able to accomplish. 
 Besides, his friends were not pressing his name before the con- 
 vention, so that he was not a party to the personal strife then 
 going on. I thought such a man worthy of the poor compli- 
 ment of a vote from Massachusetts : therefore I threw my vote 
 for Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. I make no apology for that 
 vote. I believe it was guided by an intelligent view of the 
 situation." 
 
 After fifty-seven ballotings, without a nomination, 
 the convention adjourned, to meet in Baltimore on 
 the 1 8th of June. 
 
30 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 There Judge Douglas's friends maintained their 
 fixed determination to force him upon the party, and 
 the convention again split. Gen. Butler, being unal- 
 terably opposed to the nomination of Douglas, went 
 with the delegates who agreed with. him in this oppo- 
 sition. 
 
 The Douglas men nominated their favorite, with 
 Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia, an avowed disunion- 
 ist, for the second office. The other party nom- 
 inated Breckenridge of Kentucky for the presidency, 
 and Lane of Oregon for vice-president. 
 
 In justice to Gen. Butler, let it be stated that his 
 candidate stood upon a platform which left the peo- 
 ple of each territory free to form a constitution, and 
 come into the Union, as a slave State or as a free 
 State. 
 
 The platform of Douglas said, ''The Supreme 
 Court shall decide the matter, both for the States 
 and Territories ; and its decisions shall be final." 
 
 The Republican platform, upon which Mr. Lincoln 
 was placed, said, "There is no authority anywhere 
 which can sustain slavery in the territories of this 
 country. Neither Congress nor the Supreme Court 
 can do it." If Gen. Butler was wrong, it was cer- 
 tainly not in his decision between the two Demo- 
 cratic platforms. He was wiser than a majority of 
 his party at that time. He demonstrated his hon- 
 esty by opposing the sophistical demagoguery of the 
 Douglas faction. I do not hesitate to say that from 
 a Democratic standpoint he acted right ; and it is a 
 source of satisfaction to the writer, that, as a Repub- 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 3 1 
 
 lican, he said so publicly during that ever memorable 
 campaign. 
 
 In a speech in Lowell, in defence of his position, 
 Gen. Butler said, — 
 
 " We who support Mr. Breckenridge are called disunionists. 
 By whom is this charge made ? By Pierre Soule of Louisiana, 
 an avowed disunionist ; by John Forsythe ; and the Atlanta 
 Confederacy, which maintains the duty of the South to leave 
 the Union if Lincoln is elected. And yet these men are the 
 foremost in promoting the election of Douglas. By Goulding 
 of Georgia, who is making the same speech in the campaign for 
 Douglas that he made in the Baltimore convention, where he 
 argued that non-intervention meant that Congress had no 
 power to prevent the exportation of negroes from Africa, and 
 that popular sovereignty meant the re-establishment of the 
 slave-trade. When I left that convention, I declared that I 
 would no longer sit where the African slave-trade, made piracy 
 and felony by the laws of my country, was openly advocated 
 and applauded. Yet such at the South are the supporters of 
 Douglas." 
 
 Gen. Butler knew that quite a considerable num- 
 ber of Southern lea,ders were ready to favor secession 
 in the event of the election of Lincoln ; but he did 
 not believe that a majority of them would sustain so 
 rash and treasonable a measure. An agreement had 
 been made at Baltimore, that if Lincoln should be 
 chosen, — which was then thought probable, — the 
 Democratic leaders should meet in Washington on 
 the 1st of December, i860, to consult together on the 
 situation. Accordingly Gen. Butler repaired to the 
 capital on the opening of Congress, where he met 
 quite a large number of his party friends. South 
 
32 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 Carolina had already seceded, and sent three men, 
 commissioned to act for the State in negotiating 
 terms of separation. To the headquarters of this 
 trio of traitors, the general repaired. He found a 
 large number of representative Southerners there, 
 who, to his surprise, talked as though they regarded 
 a dissolution of the Union a settled fact. Among 
 the few who opposed this view of the situation, Mr. 
 Breckenridge stood out prominent. The brilliant ex- 
 candidate joined Gen. Butler in an earnest effort to 
 stay the tide of treason, and save the old party, the 
 South, and the Union. They met with very little 
 encouragement, little sympathy even. 
 
 ''What does this mean ? " asked Butler of a promi- 
 nent Southern Democrat, soon after his arrival. 
 
 " It means simply what it appears to mean. The 
 Union is dead. The experiment is finished. The 
 attempt of two communities having no interest in 
 common, to live together, to make believe they are 
 one nation, has ceased forever. We shall establish 
 a sound, homogeneous government, with no discord- 
 ant elements. We shall have room for our friends. 
 Come with us." 
 
 " Have you counted the cost ? Do you really think 
 you can break up this Union ? Do j/ou think so, 
 yourself ? " 
 
 *'Ido." 
 
 " You are, then, prepared for civil war ? You 
 mean to bring this matter to the issue of arms .? " 
 
 *' Oh, the North won't fight ! " 
 
 "The North w?// fight." 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 33 
 
 "The North can't fight. We have friends enough 
 at the North to prevent it." 
 
 " You have friends at the North as long as you 
 remain true to the Constitution and the Union. But, 
 the moment it is seen that you mean to break up the 
 nation, that moment the North is a unit against you. 
 I can answer for Massachusetts. She is good for 
 ten thousand men to march at once against armed 
 Secession." 
 
 " Massachusetts is not such a fool. If your State 
 should attempt to send an army to preserve the 
 Union, she would have to fight twice as large an 
 army at home, who will oppose such a policy." 
 
 " No, sir : when we come from Massachusetts to 
 fight for the Union, we shall not leave a single traitor 
 behind, unless we leave him hanging on a tree. I 
 know something of the North, and a good deal about 
 New England. We are pretty quiet there now, be- 
 cause we don't believe you mean to carry out your 
 threats. But, as sure as you attempt to break up this 
 Union, the North will resist the attempt, to the last 
 man and the last dollar ; and you are as certain to 
 fail as there is a God in heaven. You may ruin the 
 South, and blot out slavery ; but you can't destroy 
 the Union. God and nature, and the blood of your 
 fathers and mine, have made it one ; and one it must 
 remain forever." 
 
 " Would you fight against us ? " 
 
 " I would ; and, by the grace of God, / wiliy 
 
 Gen. Butler called on the President, Buchanan, 
 and Attorney-General Black, to present his plan for 
 
34 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 crushing treason while yet in the bud. He said, 
 ^' Secession is treason ; and the presenting of an 
 ordinance of secession is an overt act of treason. 
 These so-called commissioners from South Carolina 
 are coming to the White House to present the 
 ordinance to the President. Admit them. Let them 
 present the ordinance. Have a United-States mar- 
 shal present, with orders to arrest them as prisoners 
 of state, charged with treason. Try them before 
 the Supreme Court, as we did Aaron Burr. I will 
 stay here, and help the district attorney, without fee 
 or reward. If they are convicted, hang them, if that 
 is the sentence. If they are acquitted, you will have 
 done something toward leaving a clear path for the 
 incoming administration. Time will have been 
 gained ; for both sides will pause, and watch the 
 dignified proceedings. Passions will cool, the points 
 at issue will become clear to all parties ; and, in my 
 opinion, the threatened storm will pass by." 
 
 The Attorney-General favored Gen. Butler's plan, 
 but the President refused to sanction it. Thus, 
 through the weakness and timidity of one man, who 
 held supreme power, was the scheme of the ablest 
 and most daring of American statesmen rejected, — a 
 scheme which few can doubt was wisely planned, 
 and would have been successful. 
 
 Gen. Butler had many long and earnest interviews 
 with the Southern leaders, during which he used 
 every art of argument and persuasion of which he 
 was master, with the hope of changing their purpose ; 
 but all was vain. They adhered to their purpose, 
 
HIS POLITICAL RECORD BEFORE THE WAR. 35 
 
 and urged him to join them, offering every induce- 
 ment in the form of office, honors, money. But he 
 checked them by saying, *' I pardon the insult you 
 offer me, that we may to-night part as friends ; but, 
 unless you repent of your rash purpose, we meet no 
 more, except, perchance, on the battle-field, as mortal 
 foes." 
 
 He at once called on his old friend Senator Wil- 
 son of Massachusetts, to lay before him all the facts 
 he had gathered, and ask him to join him in a letter 
 to the governor of their State, suggesting the impor- 
 tance of putting the militia of the Commonwealth on 
 a war footing at once, with a view to possible emer- 
 gency. On his return to Boston he had a personal 
 , interview with Gov. Andrew. The result was the 
 
 j adoption of his advice. The governor could hardly 
 
 I believe the danger so imminent as Gen. Butler rep- 
 
 j resented it ; but the stirring events of the next few 
 
 I months fully sustained the wisdom of his opinion 
 
 \ and counsel. 
 
 I 
 
36 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GEN. butler's record AS A SOLDIER. 
 
 THE booming of rebel cannon fired on Fort 
 Sumter awoke not only the echoes of Charles- 
 ton Harbor, but the slumbering patriotism of a 
 nation of freemen. 
 
 On the 15th. of April, 1861, Gen. Butler was en- 
 gaged upon a case in a Boston court. The hand on 
 the dial of time pointed to a quarter to five, p.m., when 
 Col. Jones of the Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts 
 militia entered, and handed the general an order 
 from the governor of the State, to muster his com- 
 mand forthwith on Boston Common. To read and 
 indorse this order, was the work of a moment ; and 
 the brave colonel started for Lowell to call his men 
 together. The general handed his briefs to an asso- 
 ciate attorney, and followed on the 5.30 train. 
 
 At eleven o'clock on the morning of the i6th, the 
 regiment, the colonel, and the general were on Bos- 
 ton Common awaiting orders, though it had cost a 
 whole night of active effort to collect the various 
 companies from their different and widely separated 
 homes. The first requisition of the Secretary of War 
 
HIS RECORD AS A SOLDIER. 37 
 
 had been for two regiments to defend Washington. 
 On this day he telegraphed for a brigade of four full 
 regiments, and a brigadier-general to command it. 
 Gen. Pierce was the ranking brigadier in the State, 
 and a political as well as personal friend of the gov- 
 ernor ; yet the command was tendered to Gen. Butler, 
 who at once accepted it. It was decided to send the 
 Sixth forward at once ; and it left at four that after- 
 noon, after hearing stirring words of patriotic cheer 
 from Gov. Andrew and Gen. Butler. At midnight 
 the general went to his' home, awoke his family 
 from their peaceful slumbers, only to embrace his 
 wife and children, and bid them good-by. An early 
 train from Lowell bore him to Boston in company 
 with his brother Andrew J., then on a visit to his 
 early home from California, and who accepted a posi- 
 tion on the staff of the general. 
 
 Two regiments were sent by steamer to Fortress 
 Monroe ; but the Eighth, with Gen. Butler in immedi- 
 ate command, took the train for Washington via New 
 York and Philadelphia. In New York they were 
 entertained at the Astor and Metropolitan hotels ; 
 and on arriving at Philadelphia they were quartered 
 at the Girard, and generously fed by the citizens of 
 the city. Here the news of the attack on the Sixth 
 Regiment by the Baltimore mob reached the general. 
 He also learned that the bridges were on fire : hence 
 it would be impossible to reach Washington via Bal- 
 timore. The general consulted the map, and re- 
 solved to go to Havre de Grace by rail, thence to 
 Annapolis by steamer, and from there to Washington 
 
38 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 by railroad. Rumor said, '' Maryland is full of armed 
 rebels, and hard fighting may be expected ;" but Gen. 
 Butler had started for Washington under orders, and 
 he meant to get there at the earliest possible moment. 
 His plans were determined upon ; and then he called 
 his officers together, and laid them before them, say- 
 ing, '' I take the responsibility upon myself, and now 
 invite you to share the dangers." Not a man faltered. 
 Sketching his plans to be forwarded to Gov. Andrew 
 after his departure, he started with his regiment for 
 Havre de Grace. Col. Lefferts of the Seventh New 
 York was there with his regiment, and was asked by 
 the general to go with him ; but, regarding the peril 
 too great, he declined. 
 
 Arriving at Havre de Grace, the general took pos- 
 session of the steam ferry-boat, and, embarking with 
 his command, ordered the captain to steer for Annap- 
 olis by the shortest route. The general had doubts 
 as to the loyalty of the captain and crew of the 
 steamer "Maryland:" hence he kept watch person- 
 ally while his men slept. 
 
 They hove in sight of the capital of Maryland at 
 midnight, and were surprised to find the city illumi- 
 nated. Ordering the anchor overboard, he sent his 
 brother in a small boat, to learn why the people were 
 so wide awake. Col. Butler landed at the Naval 
 Academy, and had an interview with Capt Blake, 
 commandant of the post. Scarcely had Col. Butler 
 reached the shore, when a boat was seen approaching 
 the steamer, and a voice called out, " What steamer 
 is this.?" 
 
HIS RECORD AS A SOLDIER. 2)9 
 
 Receiving no reply, the boat was making for the 
 shore when Gen. Butler called out, ''Come on board, 
 or I will fire into you." 
 
 This boat proved to have been sent by Capt. Blake, 
 to ascertain the name and object of the steamer. 
 Lieut. Matthews and Gen. Butler soon came to an 
 understanding, and were mutually delighted, being 
 both true patriots. Capt. Blake, though loyal, ad- 
 vised the general not to land ; and Gov. Hicks for- 
 bade his doing so, in a written order. 
 
 He disregarded both the captain's advice and the 
 governor's order. Before landing, however, he towed 
 the old school-ship *' Constitution," which lay at the 
 wharf aground, in imminent danger of capture by 
 the rebels, out to sea, thus saving her to the Govern- 
 ment. Gen. Butler was informed that it would be 
 impossible to reach Washington, as the railroad had 
 been destroyed, and the woods were full of armed 
 rebels ; and, still worse, that not a citizen of Annapo- 
 lis would give or sell him any thing for him or his 
 soldiers to eat. 
 
 The general replied to this last terrible news, that 
 he had hoped for more hospitable treatment, but that 
 his soldiers were not apt to suffer for food : if ordi- 
 nary means did not suffice to procure it, there were 
 measures known to soldiers that would not fail. The 
 hint was sufficient. The soldiers found no difficulty 
 in purchasing supplies. In the mean time Col. Lef- 
 ferts with his Seventh New York arrived ; he having 
 been compelled to adopt Gen. Butler's route to Wash- 
 ington, after he had left Philadelphia. The two regi- 
 
40 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 ments greeted each other with hearty cheers, and 
 fraternized at once ; but, on hearing the cock-and-buU 
 stories with which Gov. Hicks and the citizens of 
 Annapolis had tried in vain to frighten Gen. Butler, 
 Col. Lefferts declined the second time to join the gen- 
 eral in his march to the capital, resolving to remain 
 in the fort until re-enforcements should arrive. Par- 
 ton says, "Vain were arguments; vain remonstrance ; 
 vain the biting taunt. Col. Lefferts still refused to 
 go." Gen. Butler said, "Then we go alone." He 
 seized the railroad depot and storehouse, forcing the 
 gates. Finding an old locomotive, he put it in 
 charge of Charles Honians, a private of Company 
 E, a locomotive-builder by trade, who soon had it in 
 working trim. The railroad-track had been torn up ; 
 but there were plenty of men in his regiment who 
 knew how to build railroads, and these were set to 
 work. At dawn of the next day all was in readiness 
 for a start to Washington ; and Col. Lefferts having 
 got over his scare, and his men and officers being 
 anxious to share the dangers and glory of the bold 
 march, relented, and, to Gen. Butler's delight, an- 
 nounced his purpose to go with him. 
 
 The general took every precaution against success- 
 ful attack, by mounting loaded howitzers on platform 
 cars, and ordering his men to keep their arms in 
 hand ready for momentary use in case of attack. 
 Thus this indomitable soldier forwarded his com- 
 mand through a hostile country to the capital of the 
 nation, laying track and building bridges as they 
 went. His fearless courage overawed his foes, and 
 
HIS RECORD AS A SOLDIER. 4I 
 
 no attack was made upon his little army of Spartan 
 Yankees. 
 
 After getting the two regiments well on their way, 
 and assuring himself of their entire safety, he re- 
 turned to Annapolis, under orders from Gen. Scott, 
 who created the Department of Annapolis, the com- 
 mand of which he assigned to Brig.-Gen. Benjamin F. 
 Butler. His instructions gave him almost absolute 
 power ; and this power he never abused, but used it 
 wisely and well. Large bodies of troops landed here, 
 and were forwarded by Gen. Butler on to Washing- 
 ton. He established a system of strict surveillance 
 over travel between the North and South, arresting 
 all spies and suspicious characters, giving passports 
 only to those who could show a clear record. He 
 kept a strict watch on the governor and legislature 
 of Maryland ; and, having got possession of the seal 
 of the State, he prevented the passage, or rather the 
 legalizing, of any act of treason. 
 
 His great services were highly appreciated by 
 President Lincoln, as well as by Gen. Scott and the 
 Secretary of War ; and the governor and people of 
 Massachusetts felt justly proud of their distinguished 
 citizen-general. 
 
 Gen. Butler was always a Democrat with anti- 
 slavery proclivities ; but he believed in carrying out 
 that, and all other reforms, within the Democratic 
 party. For he looked to disruption of the Union 
 when it should be attempted to be done by legal en- 
 actment ; because he held, as a lawyer, that the Con- 
 stitution gave the right to that species of property to 
 
42 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 the South. He was very active in the election of Mr. 
 Sumner, in forming a coahtion between the Demo- 
 cratic party and the Free-soil party in Massachusetts, 
 by the united votes of which Charles Sumner was 
 elected to the United States Senate. And, foresee 
 ing what actually happened, the worst that could be 
 said of him in that regard is, that he, like Lincoln, 
 preferred the union of the States and the integrity o) 
 the Government, with slavery, rather than the disrup- 
 tion of the country, and the breaking of the Republic 
 into fragments, and that a portion of it should not 
 have slavery. 
 
 When the South, by the Rebellion, broke all con- 
 stitutional obligations, he held that they gave up all 
 constitutional rights, and that he was set free in that 
 regard from all constitutional restrictions ; and, from 
 that hour, gave to his anti-slavery predilections free 
 scope, looking upon the necessary and actual result 
 of the war, which he had done his best to stave off, 
 to be the entire abolition of that institution. 
 
THE CAPTURE OF BALTIMORE. 43 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF BALTIMORE. 
 
 THE first regiment to march to the defence of 
 the Union, under the call of President Lincoln, 
 was the Sixth Massachusetts, the regiment in which 
 Gen. Butler had enlisted as a private at the age of 
 twenty-two ; the regiment in which he had served 
 as a private soldier, corporal, sergeant, second lieu- 
 tenant, first lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant- 
 colonel, and colonel, and which formed a part of his 
 brigade at the beginning of the war. This regiment 
 was fired upon by a mob of rebel citizens while qui- 
 etly marching through the streets of Baltimore, on 
 the 19th of April, 1861. This regiment furnished 
 the first victims in^molated upon the altar of free- 
 dom at the opening of the new dispensation, — the 
 first blood that crimsoned anew the glorious flag, 
 twice baptized in the rich life-currents that flowed 
 from the loyal hearts of our patriot fathers. Balti- 
 more was still dominated by that murderous mob of 
 traitors, though the majority of her citizens were 
 loyal and true. This was enough to fill the heart 
 of Gen. Bugler with a burning desire to go to Balti- 
 
44 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 more. But this was not all : Baltimore was the gate- 
 way between the North and the South ; and the key 
 was in the hands of the rebels, who were thus able, 
 in large measure, to prevent communication between 
 the capital and the loyal part of the nation. 
 
 Northern journals and the Northern people were 
 demanding of the War Office the subjugation of 
 Baltimore, and re-opening of the gateway to Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 Gen. Scott at length saw the necessity of it, and 
 formulated a plan, which he presented to Gens. 
 Butler, Patterson, and others. This plan involved 
 the necessity of an army of twelve thousand men, 
 in four grand divisions, to march simultaneously to 
 the attack of Baltimore, and another army of ten 
 thousand to guard Washington, and act as a reserve. 
 
 Gen. Butler had a plan which he presented, but 
 which the once grand but now superannuated hero of 
 Lundy's Lane rejected promptly; which rejection the 
 War Department subsequently pronounced the great- 
 est mistake of the ever memorable campaign of 1861. 
 
 This plan comprehended as its chief feature the 
 occupation and fortification of Manassas Junction, 
 and the cutting-off of all railway connection between 
 the South and Washington. This would have saved 
 us the disaster and disgrace of the battle of Bull 
 Run. 
 
 To take possession of and occupy Baltimore was 
 another important part of his programme. To this 
 Gen. Scott listened with some patience ; but he did 
 not believe it could be effected without a large army, 
 
THE CAPTURE OF BALTIMORE. 45 
 
 and in his opinion it would require considerable 
 time. 
 
 Gen. Butler succeeded in obtaining permission to 
 change his base of operations from Annapolis to the 
 Relay House, situated nine miles west of Baltimore ; 
 and being informed, that, as a department com- 
 mander, he was wholly unrestricted save in regard to 
 matters covered by positive orders from Washington, 
 he resolved upon capturing Baltimore upon his own 
 hook, and thus surprise both the rebels and his chief. 
 Little thought he that Gen. Scott would be as indig- 
 nant at such a bold coup d'etat as the worst Balti- 
 more plug-ugly could be. 
 
 On the 6th of May, Gen. Butler reached the Relay 
 House with the Sixth Massachusetts, Eighth New 
 York, and Cook's battery. He cultivated and en- 
 couraged friendly relations with the citizens of the 
 village and vicinity ; but he arrested every man who 
 gave utterance to rebel sentiments in his camp. A 
 Baltimore man spoke approvingly of the action of 
 the mob, which attacked the Sixth Massachusetts, in 
 the presence of some of the soldiers, who at once 
 arrested him ; and by order of the general he was 
 sent to Annapolis a prisoner. 
 
 Baltimore was in Gen. Butler's department, of 
 which fact he reminded Gen. Scott by special de- 
 spatch on the 13th of May. The reply assured him 
 that Gen. Scott was glad Baltimore was in his 
 department, and desired to invite his special atten- 
 tion to the fact, that, according to information 
 deemed reliable, there was a large amount of powder 
 
46 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 Stored in a church in that city, which he feared might 
 fall into active rebel hands, and be used against the 
 Government. The same day, in the afternoon, Gen. 
 Butler left Relay on two trains, going toward Har- 
 per's Ferry. The smaller train, with some fifty men, 
 was bound for Frederick City to capture Ross Wi- 
 nans, the millionnaire, traitor, and inventor of the 
 Winans steam-gun. The other, with its nine hun- 
 dred men, two field-pieces, Gen. Butler and his staff, 
 with their horses, was really bound for Baltimore ; 
 but, as there were probably spies constantly watch- 
 ing his movements, the general adopted that ruse to 
 throw them off the right scent. After running a few 
 miles, the engine of the longer train was reversed 
 and it backed down to Baltimore, passing the Relay 
 House without stopping, arriving in the city about 
 half-past seven, in the midst of a furious storm. 
 The general describes this storm as the m.ost terrific 
 he ever witnessed. This had served to drive the 
 people indoors, and he led his troops from the Cam- 
 den-street depot to Federal Hill without attracting 
 scarcely any attention. He had given orders for a 
 quiet march without music or conversation ; but, if 
 fired upon, the house from whence the shot came was 
 to be demolished, and the inmates arrested. No 
 such enlivening incident occurred. The little army 
 reached the summit of Federal Hill in safety, and, 
 planting their field-pieces, were in possession of 
 the city without loss of a charge of powder. The 
 soldiers pitched their tents, the quartermaster 
 brought a lot of wood from the nearest yard ; and 
 
THE CAPTURE OF BALTIMORE. 47 
 
 soon all fatigue was forgotten in a royal supper of 
 fat pork, hard-tack, and hot coffee. The reveille on 
 Federal Hill gave the city an early awakening and 
 a wonderful surprise. They could scarcely believe 
 that those blue-coated forms on the hill were real 
 live Yankees. They were half inclined to the opin- 
 ion that they were apparitions, or phantoms of their 
 disordered imaginations. But at nine, a.m., a late 
 edition of "The Clipper" gave them Gen. Butler's 
 proclamation. It was dated, '* Department of Anna- 
 polis, Federal Hill, Baltimore, May 14, 1861." It 
 gave the citizens to clearly understand that he had 
 taken possession of the city for the purpose of main- 
 taining order, and enforcing obedience to law ; that no 
 loyal, peaceably-disposed person would be disturbed ; 
 that private property would be respected, &c. 
 
 He invited the co-operation of the civil authorities 
 of the city in maintaining order, and in every way 
 assured them that he regarded the city as loyal to 
 the government of the United States. No resistance 
 was attempted, no disturbance, worthy of mention 
 occurred. But before the close of the memorable 
 14th of May, something occurred to disturb Gen. 
 Butler. It was the following telegram from Wash- 
 ington : — 
 
 " Sir, — Your hazardous occupation of Baltimore was made 
 without my knowledge, and, of course, without my approbation. 
 It is a godsend that it was without conflict of arms." 
 
 This furious telegram bore the name of the three- 
 hundred-pound thunderer, Lieut.-Gen. Winfield Scott. 
 
48 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 Gen. Butler had overworked, and was really ill ; 
 and this was a heavy dose of bad medicine. He 
 had accomplished in a few days, with less than one 
 thousand soldiers, and without the loss of a man, 
 what Gen. Scott proposed to do in three months, 
 with twelve thousand men. True, he had incurred 
 some risk ; but, as Parton puts it, " Being only a 
 volunteer general, and not a West Point graduate, 
 he did not understand how war was to be carried on 
 without incurring some risk of a conflict with the 
 enemy now and then." 
 
 Gen. Scott was furious at the audacity of Gen. 
 Butler, and nothing would appease his wrath but his 
 immediate recall. So Butler was ordered to report 
 at Washington, to receive a violent reproof from 
 Gen. Scott, and a profusion of high compliments 
 and grateful thanks from Secretary Cameron and 
 President Lincoln. 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL, AND 
 PUT IN COMMAND OF FORTRESS MONROE. 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN not only congratulated 
 Gen. Butler on his brilliant success in taking 
 Baltimore, but he tendered him a commission as 
 major-general, as a substantial proof of his apprecia- 
 tion of his ability and services, saying, *' Now, gen- 
 eral, take your old command, and go down to 
 Fortress Monroe. Whatever additional force you 
 may ask for, shall be furnished you, with a view to 
 the ultimate capture of Norfolk." Parton says, 
 " Gens. McClellan and Banks were still in the pay 
 of their respective railroad companies when Gen. 
 Butler received his promotion : hence he was the 
 senior major-general in the service of the United 
 States." 
 
 He reached Fortress Monroe on the morning of 
 May 22. He found that almost every thing needful 
 for comfort, use, and success, was wanting, except 
 soldiers ; and these he had brought with him. The 
 old fort was dilapidated, and at best incapable of 
 furnishing quarters for his force. There were no 
 
50 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 horses nor wagons, and the water was a mile away, 
 the wood nearly as far ; and all supplies of provisions 
 had to be carried on the backs of the soldiers, or 
 rolled in barrels, by hand, on the ground, from the 
 wharf to the fort. 
 
 The general began to ask for what was imperiously 
 demanded, and he at once began not to get it. He 
 then got permission for his brother to purchase a lot 
 of horses. He got the permission, but not the horses ; 
 for, just as they were ready to ship, a requisition from 
 the War Department took them out of Col. Butler's 
 hands, and put them in the artillery-service at Wash- 
 ington. This is a fair sample of the treatment he 
 received : hence it were useless to particularize. He 
 did not permit his embarrassments to cool his ardor, 
 or lessen his active efforts to do good service. He 
 reconnoitred the surrounding country. He occupied 
 Newport News, with the ultimate view of capturing 
 Richmond, and ending the rebellion. 
 
 THE FIRST CONTRABANDS. 
 
 On the evening of May 24, 1861, Major-Gen. Butler 
 was informed that three negro men had been brought 
 into camp at their own request, they having volun- 
 tarily surrendered to one of his pickets. These 
 negroes said they had belonged to Col. Mallory, who 
 was on the point of sending them to North Carolina 
 to work on rebel forts; and they objected to being 
 separated from their famihes. Gen. Butler reflected 
 a moment. Here was a great question to be solved. 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 5 1 
 
 Col. Mallory was a rebel ; and if his horses, or any 
 ordinary property belonging to him, had fallen into 
 Gen. Butler's hands, he would not have hesitated 
 about using it in the service of the country. Then 
 why not his slaves ? 
 
 These negroes were about to be set to work on 
 rebel fortifications, to be utilized against the Govern- 
 ment : they were regarded as property by their mas- 
 ters ; and, if so, why not, like other property, subject 
 to confiscation .'' 
 
 *'The South," said Wendell Phillips, "fought to 
 sustain slavery, and the North fought not to have it 
 hurt." Here was a conundrum; and Gen. Butler 
 solved it by pronouncing that magical word, '' contra- 
 bandy Yes, these negroes are, according to the 
 rules of war, contraband ; and he ordered them set 
 to work. 
 
 The news spread among the slave-population, and 
 the negroes came in from every quarter daily. 
 
 A rebel officer, Major Carey, sent Gen. Butler a 
 note asking an interview on the high road, a mile 
 from the fort. It was granted at once ; and the gen- 
 eral, accompanied by his staff, rode out to meet some 
 of his old Democratic friends, whom he had not seen 
 since the adjournment of the Baltimore Convention. 
 After a polite but rather stately greeting. Major 
 Carey said, — 
 
 *'I wish to know, sir, upon what principles you 
 propose to conduct the war } I am agent for Col. 
 Mallory ; and, having learned that three negroes 
 belonging to him have escaped within your lines, I 
 wish to ask what you mean to do with them } " 
 
52 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 ^' I propose to keep them, and make them useful to 
 the Government." 
 
 "Do you mean, then, to set aside your constitu- 
 tional obligations ? " 
 
 "I mean to abide by the decision of Virginia, as 
 expressed in her ordinance of secession passed day 
 before yesterday. I am under no constitutional obli- 
 gations to a foreign country, which Virginia now 
 claims to be." 
 
 ** But you say we can't secede, and so you can't 
 consistently detain the negroes." 
 
 " But you say you have seceded : hence you can't 
 consistently claim them. I shall hold them as con- 
 traband of war. You were using them against the 
 Government : I propose to use them in favor of it. 
 If, however, Col. Mallory will come in and take the 
 oath of allegiance to the United States, he shall have 
 his negroes." 
 
 At this point the conversation ended. 
 
 Gen. Butler wrote the Government in regard to this 
 matter, giving his views very fully. He said, 
 among other things, "These negroes are being used 
 against the Government by its foes. They were 
 used in the erection of Sewell's Point batteries, from 
 which my command was fired on. Without them 
 these batteries could not have been built for many 
 weeks, at least. As a military question, it would 
 seem to be a matter of necessity to deprive the rebels 
 of their services ; and, if I accept the services of 
 father and mother, would not sentiments of humanity 
 dictate that I also take care of the children ? " 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 5J 
 
 The Secretary of War wrote, in reply, that his con- 
 duct in regard to the negroes was fully approved by 
 the Government. But the slaveholding rebel author-, 
 ities, and the kid-gloved West-Point dilettanti, con- 
 demned it. In the light of gathered experience, who 
 does not pronounce it one of the wisest, grandest, 
 and most patriotic measures of that stormy but 
 wonderfully educative era } 
 
 Many incidents of interest occurred in this connec- 
 tion ; some amusing, otheirs pathetic, some combining 
 the two. The following will serve as an illustration 
 of the latter class. An old Virginia gentleman came 
 to Gen. Butler's headquarters one day, to ask that 
 one of his thirty negroes, who had all escaped to the 
 fort, might be returned. 
 
 His countenance was elongated by sadness, and 
 clouded by grief; and his voice quavered as though 
 partially paralyzed by a touch from the wand of 
 despair. He said, "I allers treated my niggers kind, 
 and I thought they all loved me. Last Sunday I 
 went to the house of God ; and, when I got back, 
 I entered my house, and I found nobody there. I 
 called for Mary, to take off my coat, and hang it up ; 
 but Mary didn't come. Then I went into the next 
 room, to find Mary ; but I found her not : there was 
 no Mary there. I went into the kitchen ; but there 
 was nobody in the kitchen. I went into the garden ; 
 but there was nobody in the garden. I went to the 
 nigger-quarters ; but there was nobody in the nigger- 
 quarters. I went into my house, and I felt very 
 lonesome. After a while Jeems came to me. Jeems 
 
54 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 is my bcdy-sarvant, and he has sarved me faithfully 
 for many years. 
 
 ** I asked Jeems what had happened, and Jeems 
 said all the people had gone to the fort. 
 
 " ' While I was at the house of God, Jeems ? * - 
 
 **'Yes, massa: they're all gone.' 
 
 ''And I said to Jeems, 'Why didn't you go too, 
 Jeems ? ' 
 
 "And Jeems said, 'Oh, massa! I'll never leave 
 you.' 
 
 " ' Well, Jeems,' said I, 'as there's nobody to cook, 
 see if you can't get me some cold vittles and some 
 whiskey, Jeems.' 
 
 " And, when I had eaten, I said to Jeems, — 
 
 " 'Jeems, it's no use our stayin' here. We will go 
 to your mistress.' His mistress, sir, had gone away 
 from home about eleven miles, fleeing from the 
 dangers of the war. And so, 'Jeems,' said I, 'har- 
 ness up the best horse to the cart, and put into the 
 cart our best bed, and some bacon, and some corn- 
 meal, and, Jeems, some whiskey ; and we'll go unto 
 your mistress, Jeems.* And Jeems harnessed up the 
 cart, and we started. It was late at night, sir, when 
 we got there; so I said to Jeems, 'Jeems, it's no use 
 to unload the cart to-night. Put the horse in the 
 stable, Jeems, and unload the cart in the mornin'.' 
 
 "And Jeems said, 'Yes, massa.' 
 
 " I met my wife, sir ; I embraced her, and went to 
 bed. Next mornin', ycems was go?ie ! Then I 
 came here ; and the first thing I saw when I got 
 here was Jeems, a-peddlin' cabbages to your men, out 
 of that very cart I " 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 55 
 
 The general and his staff were sorry for the poor 
 old man who had been so fearfully deceived in regard 
 to the amount of affection his slaves had entertained 
 for him ; but the amusing features of the case, as he 
 presented it, predominated, and a general laugh fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 The old Virginian did not laugh. On the contrary, 
 he turned on his heel, and left the fort, without an- 
 other word beini^ said on either side. 
 
 On the 27th of May, Gen. Butler wrote to the War 
 Department, that, in his opinion, Richmond could be 
 reached and captured by way of the James River. 
 
 He said, ** I have a force of six thousand men ; but 
 I have no horses or wagons, and I shall need a large 
 number of surf-boats for landing my men, &c." In 
 this communication he presented a carefully pre- 
 pared and elaborate plan of his proposed campaign, 
 which he was confident, and is still confident, would 
 have been successful had the means asked for been 
 furnished, but they were not. He was even obliged 
 to order nine of his own horses from his home at 
 Lowell, as a matter of pressing necessity. No amount 
 of asking, urging, ot any thing else, not even the 
 influence of official friends at the seat of government, 
 could influence the commander-in-chief to furnish 
 this brave and active soldier the means of striking 
 an effective blow. 
 
 A gentleman occupying a high position in the War 
 Office wrote Gen. Butler, " I told the President to- 
 day that • would never let you have troops and 
 
 means to make a decisive blow ; and I read the de- 
 
56 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 spatch, to show that I understood my man. He in- 
 tended to treat you as he did, and as he has always 
 treated those who he knew would be effective if he 
 gave them the means. He retains every thing in his 
 own power, and under his own immediate control, so 
 as to monopolize all the reputation to be made." 
 
 THE BATTLE OF GREAT BETHEL. 
 
 Gen. Butler became impatient under such treat- 
 ment, and resolved to strike for his country. This 
 seemed necessary, for the reason that the rebels were 
 growing bold, and might conclude to attack his lines 
 ere long. Indeed, they were sending out squads, and 
 capturing Union men and negroes daily. 
 
 They had fortified two points near by, — Great 
 Bethel and Little Bethel ; and Gen. Butler resolved 
 upon the capture of these posts, though his positive 
 orders limited him to a half-day's march from his 
 headquarters. 
 
 The plans were well laid; but he had no cavalry, 
 very little artillery, and not an officer or soldier who 
 had ever been in battle. 
 
 He gave the chief command to Gen. E. W. Pierce, 
 formerly his senior officer in the Massachusetts 
 militia. Barton says, '* This was by way of atone- 
 ment to Gen. Pierce for having taken the place wi4ch 
 by seniority belonged to him, and was honorable to 
 his feelings as a man, but a blunder in a military 
 point of view. Gen. Pierce was a brave and good 
 man, but at that time wholly unfit for so responsible 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 57 
 
 a duty." It were needless to repeat the history of 
 that day's blunders. Suffice it that the expedition 
 proved a failure ; and our troops, sent out in detach- 
 ments at night, fired on each other on two different 
 occasions, and finally retreated before the rebels, 
 after the loss of some twenty men, including among 
 the killed Major Winthrop and Lieut. Greble. 
 
 Many blunders of greater magnitude have been 
 made since ; but this was the first, and it attracted 
 universal attention. Gen. Pierce was so mortified at 
 his failure, that, at the end of the three-months* 
 campaign, he enlisted for three years as a private 
 soldier, with a determination to serve his country, 
 which proved his patriotism and his courage, and 
 with the sensible resolve to take some lessons in 
 obeying orders before again attempting to command. 
 He proved so excellent a soldier, that, by dint of 
 merit, he rose to the command of a regiment, and 
 was severely wounded while riding at the head of 
 his command in one of the battles of the Penin- 
 sula. 
 
 To Gen. Butler the defeat at Great Bethel was full 
 of lessons. He felt badly about it, of course ; but 
 reflection led him to the conclusion that it was just 
 what might have been expected under the circum- 
 stances, hampered and embarrassed as he was by 
 want of means to make aggressive war, and with 
 none but undisciplined troops, who had not been 
 under fire, hence subject to panic on the slightest 
 occasion. One of the important lessons he learned 
 was this, that raw troops are not to be relied upon in 
 
58 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 an engagement, tmless commanded by veteran offi- 
 cers in whom they have implicit confidence. 
 
 The author agrees with James Parton, in the 
 opinion that the greatest misfortune to the country 
 resulting from this affair was, that, through the exag- 
 gerations and misrepresentations of the public press 
 at a time when public attention was centred almost 
 exclusively upon him, it served to cast a shadow 
 upon the fame of the greatest general then in the 
 service, concealing temporarily his real merits. Com- 
 plete success here, following his briUiant career at 
 Annapolis and Baltimore, would undoubtedly have 
 forced him into such prominent popularity, that the 
 American people would have demanded for him a 
 leading position in the conduct of the war. 
 
 Gen. Butler was not the sort of man that permits 
 a single repulse to cool his ardor, or destroy his 
 confidence in plans he knows to be wisely formed. 
 He still had unshaken confidence in his previously 
 formed opinion, that the way to Richmond was by 
 the James River ; and his preparations for sweeping 
 the rebels from the Virginia part of the Peninsula 
 went forward with unabated activity. But, just as he 
 felt himself prepared to make a formidable advance, 
 the battle of Bull Run occurred ; and this disgraceful 
 disaster was followed immediately by a despatch from 
 Gen. Scott to Gen. Butler to send to Washington the 
 bulk and the flower of his army, including Col. Baker 
 and his command. Of course the expedition was 
 abandoned. 
 
 The news of the battle of Bull Run, and the with- 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 59 
 
 drawal of a large part of the force from Fortress 
 Monroe, left that post in an exposed position ; but 
 Gen. Butler was not frightened. He wrote : ** We 
 have heard the sad news from Manassas, but are 
 neither dismayed nor disheartened. It will have the 
 same good effect upon the army in general that Big 
 Bethel has had upon my division, — to teach wherein 
 we are weak, and the rebels strong, and how to apply 
 the remedy to our deficiencies. Let not the admin- 
 istration be discouraged ; let no mourning be felt, or 
 compromises be made. God helping, we will go 
 through to assured success. But let us have no 
 more of the silk glove in carrying on this war. Let 
 these men be considered what they have made them- 
 selves, — our enemies ; and let their property of all 
 kinds, whenever it can be useful to us, be taken on 
 the land, as they take ours on the sea. There seems 
 to me now but" one of two ways, — either to make an 
 advance from this place with sufftcient force, or else, 
 leaving a simple garrison here, to send six thousand 
 men that might be spared on the other line, or still 
 another to make a descent upon the southern coast. 
 I am ready and desirous to move forward in either." 
 
 His letter won him the friendship of the radicals, 
 his old-time political foes, but was not at all popular 
 among the conservatives with whom he had affiliated 
 all his life. Lewis Tappan wrote him a letter full of 
 praise for his patriotic sentiments. In his reply he 
 said, " I have endeavored to do my duty, following 
 the best light I have ; and the event must be in the 
 hands of Him who ordereth all things well." 
 
60 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 SUPPRESSING THE LIQUOR-TRAFFIC. 
 
 The author cannot afford, even in so brief a work 
 as this must necessarily be, to omit an account of 
 Gen. Butler's successful efforts in suppressing drunk- 
 enness in his command. He observed that the pick- 
 ets would often go on duty perfectly sober, and come 
 in very drunk. He could not guess where they got 
 the liquor, as their canteens were free from the smell 
 of it. It was finally observed that they carried their 
 guns very perpendicularly, and this led to the discov- 
 ery that the barrels were full of whiskey. The gen- 
 eral, on instituting a vigorous search, found that the 
 sutler was keeping a private saloon. It was short 
 work for him, and he did it personally, to knock in 
 the heads of some half-dozen barrels of all sorts of 
 liquors, and turn the contents on the thirsty ground. 
 He found the book containing the private account of 
 the sutler with his officers, for whiskey, brandy, &c., 
 and was astonished and mortified to find that nearly 
 every officer in his command had accounts against 
 him, some of which were very large. The drinking 
 had been done almost solely at Newport News : hence 
 it had in large part escaped the personal notice of the 
 general. But, on getting possession of this book, he 
 went to Newport News ; and, calling his officers to- 
 gether, he exhibited the documentary proof of their 
 guilt, and then proceeded to deliver a very eloquent 
 and forcible temperance-lecture. He pointed out 
 the evils of such conduct, and not only urged that a 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 6 1 
 
 Stop be put to drinking in his department, but as- 
 sured them that he meant to put a stop to it. He 
 gave his solemn pledge, on the honor of an officer 
 and a man, that all that could intoxicate should be 
 banished from his own quarters ; and he earnestly- 
 hoped that they would join their commander in this 
 pledge. They did so unanimously, with a^ single ex- 
 ception ; and the resignation of this obstinate cap- 
 tain was instantly handed in and accepted. 
 
 GENERAL BUTLER CAPTURES FORT HATTERAS. 
 
 While Gen. Butler was chafing under nis wrongs 
 at having his plans all spoiled by being deprived of a 
 large part of his force, he suddenly found himself 
 relieved of his command by Gen. Wool. The order 
 from headquarters relieving him did not assign him 
 to duty anywhere else, nor even instruct him to re- 
 port at Washington. He therefore remained at Fort 
 Monroe, and accepted service under Gen. Wool, who, 
 recognizing his ability, gave him the command of the 
 volunteer forces, comprising five regiments and two 
 battalions. He h^d been planning the reduction of 
 Fort Hatteras, and to this work Gen. Wool now as- 
 signed him. His brilliant success in this expedition 
 is a matter of familiar history. The work was done 
 promptly and done well ; but he now found himself 
 out of employment, and West Point influence had by 
 this time grown so potent that it looked as though 
 all effective volunteer generals were to be either re- 
 tired from the service, or put where they could not 
 
62 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 do any thing to demonstrate their superiority over 
 the kid-glove military aristocracy. 
 
 These gentry soon found that Gen. Butler was one 
 of the irrepressibles. He obtained from the Secre- 
 tary of War permission to recruit a force in Massa- 
 chusetts with a view to carrying out his plan of driv- 
 ing the rebels from the Peninsula ; but on reaching 
 Boston he was informed by Gov. Andrew, that he 
 had promised Gen. Sherman all new regiments that 
 might be raised in that State for some time to come. 
 Before learning this he had announced a war speech 
 for Faneuil Hall ; but, finding himself checkmated 
 by the wily old sachem Tecumseh, he withdrew the 
 appointment, and left for Washington, saying, ^' I go 
 for a vigorous prosecution of the war, as evidence 
 of which I am gone." This had a double meaning. 
 He recognized the fact. that he had two hosts of foes 
 to contend with, — the armed rebels, and the regular 
 army ring which had resolved to monopolize all the 
 glory and other advantages incident to the war. He 
 asked the Secretary of War for a recruiting commis- 
 sion covering the whole of New England. It was 
 granted, with permission to raise six regiments, and 
 to arm them as he pleased. Lest this might be 
 revoked, he sought and obtained the President's 
 indorsement of this order. On returning to Boston, 
 Gov. Andrew objected to his entering the field in 
 competition with Gen. Sherman, and a coolness 
 arose ; but, on the governor's own proposition, Gen. 
 Butler agreed to wait a week, for Gen. Sherman's 
 regiments to be filled, he in the mean time beginning 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 6$ 
 
 operations in Maine. In the mean time, by order of 
 Gen. Scott, the six New-England States were erected 
 into a mihtary department, and placed under the 
 command of Major-Gen. B. F. Butler, with head- 
 quarters at Boston. This proved offensive to Gov. 
 Andrew, who held that Gen. Butler was interfering 
 with his prerogative as governor and commander- 
 in-chief of the mxilitia of the State ; and he threw all 
 the obstacles possible in Gen. Butler's way, refusing 
 to commission his officers, &c. The quarrel was an 
 unfortunate one ; but while we regard Gov. Andrew 
 a good man, who had the best interest of the country 
 at heart, he was not entirely free from those faults so 
 common to all men, partisan preference and personal 
 ambition. He was piqued at Gen. Butler for over- 
 riding his authority with his order from the War 
 Department ; and "he desired, if he did commission 
 officers in Massachusetts regiments, such officers 
 should be selected by himself, and not by Gen. But- 
 ler. Gen. Butler, on the other hand, was faithfully 
 doing his duty under orders from the War Depart- 
 ment, as a recruiting officer, with the expectation of 
 commanding the men he was recruiting : hence he 
 wanted the various regiments commanded by good 
 officers, men whom he knew and in whom he could 
 have confidence. Hard words were said. The news- 
 papers magnified and misrepresented the matter. 
 The result was such delay of Gen. Butler's opera- 
 tions that the carrying-out of his scheme to clear 
 the Peninsula of rebels fell to Gen. Dix, who got 
 the glory which would, and rightfully should, have 
 rested upon the head of Gen. Butler. 
 
64 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 He went to Washington to see what there was for 
 him to do. He was asked to report a plan for the 
 capture of Mobile. He did so : it was accepted, and 
 he ordered to enter upon the expedition. He re- 
 turned to Boston, started Gen. Phelps for Ship Island ; 
 back to Washington, to find his plan out of favor, 
 and himself called upon to prepare a plan for a Texas 
 campaign. He did so ; and Gen. McClellan said 
 it was able, lucid, and complete. Home again for 
 more troops, for Texas this time. "The Constitu- 
 tion," which had borne Gen. Phelps to Ship Island, 
 had returned. He resolved to send her to Texas, 
 with two regiments. He had got them on board, 
 when a despatch from Washington was received. It 
 read, '' Dont sail ! Disembark ! " 
 
 The cause of this sudden change of programme 
 was the demand of Great Britain for the surrender 
 of Mason and Slidell, who had been captured on a 
 British vessel, and were now prisoners in Fort War- 
 ren. It was probable that war with England might 
 demand his services, and the services of his troops 
 in Canada. He was ready for this. He opposed 
 strongly the idea of yielding to the demand for the 
 surrender of these arch traitors in obedience to an 
 insulting threat from an arrogant nation, which had 
 shown itself in sympathy with the rebels from the 
 first. He, with many others, thought that a war with 
 England, if . it should come to that, would unify and 
 strengthen us as a nation. He said, ''I can raise 
 fifty thousand additional men in New England alone, 
 who will follow me into Canada before England can 
 
HE IS PROMOTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL. 65 
 
 land a single soldier there, and take possession of 
 and hold that province against the combined jEleet of 
 Great Britain." A different policy prevailed,, how- 
 ever. Mason and Slidell were surrendered, and this 
 new war-cloud passed away ; and Gen. Butler sailed 
 with his command to Fortress Monroe, where they 
 were destined to remain inactive for a long time, due 
 partly to an important change in the War Office, Mr. 
 Cameron going out, and Mr. Stanton coming in. 
 
 Secretary Stanton entered upon his new duties 
 with a determination to prosecute the war with vigor : 
 hence he naturally sought an important field of 
 operations for so brave and energetic a general as 
 Butler. On the loth of January, 1862, Secretary 
 Stanton electrified Gen, Butler by asking him the 
 question, '* Why can't New Orleans be taken .'* " 
 
 ''It can,'' responded the general. *' I've thought of 
 it before." 
 
 "■ Prepare a plan, said tne secretary ; and Gen. 
 Butler set to work in high hopes that now an expedi- 
 tion worthy of his metal was about to be offered him. 
 
 Gen. McClellan advised against it, saying, '' It will 
 take fifty thousand men, and that force cannot be 
 spared." 
 
 Gen. Butler went to the White House ; and, by dint 
 of such eloquence and logic as he alone knows how 
 to use, he won the President. His joy almost over- 
 came him. But Gen. McClellan refused to give him 
 a single soldier from the idle army of two hundred 
 thousand then at Washington. But his troops at 
 Fort Monroe were available, and he had eighty-five 
 
66 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 hundred still in New England ; and finally, after some 
 delays, the Department of the Gulf was created, and 
 Major-Gen. Benjamin F. Butler assigned to the com- 
 mand. 
 
 On the 24th of February he left Washington for 
 his new field of labor, — a field yet to be conquered. 
 His force consisted of 15,255 men, mostly raw troops 
 from New England, but including the 21st Indiana, 
 4th Wisconsin, and 6th Michigan, — all veterans. 
 
 His destination and plans were a profound secret 
 between the heads of the departments at Washing- 
 ton, himself. Major Strong, and Lieut. Weitzel of his 
 staff. 
 
 The general's wife had shared his camp-life from 
 the first, and she bravely volunteered to accompany 
 him on this perilous expedition. 
 
THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. 6/ 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 AFTER a stormy voyage of a month, and many 
 adventures, Gen. Butler landed on Ship Island, 
 a strip of land seven miles in length, and less than 
 one in width, situated sixty-five miles below New 
 Orleans. It was now the last of March, and in this 
 Southern clime the weather was very sultry ; insects 
 were numerous, and but few comforts to be had to 
 offset the numerous discomforts. But Gen. Butler 
 an^ his men were not pleasure-seekers : they were 
 soldiers whose determined purpose it was to capture 
 and hold New Orleans. Capt. Farragut was there 
 with his fleet, ready to co-operate in this grand 
 scheme ; and preparations were entered upon with 
 vigor. Capt. Farragut said he could be ready to 
 move on Forts Jackson and St. Philip in a week ; 
 and Gen. Butler undertook to be ready also to move 
 in that time, though an immense amount of work 
 was to be done. He worked night and day, heartily 
 seconded by his officers and soldiers. 
 
 The obstacles between these land and naval forces 
 and the city of New Orleans were many and for- 
 
68 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 midable, — the two forts mounting a hundred and 
 twenty heavy guns, fully manned, and ar^ly supplied 
 with ammunition ; an immense cable stretched across 
 the channel, immediately below Fort Jackson, which 
 must be cut before a vessel could pass that point ; 
 and above this, the rebel fleet of vessels, iron-clads, 
 and rams. 
 
 The rebel commanders felt confident that they 
 could defend the approaches to the city against the 
 combined naval force of the world : hence they were 
 disposed to laugh at the preparations of Capt. Farra- 
 gut and Gen. Butler. 
 
 On the 17th of April the fleet stood in battle 
 array, four miles below Fort Jackson. The guns 
 of the fort opened upon it, but Capt. Farragut did 
 not reply for some hours. He and his men had 
 enough to do to destroy the numerous fire-rafts sent 
 down upon them by the rebels ; but in the afternoon 
 a few of the mortar-boats were allowed to open on 
 the fort. The next morning at daybreak the battle 
 began in earnest ; the mortar-boats having moved 
 up, and taken positions from one and a half to two 
 and a half miles from Fort St. Philip. A news- 
 paper-correspondent who witnessed the battle from 
 a lofty position on the flagship describes it as highly 
 interesting and grand. Immense balls were whiz- 
 zing through the air, and falling like meteoric globes 
 about the boats, plashing the water in all directions. 
 The masts of the vessels were crowded with men, 
 eager to see what effect our shots were having upon 
 the fort ; and, when a two-hundred-pound shell would 
 
THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. 69 
 
 drop in among the rebel gunners, a shout would go 
 up from these spectators. The battle raged una- 
 bated for two days, when Gen. Butler, who had been 
 an anxious looker-on from below, visited Capt. Farra- 
 gut on the flagship " Hartford ; " and after a confer- 
 ence it was decided that the cable must be cut, and 
 the forts passed in the night under cover of darkness, 
 for it was now evident that they could not be reduced 
 by bombardment. On the next night Capt. Bell 
 with two gunboats, the '' Pinola " and " Itasca," ran 
 up to the cable, and cut it. 
 
 During this operation, which lasted an hour and a 
 half, Capt. Porter kept up a furious bombardment 
 of the forts, with a view of attracting attention from 
 Capt. Bell's little fleet ; but this was not successful. 
 Capt. Bell was discovered, and a heavy fire opened 
 on him from the rebel batteries. He paid no atten- 
 tion to it, however ; but he and his brave men worked 
 with determined energy, until the mighty iron cable 
 parted, leaving the channel of the river again naviga- 
 ble. He then dropped down, and made report to his 
 commander. 
 
 Preparations now went forward, looking to the 
 desparate venture of running the gauntlet between 
 these two forts. The battle, however, still continued 
 with unabated vigor on both sides. It lasted a hun- 
 dred and forty-nine hours. 
 
 At two o'clock on the night of the 23d of April 
 the signal was given, and the fleet began to move. 
 Every thing had been prepared for the most rapid 
 fire possible during the hour and a quarter necessary 
 
70 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 to pass the forts ; and during that time from five 
 to eight of those monster two-hundred-pound shells 
 were in the air constantly, and the roar, the crash, 
 the smoke, were terrific. Just as the first ship, "The 
 Cayuga," passed the cable, the design was obvious 
 to the rebels ; and both forts opened on the fleet 
 with every gun. The bombs and shot fell around 
 the ships like hail ; but the ships and gunboats held 
 on their way, each giving the fort a broadside as it 
 passed. The forts passed, Capt. Farragut found 
 himself hotly engaged by the rebel fleet of ships, 
 gunboats, and iron-clad monsters, including the 
 ''Morgan" and "Manassas." Numerous fire-rafts 
 were also hurled upon him ; but he was fully pre- 
 pared for these, hence but little damage was done 
 by them. In the midst of the battle, the flagship 
 took fire. 
 
 "This [says a correspondent of "The Herald"] was the 
 crowning moment of this unparalleled fight. It was beyond 
 description. Twenty mortars, a hundred and forty-two guns in 
 the fleet, a hundred and twenty on the forts, the crash of 
 splinters, the explosion of boilers and magazines, the cries, the 
 shrieks of scalded and drowning men, the belching flashes of 
 the guns, the blazing rafts, the burning steamboats, the river full 
 of fire, — all combined to produce a spectacle of unparalleled 
 grandeur and terror. But, if it was terrible, it was of short 
 duration ; for the forts were passed, and the rebel fleet destroyed 
 and captured, in an hour and a half. ' The Cayuga' had been 
 struck forty-two times, damaging her rigging considerably ; but 
 Capt. Bailey ran ashore five miles above the forts, and captured 
 a quarantine station, and, as the other ships came to anchor, 
 repeated shouts of victory rent the morning air. It is a re- 
 markable fact, that, except 'The Itasca' and 'Varuna,'not a 
 
THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. /I 
 
 vessel in the fleet had been seriously injured. Gen. Butler 
 witnessed this splendid naval engagement from the deck of 
 ' The Saxon ; ' and, when it ended, he dropped down to his 
 transports, which were put in motion, with the purpose of land- 
 ing the troops back of and above Fort St. Philip ; for it will be 
 borne in mind that the forts had not been captured. On the 
 morning of the 26th, Gen. Butler having landed, the forts were 
 invested on all sides. The same evening news reached the 
 general that Capt. Farragut had anchored his fleet in the harbor 
 of New Orleans ; and, leaving Gen. Williams in command of 
 his troops, he, in company with Capt. Boggs, went up to the 
 city. That night a large body of rebel troops came in, and 
 surrendered to Butler's forces ; and the next morning the officers 
 of the forts made a formal surrender to Capt. Porter. The 
 victory was now complete, and Gen. Butler was master of New 
 Orleans. Justice requires that the glory of this grand achieve- 
 ment should be shared mutually by Gen. Butler and Capt. Far- 
 ragut." 
 
 Parton says, — 
 
 " If the splendid daring of Capt. Farragut and his fleet de- 
 prived Gen. Butler of his lieutenant-generalship, it is but just 
 to him to declare that the prompt and unexpected landing of 
 the troops in the rear of Fort St. Philip compelled the surrender 
 of the forts. Fighting wins laurels, but a manoeuvre that ac- 
 complishes results without fighting also merits recognition." 
 
 Yes ; and when the historian shall write for t7'uly 
 civilized readers, the fame of the commander who 
 achieves triumphs without bloodshed will rank far 
 above that of the chieftain who hurls his army upon 
 the foe regardless of danger to himself or others. 
 
72 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GEN. butler's CAREER IN NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 THE chief characteristics of Gen. Butler are 
 honesty of purpose, calm deliberation, wise and 
 comprehensive judgment, and firm and prompt execu- 
 tive force. He does nothing hastily, nothing that 
 he thinks is wrong ; but, when his mind is made up, 
 he acts with vigor : hence, when placed in an impor- 
 tant position, those who agree with him admire him, 
 but those who oppose his views hate him. There can 
 be no middle ground of indifference from which to 
 contemplate a character so great and so positive as 
 he. In the light of this analysis, it is easy to under- 
 stand why his most admirable, almost faultless, 
 administration at New Orleans should have provoked 
 such bitter denunciations and extravagant misrepre- 
 sentations from the rebels and their sympathizers in 
 this country and Europe, while it won him the grati- 
 tude of the President and all intelligent patriots 
 throughout the whole country. The population of 
 New Orleans was composed almost wholly of aristo- 
 crats and roughs. With rare exceptions the people 
 were extremely excitable and intensely disloyal. 
 
HIS CAREER IN NEW ORLEANS. 73 
 
 When it was known in the city that the forts had 
 surrendered, the rebel navy had been destroyed, and 
 Gen. Butler was on his way to take possession of the 
 city, ex-senator Soule advised the burning of all 
 the cotton and other merchandise on the levee and 
 the steamers in the harbor, and with his own hand he 
 began the work of destruction by applying a lighted 
 torch to a pile of cotton-bales belonging to himself ; 
 and it is estimated that not less than two hundred and 
 fifty thousand bales of cotton, besides an immense 
 amount of other property, were destroyed. And, 
 when Capt. Farragut came in view of the city, the 
 whole seven miles of wharf was a sea of fire ; and but 
 for the active efforts of what was styled the " Euro- 
 pean Brigade," composed of non-residents, the city 
 would have suffered general pillage and destruction 
 before our forces landed. 
 
 Capt. Farragut sent a message to Mayor Monroe, 
 demanding the formal surrender of the city, and the 
 running-up of the stars and stripes instead of the 
 rebel flag on the public buildings. The reply was a 
 peremptory refusal from Gen. Lovell, the rebel com- 
 mander, who said, ''he had evacuated the city, but 
 refused to surrender it ; and if Capt. Farragut chose 
 to shell the town, destroying women and children, he 
 was at liberty to do so." 
 
 This was simply contemptible and insulting ; but 
 he was assured that the object was to protect the 
 city and its people, not destroy. 
 
 Gen. Lovell immediately left the city, after deliver- 
 ing himself of this chivalrous speech ; and the mayor 
 
74 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 refused to hoist the American flag, adding, "There 
 lives not in this city a wretched renegade who w^ould 
 so far demean himself as to lower the emblem of our 
 aspirations." Capt. Farragut sent a force on shore 
 with instructions to raise the emblem of the United 
 States on the Custom House and other public build- 
 ings, which was done ; and the mob were informed, 
 that, if the flags were interfered with, the buildings 
 would be instantly fired upon from the fleet. 
 
 On Sunday, while the men on board were at wor- 
 ship, the notorious gambler Mumford, assisted by 
 three others, tore down the flag from its staff on the 
 Mint, and, after dragging it through the street till it 
 was covered with filth, tore it in pieces. 
 
 The men on the lookout of " The Pensacola " saw 
 the act, and pulled the cords of the guns all along the 
 broadside, but the wafers had been removed, and the 
 guns were not discharged, which fortunate circum- 
 stance saved many lives. 
 
 "The Picayune" next morning glorified the act, 
 saying, — 
 
 " The names of the men who distinguished themselves by 
 gallantly tearing down the flag that has been surreptitiously 
 hoisted are W. B. Mumford, Lieut. N. Hohnes, Sergeant Burns, 
 and James Reed. These men deserve great credit for their 
 l>atriotic act," &c. 
 
 Gen. Butler arrived a few hours after the flag had 
 been torn down ; and if he had been the rash and 
 cruel man he was afterwards described by the rebels, 
 North and South, he would have ordered the city 
 shelled for such an outrage. 
 
HIS CAREER IN NEW ORLEANS. 75 
 
 He saw clearly that such a lawless spirit must be 
 suppressed : hence he advised the captain to threaten 
 bombardment if any more insults should be offered 
 the American flag ; and, as a preliminary, he ordered 
 the women and children to leave town. 
 
 On the 1st of May, Gen. Butler, having returned 
 to his transports to bring his command to the city, 
 landed at New Orleans with his entire force. 
 
 Before permitting the troops to go on shore, the 
 following was read : — 
 
 Headquarters Department of the Gulf, 
 New Orleans, May i, 1862. 
 General Order No. 15. 
 
 I. In anticipation of the immediate disembarkation of the 
 troops of this command amid the temptations and inducements 
 of a large city, all plundering of public or private property, by 
 any person or persons, is hereby forbidden under the severest 
 penalties. 
 
 II. No officer or soldier will absent himself from his station, 
 without arms or alone, under any pretext whatever. 
 
 III. The commanders of regiments and companies will be 
 held responsible for the strict execution of these orders. 
 
 By command of 
 
 Major-Gen. Butler. 
 George C. Strong, A-. A. G. 
 
 The general also gave strict orders that no officer 
 or soldier should resent any insult, or reply to any 
 taunt. 
 
 Gen. Butler landed with the first detachment, and 
 marched to the Custom House to the music of a 
 band which played "The Star-spangled Banner." 
 The crowd which filled the streets, and followed the 
 line of march, showered profane and vulgar epithets 
 
y6 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 upon him, and cheered for Beauregard ; but no notice 
 was taken of them. The following proclamation, 
 which was set up and printed by Union soldiers in 
 the *' True Delta" office, — the proprietors of the 
 office refusing to do the job, — furnishes a clear 
 insight into Gen. Butler's policy : — 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF GEN. BUTLER. 
 
 Headquarters Department of the Gulf, 
 New Orleans, May i, 1862. 
 
 The city of New Orleans and its environs, with all its 
 interior and exterior defences, having surrendered to the com- 
 bined naval and land forces of the United States, and being 
 now in the occupation of the forces of the United States, who 
 have come to restore order, maintain public tranquillity, and en- 
 force peace and quiet under the laws and constitution of the 
 United States, the major-general commanding hereby proclaims 
 the object and purposes of the Government of the United 
 States in thus taking possession of New Orleans and the State 
 of Louisiana, and the rules and regulations by which the laws 
 of the United States will be for the present, and during the 
 state of war, enforced and maintained for the plain guidance of 
 all good citizens of the United States, as well as all others who 
 may have heretofore been in rebellion against their authority. 
 
 Thrice before has the city of New Orleans been rescued from 
 the hands of a foreign government, and still more calamitous 
 domestic insurrection, by the money and arms of the United 
 States. It has of late been under the military control of the 
 rebel forces ; and at each time, in the judgment of the com- 
 manders of the military forces holding it, it has been found 
 necessary to preserve order and maintain quiet by an adminis- 
 tration of martial law. Even during the interim from its evac- 
 uation by the rebel soldiers, and its actual possession by the 
 soldiers of the United States, the civil authorities have found 
 
HIS CAREER IN NEW ORLEANS. JJ 
 
 it necessary to call for the intervention of an armed body, 
 known as the European Legion, to preserve the public tran- 
 quillity. The commanding general, therefore, will cause the 
 city to be guarded until the restoration of the United States 
 authority and his further orders by martial law. 
 
 All persons in arms against the United States are required 
 to surrender themselves, with their arms, equipments, and muni- 
 tions of war. The body known as the European Legion, not 
 being understood to be in arms against the United States, but 
 organized to protect the lives and property of the citizens, are 
 invited to still co-operate with the forces of the United States 
 to that end, and, so acting, will not be included in the terms of 
 this order,, but will report to these headquarters. 
 
 All ensigns, flags, devices, tending to uphold any authority 
 whatever, save the flags of the United States and those of 
 foreign consulates, must not be exhibited, but suppressed. The 
 American ensign, the emblem of the United States, must be 
 treated with the utmost deference and respect by all persons, 
 under pain of severe punishment. 
 
 All persons well disposed towards the Government of the 
 United States, who shall renew the oath of allegiance, will re- 
 ceive a safeguard of protection to their persons and property 
 from the army of the United States, and the violation of such 
 safeguard will be punishable with death. All persons still hold-- 
 ing allegiance to the Confederate States will be deemed rebels, 
 against the Government of the United States, and regarded' 
 and treated as enemies thereof. 
 
 All foreigners not naturalized, and claiming alledance to 
 their respective governments, and not having made oath of 
 allegiance to the Government of the Confederate States, will be 
 protected in their persons and property, as heretofore, under 
 the laws of the United States. All persons who may have 
 heretofore given adherence to the supposed government of the 
 Confederate States, or been in their service, who shall lay down 
 or deliver up their arms, return to peaceful occupations, and 
 preserve quiet and order, holding no further correspondence, 
 nor giving aid and comfort to enemies of the United States, 
 
y8 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 will not be disturbed in their persons or property, except so far 
 under the orders of the commanding general as the exigencies 
 of the public service may render necessary. 
 
 Keepers of all public property, whether State, National, or 
 Confederate, such as collections of art, libraries, and museums, 
 as well as all public buildings, all munitions of war, and armed 
 vessels, will at once make full returns thereof to these head- 
 quarters. All manufacturers of arms and munitions of war will 
 report to these headquarters their kind and places of business. 
 All the rights of property, of whatever kind, will be held in- 
 violate, subject only to the laws of the United States. All the 
 inhabitants are enjoined to pursue their usual avocations. All 
 shops and places of amusement are to be kept open in the 
 accustomed manner, and services are to be held in the churches 
 and religious houses, as in times of profound peace. 
 
 Keepers of all public houses and drinking-saloons are to 
 report their names and numbers to the office of the provost- 
 marshal ; and they will then receive a license, and be held 
 responsible for all disorders and disturbances arising in their 
 respective places. 
 
 Sufficient force will be kept in the city to preserve order and 
 maintain the laws. The killing of American soldiers by any 
 disorderly person or mob is simply assassination and murder, 
 and not war, and will be so regarded and punished. The owner 
 of any house in which such murder shall be committed will be 
 held responsible therefor, and the house be liable to be de- 
 stroyed by the military authority. All disorders, disturbances 
 of the peace, and crimes of an aggravated nature, interfering 
 with the forces or laws of the United States, will be referred to 
 a military court for trial and punishment. Other misdemeanors 
 will be subject to the municipal authority, if it desires to act. 
 
 Civil causes between party and party will be referred to the 
 ordinary tribunals. 
 
 The levy and collection of taxes, save those imposed by the 
 laws of the United States, are suppressed, except those for 
 keeping in repair and lighting the streets, and for sanitary pur- 
 poses. These are to be collected in the usual manner. 
 
HIS CAREER IN NEW ORLEANS. 79 
 
 The circulation of Confederate bonds, evidences of debt 
 (except notes in the simihtude of bank-notes), issued by the 
 Confederate States, or scrip, or any trade in the same, is for- 
 bidden. It has been represented to the commanding general, 
 by the civil authorities, that these Confederate notes, in the 
 form of bank-notes, in a great measure are the only substitutes 
 for money which the people have been allowed to have, and 
 that great distress would ensue among the poorer classes if the 
 circulation of such notes should be suppressed. Such circula- 
 tion, therefore, will be permitted so long as any one will be 
 inconsiderate enough to receive them, until further orders. 
 
 No pubhcation of newspapers, pamphlets, or handbills, 
 giving accounts of the movements of the soldiers of the United 
 States within this department, reflecting in any way upon the 
 United States, intended in any way to influence the public 
 mind against the United States, will be permitted ; and all arti- 
 cles on war news, editorial comments, or correspondence, mak- 
 ing comments upon the movements of the armies of the United 
 States, must be submitted to the examination of an officer, who 
 will be detailed for that purpose from these headquarters. The 
 transmission of all communications by telegraph will be under 
 the charge of an officer detailed from these headquarters. 
 
 The armies of the United States came here not to destroy, 
 but to restore order out of chaos, to uphold the government 
 and laws in the place of the " passage " of men. To this end, 
 therefore, the efforts of all well disposed are invited, to have 
 every species of disorder quelled. 
 
 If any soldier of the United States should so far forget his 
 duty or his flag as to commmit outrage upon any person or 
 property, the commanding general requests his name to be in- 
 stantly reported to the provost-guard, so that he may be pun- 
 ished, and his wrongful act redressed. The municipal authority, 
 so far as the police of the city and environs are concerned, is 
 to extend as before indicated until suspended. 
 
 All assemblages of persons in the streets, either by day or 
 night, tend to disorder, and are forbidden. 
 
 The various companies composing the Fire Department of 
 
80. LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 New Orleans will be permitted to retain their organizations, and 
 are to report to the provost-marshal, so that they may be known, 
 and not interfered with in their duties. 
 
 And finally, it may be sufficient to add, without further 
 enumeration, that all the requirements of martial law will be 
 imposed so long as, in judgment of the United States authori- 
 ties, it may be necessary; and, while it is desired by these 
 authorities to exercise this government mildly, and after the 
 usages of the past, it must not be supposed that it will not be 
 rigorously and firmly administered as the occasion calls for it. 
 By command of 
 
 Major-Gen. Butler. 
 George B. Strong, ^,^.G., Chief of Staff. 
 
 The next day the general established his head- 
 quarters in the St. Charles Hotel, and notified Mayor 
 Monroe that he should be glad to have a conference 
 with him. At two o'clock, the miayor, Pierre Soule, 
 and quite a party of leading men, waited upon the 
 general in the ladies' parlor, which he had taken for 
 his office. 
 
 The interview had scarce begun when an aide to 
 Gen. Williams, who was in command of the guard 
 which had been placed about the hotel, came in to 
 say that the general feared he would not be able to 
 control the mob. Gen. Butler replied, — 
 
 "Give my compliments to Gen. Williams, and tell 
 him, if he cannot control the mob, to open upon 
 them with artillery." 
 
 ** Don't do that," exclaimed Mayor Monroe and 
 several other Southern men. 
 
 " Why not, gentlemen } The mob must be con- 
 trolled. We can't have disturbance in the street." 
 
 " Shall I go out, and speak to the people.''" asked 
 the mayor. 
 
HIS CAREER IN NEW ORLEANS. 8 1 
 
 "As you please : I only insist on having order." 
 
 The mayor and Mr. Soule made short speeches, 
 but it had very little effect. 
 
 The mayor then said to Gen. Butler, *'You were 
 formerly an advocate of the rights of the South. 
 We looked upon you as our special friend and cham- 
 pion." 
 
 ''Stop, sir," said the general: "I was always a 
 friend of Southern rights, but a foe to Southern 
 wrongs." 
 
 At this point Lieut. Kinsman of the general's staff 
 came in, accompanied by Judge Summers, a lo3^al 
 citizen, who had fled to the fleet for protection from 
 the mob, and now had ventured ashore under the 
 lieutenant's protection, and whose life had been 
 threatened, and was only saved by the officer's valor 
 and courage, while getting from the landing to the 
 hotel. 
 
 The judge was so badly frightened that he did not 
 feel safe even in the St. Charles ; and the general 
 ordered the officer to summon a file of soldiers, and 
 escort him to the Custom House. 
 
 On reaching^ the side door, the judge thought the 
 fifty soldiers inadequate to the task of protecting 
 him from the immense and highly excited mob ; and 
 he begged the lieutenant not to attempt to take him 
 to the Custom House. ** But my orders are posi 
 tive," he replied : " I must obey." The soldiers were 
 formed in two lines, four feet apart, with two in front 
 and two behind, with the lieutenant and the judge in 
 the centre. Thus they marched, keeping the mob 
 
82 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 from the object of their vengeance by fixed bayo< 
 nets. Two arrests were made of especially violent 
 fellows ; and these were quieted only by orders from 
 the officer to the soldiers, to run their bayonets into 
 them if they did not keep quiet. This affair had a 
 wholesome effect upon the New Orleans rebels. 
 
 The same evening Gen. Butler drove from the St. 
 Charles to the river, a distance of near a mile, with- 
 out escort save a single orderly ; a fact which not 
 only illustrated the cool courage of the man, but the 
 fact that true courage is the best protection against 
 a cowardly mob. On the following day a second 
 conference was held between Gen. Butler and the 
 leading men of the city, the mayor and his board of 
 councilmen being present. The general explained 
 his views and plans very fully in regard to the situa- 
 tion, and his ideas of the government of the city ; 
 and then politely invited a correspondingly frank 
 expression from them. He assured them that it was 
 his earnest wish that the municipal authorities should 
 exercise their lawful functions, leaving him simply 
 the duties of a military commander, whose business 
 it was to represent the National Government, and 
 sustain its authority against its foes. 
 
 Mr. Soule replied, that the tranquillity of the city 
 could not be maintained while the troops remained 
 in it, and urged their inrmediate withdrawal. " The 
 people are not conquered, and cannot be expected to 
 act as a conquered people. Your soldiers cannot 
 have peace or safety in our midst." 
 
 Gen. Butler kept his temper as he replied, " I am 
 
HIS CAREER IN NEW ORLEANS. 83 
 
 surprised to hear a threat from Mr. Soule on an 
 occasion of this sort. I have been accustomed to 
 hear threats from Southern gentlemen in political 
 conventions ; but I assure you gentlemen present, 
 that the time for such tactics has passed, never to 
 return. New Orleans is a conquered city : else how 
 did we get here, and why are we here ? Did you 
 open your arms, and bid us welcome ? Would you 
 not expel us if you could .? No, gentlemen : New 
 Orleans has been conquered by the forces of the 
 United States, and by the laws of all nations is 
 subject to the will of the conquerors. Nevertheless, 
 when I propose to leave the municipal government 
 to the free exercise of all its powers, I am answered 
 by a threat. Gladly will I take every soldier out of 
 the city the very hour it is demonstrated to me that 
 the city government can and will protect me, and 
 other loyal men, from insult and danger. Your in- 
 ability or unwillingness to do this has been clearly 
 shown by the treatment of my men this afternoon, 
 and by the fact that Gen. Lovell was obliged to pro- 
 claim martial law while his army occupied your city, 
 to protect law-abiding citizens from the rowdies. 
 
 '' I therefore proclaim martial law, not against 
 respectable citizens, but against the same class that 
 Gen. Wilkinson, Gen. Jackson, and Gen. Lovell de- 
 clared it. I understand the situation better, perhaps, 
 than you think. I am aware of the existence of 
 an organization here established for the express pur- 
 pose of assassinating my men in detail ; but I warn 
 you that if a shot is fired from any house, it will 
 
84 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 never again shelter a mortal head, and if I can dis- 
 cover the perpetrator of the deed, the place that 
 knows him now shall know him no more forever. I 
 have the power to suppress the unruly element in 
 your midst ; and I mean to use it so effectually that 
 in a short period I shall be able to traverse your 
 streets alone free from insult or peril, or else this 
 metropolis of the South shall be a desert from the 
 Plains of Chalmette to the outskirts of Carrollton." 
 
 The proclamation appeared the next day. Col. J. 
 H. French being named as provost-marshal, and 
 Major J. W. Bell as provost-judge. 
 
 During that day the foreign consuls waited upon 
 the general, and had a pleasant interview. A dele- 
 gation of the city council also called to say that the 
 proposal from him, that the city government should 
 'go on as usual, was accepted ; and requesting the 
 withdrawal of the troops from the City Hall, that the 
 authorities might not seem to be acting under mili- 
 tary dictation. This request was at once granted. 
 The general also sent Gen. Williams and Capt. 
 Farragut up to Baton Rouge, with Instructions to 
 occupy and hold it. Camps were established out of 
 the city for the bulk of the army ; so that in a short 
 time but two hundred and fifty men remained in it, 
 simply enough for a competent provost-guard. 
 
 In a few days all was comparatively quiet ; and the 
 press, though still rebel, almost complimented Gen. 
 Butler in commenting upon the change. ** The Bee " 
 of May the 8th said, "The Federal soldiers do hot 
 seem to interfere with private property, and have 
 
HIS CAREER IN NEW ORLEANS. 85 
 
 done nothing, that we are aware, to provoke difficulty. 
 The usual nightly arrests for vagrancy and assaults, 
 wounding and killing, have unquestionably been 
 diminished. The city is as tranquil and peaceable 
 as in the most quiet times." Thus it is evident that 
 Gen. Butler's administration started well. We shall 
 see, as we progress with this history, that it was 
 characterized throughout by dignity, prudence, and 
 wisdom, as well as firmness and patriotism. 
 
86 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER GIVES EMPLOYMENT TO THE POOR, THUS 
 PREVENTING BOTH FAMINE AND PESTILENCE. 
 
 WHEN Gen. Butler took command of New 
 Orleans, there was not sufficient provisions to 
 feed the people one month ; and the necessaries of 
 life cost such fabulous prices that only the rich could 
 purchase them. The poor were therefore on the 
 borders of famine. Flour was selling for sixty dol- 
 lars per barrel, and other articles corresponded in 
 price. This had resulted from two causes chiefly : 
 the war had destroyed the productiveness of the 
 country and the trade of the city, and the rebel van- 
 dalism had destroyed the accumulated stock of goods 
 to prevent the Union army from getting possession 
 of them. 
 
 There were at least fifty thousand poor people, 
 chiefly women and children, whose physical salvation 
 depended upon the wisdom and philanthropy of one 
 •man, and that man hated and reviled as no man ever 
 had been in that city. Gen. Butler acted up to the 
 standard of the true Christian, by a practical adop- 
 tion of the sentiment expressed by the Saviour as he 
 
HE GIVES EMPLOYMENT TO THE POOR. 87 
 
 hung upon the cross. He forgave them on the 
 ground of their ignorance, and resolved to save them 
 from death by famine. 
 
 Mr. Parton says, "This object had precedence of 
 all others during the first few days, after securing 
 comparative quiet; but of course he could not give 
 his whole attention to it. He strove to revive the 
 business of the city, which was dead. Confidence in 
 the honest intentions of the Union authorities did 
 not exist : he endeavored to call it into being. The 
 currency was deranged : he must rectify it. The 
 secessionists were audaciously vigilant : he had to 
 circumvent and repress them." 
 
 The yellow-fever season was at hand : he was 
 resolved to ward off the pestilence. The city gov- 
 ernment was obstructive and hostile : it was his busi- 
 ness to frustrate their endeavors. The negro problem 
 loomed up vast and portentous : he must act upon it 
 without delay. The banks were in disorder : their 
 affairs demanded his attention. The consulates were 
 so many centres of hostile operations : he had to 
 penetrate their mysteries. His army was not large, 
 his field of operation immense : he could not neglect 
 the chief business of his mission to this Southern 
 field of operations. He gave from his own purse one 
 •thousand dollars toward the immediate relief of the 
 starving poor ; and, on the suggestion of the city 
 authorities, he gave permits to railroad and steamboat 
 companies and traders to bring provisions into the 
 city, the continuance of said permits being depend- 
 ent upon their not giving intelligence, aid, or comfort 
 
88 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 to the rebel forces. For the faithful compliance with 
 this provision he had the pledge of the city authori- 
 ties, and for its execution he held them responsible. 
 This obligation was violated in the most shameful 
 manner in numerous instances. Provisions were 
 shipped to Gen. Lovell's troops, and spies passed to 
 and fro in the disguise of steamboat employees, 
 traders, &c. : still the good overbalanced the evil 
 of this plan. 
 
 The general had invited the attention of the mayor 
 to the filthy state of the city, and he and his council 
 agreed to have the streets cleaned ; but no such action 
 was taken, and he summoned the mayor to know why 
 this compact was not kept. He said, *' There are 
 plenty of idle men who could be profitably employed 
 in that work." 
 
 The mayor said that a force of three hundred men 
 had been set to work. But no such force could 
 be seen by the general or his soldiers. He there- 
 fore resolved to take the matter into his own hands 
 at once ; and on the 9th of May he issued an order 
 to the effect that the city should employ the poor 
 laborers in the work of cleaning the streets, with a 
 view both to providing for the wants of the destitute, 
 and warding off pestilence. 
 
 This was sent to the City Council, who accepted 
 it as a good measure ; and a superintendent on behalf 
 of the city was appointed, Col. T. B. Thorpe being- 
 named to act for the military authorities. The party 
 named by the City Council refused to take the oath 
 of allegiance to the United States : hence Col. Thorpe 
 
HE GIVES EMPLOYMENT TO THE POOR. 89 
 
 had sole charge of this work, which he pushed with 
 energy and despatch. 
 
 Mr. Parton tells us that ^' Col. Thorpe's labors 
 were of permanent benefit to the city in many ways. 
 The Mississippi River is constantly adding new land 
 to the city limits ; but this land requires considerable 
 labor expended upon it before it is completely res- 
 cued from the domain of the river. It is estimated 
 that Col. Thorpe's skilfully directed efforts added to 
 the city an amount of available land worth one mil- 
 lion of dollars." 
 
 Thus Gen. Butler not only gave- relief to the poor 
 in a legitimate way, but greatly benefited and per- 
 manently enriched the city by his plans of relief. 
 His system resulted in more benefit to the city than 
 expense, while it cost the United States not a cent. 
 Secretary Chase wrote him, ** You are the cheapest 
 general we have employed." 
 
 GENERAL BUTLEr's ORIGINAL PLAN FOR RAISING 
 MONEY. 
 
 Gen. Butler's plan is fully explained by the follow- 
 ing order : — 
 
 Aug. 4, 1862. 
 
 It appears that the need of rehef to the destitute poor of the 
 city requires more extended measures and greater outlay than 
 have yet been made. 
 
 It becomes a question in justice, Upon whom should this 
 burden fall ? 
 
 Clearly, upon those who have brought this great calamity 
 upon their fellow-citizens. 
 
 It should not be borne by taxation of the whole municipality, 
 because the middling and working men have never been heard 
 
90 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 at the ballot-box, unawed by threats and unmenaced by ' Thugs' 
 and paid assassins of conspirators against peace and good 
 order. Besides, more than the vote that was claimed for seces- 
 sion have taken the oath of allegiance to the United States. 
 
 The United-States Government does its share when it pro- 
 tects, defends, and preserves the people in the enjoyment of 
 law, order, and calm quiet. 
 
 Those who have brought upon the city this stagnation of 
 business, this desolation of the hearthstone, this starvation of 
 the poor and helpless, should, as far as they may be able, 
 relieve these distresses. 
 
 There are two classes whom it would seem peculiarly fit 
 should at first contribute. First, those individuals and cor- 
 porations who have aided the Rebellion with their means ; and, 
 second, those who have endeavored to destroy the commercial 
 prosperity of the city, upon which the welfare of its inhabitants 
 depend. 
 
 It is brought to the knowledge of the commanding general, 
 that a subscription of twelve hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
 was made by the corporate bodies, business firms, and persons 
 whose names are set forth in Schedule " A " annexed to this 
 order, and that sum placed in the hands of an illegal body 
 known as the " Committee of PubHc Safety," for the treasona- 
 ble purpose of defending the city against the Government of 
 the United States, under whose humane rule the city of New 
 Orleans had enjoyed such unexampled prosperity, that her 
 warehouses were filled with fruits of all nations who come to 
 share her freedom, to take part in the benefits of her commer- 
 cial prosperity, and thus she was made the representative mart 
 of the world. 
 
 The stupidity and wastefulness with which this immense 
 sum was spent was only equalled by the folly which led to its 
 being raised at all. The subscribers to this fund, by this very 
 act, betray their treasonable designs, and their ability to pay at 
 least a much smaller tax for the relief of their destitute and 
 starving neighbors. 
 
 Schedule " B " is a list of cotton-brokers, who, claiming to 
 
HE GIVES EMPLOYMENT TO THE POOR. QI 
 
 control that great interest in New Orleans, to which she is so 
 much indebted for her wealth, published in the newspapers in 
 October, 1861, a manifesto deliberately advising the planters 
 not to bring their produce to the city ; a measure which brought 
 ruin at the same time upon the producer and the city. 
 
 This act sufficiently testifies the malignity of these traitors, 
 as well to the Government as to their neighbors ; and it is 
 to be regretted that their ability to relieve their fellow-citizens 
 is not equal to their facilities for injuring them. 
 
 In taxing both these classes to relieve the suffering poor of 
 New Orleans, yea, even though the needy be the starving wives 
 and children of those in arms at Richmond and elsewhere 
 against the United States, it will be impossible to make a mis- 
 take save in having the assessment too easy and the burden 
 too light 
 
 It is therefore ordered : — 
 
 1st, That the sums in schedules annexed marked "A " and 
 "B," set against the names of the several persons, business 
 firms, and corporations herein described, be and hereby are 
 assessed upon each respectively. 
 
 2d, That said sums be paid to Lieut. David C. G. Field, 
 financial clerk, at his office in the Custom House, on or before 
 Monday the nth inst., or that the property of the dehnquent 
 be forthwith seized, and sold at public auction to pay the 
 amount, with all necessary charges and expenses, or the party 
 imprisoned till paid. 
 
 3d, The money raised by this assessment to be a fund for 
 the purpose of providing employment and food for the deserv- 
 ing poor people of New Orleans. 
 
 [The first schedule embraced ninety-five names, as in the 
 following.] 
 
92 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 SCHEDULE A. 
 
 List of Contributors to the Million and a Quartet Loaft, placed in the Hands 
 of t-lie so-called Committee of Public Safety^ for the defence of New Orleans 
 against the United States, and of which ^38,000 about had been disbursed. 
 
 Sums subscribed to Sums assessed to 
 
 aid treason against relieve the poor by 
 
 the United States. the United States. 
 
 Abat, Generes, & Co $210,000 $52,500 
 
 Jonathan Montgomery 40,000 10,000 
 
 Thomas Sloo, President Sun Insurance Co. . . 50,000 12,500 
 
 C. C. Gaines 2,000 500 
 
 C. C. Gaines & Co 3,000 750 
 
 [Total amount yielded under this item of assessment was 
 $312,716.25.] 
 
 SCHEDULE B. 
 
 List of Cotton-Brokers of New Orleans who published in " The Crescent^'' in 
 October last, a Card advising Pla7iters not to send Produce to New Orleans^ 
 in order to induce Foreign Intervention in behalf of the Rebelli07i. 
 
 Sums assessed to relieve the starv- 
 ing poor by the United States. 
 
 Hewitt, Norton, & Co $500 
 
 West & Villerie 250 
 
 S. E. Belknap 100 
 
 Brander, Chambliss, & Co , . . . 500 
 
 Lewis & Oglesby . loo 
 
 [The sum realized by this assessment was $29,200. 
 The effect of this order, No. i^, put at the disposal of Gen. 
 Butler, for the purposes named, the sum of $341,916.25.] 
 
 These orders were hailed with joy by the poor, 
 and muttered curses from the rich. The first saw 
 in them promise of work and wages, hence relief 
 from famine ; the latter, the stern necessity of yield- 
 ing up some of their hoarded wealth, wrung from 
 slave-labor, for the public good. "The True Delta" 
 said to these men, •* The poor must be employed and 
 
HE GIVES EMPLOYMENT TO THE POOR. 93 
 
 fed ; you cannot be permitted to lie on cushioned 
 divans, dining on turtle, and sipping choice wines, 
 while hungry men and starving women and children 
 walk the ever-busy streets in idleness." 
 
 The consuls representing the various European 
 governments were all in active sympathy with seces- 
 sion, and tJiese threw every possible obstruction in 
 Gen. Butler's way. They lent willing ears to rebel 
 complaints, and forwarded protests to the Secretary 
 of State at Washington. But the general vindicated 
 himself most successfully by a letter to the Secre- 
 tary of War, closing as follows : — 
 
 "When I took possession of New Orleans I found the city 
 nearly on the verge of starvation ; the poor being utterly with- 
 out means of procuring what food there was to be had. I 
 endeavored to aid the city government in the work of feeding 
 the poor ; but I soon found that the very distribution of food 
 was a means faithlessly used to encourage the Rebellion. I 
 was obliged, therefore, to take the whole matter into my own 
 hands. It had become a subject of alarming importance and 
 gravity. It became necessary to provide, from some source, 
 the funds to procure the food. They could not be raised by 
 city taxation in the ordinary form. These taxes were in arrears 
 to more than one million of dollars. Besides, it would be unjust 
 to tax the loyal citizens and honestly neutral foreigners to pro- 
 vide for a state of things brought about by the rebels and dis- 
 loyal foreigners, who had conspired together to overthrow the 
 authority of the United States, and establish the very result 
 which was to be met. 
 
 " Further, in order to have a contribution effective, it must be 
 upon those who have wealth to meet it. There seems to be no 
 such fit subjects for such taxation as the cotton-brokers who 
 had brought the distress upon the city by paralyzing commerce 
 and the subscribers to the rebel loan. 
 
94 LIFF OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 " With these convictions I issued General Order No. 55, 
 which will explain itself, and have raised nearly the amount of 
 the tax therein set forth. But for what purpose .'' Not a dollar 
 has gone in any way to the use of the United States. I am 
 now employing one thousand poor laborers, as matter of char- 
 ity, upon the streets and wharves of the city, from this fund. I 
 am distributing food to preserve from starvation nine thousand 
 seven hundred and seven families, containing thirty-two thou- 
 sand four hundred souls, daily ; and this at an expense of 
 seventy thousand dollars per month. I am sustaining, at an 
 expense of two thousand dollars per month, five asylums for 
 widows and orphans. I am aiding the charity hospital to the 
 extent of five thousand dollars per month. 
 
 " Before their Excellencies, the French and Prussian minis- 
 ters, complain of my exactions upon foreigners at New Orleans, 
 I desire that they should look at the documents, and consider 
 for a moment the facts and figures set forth in this report. 
 They will find that out of ten thousand four hundred and ninety 
 families who have been fed from the fund, with the raising of 
 which they find fault, less than one-tenth are Americans ; nine 
 thousand four hundred and eighty are foreigners. Of the thirty- 
 two thousand souls, but three thousand are natives. Besides 
 the charity at the asylums and hospitals, distributed in about 
 the same proportion to foreign and native born ; so that, of an 
 expenditure of near eighty thousand dollars per month to em- 
 ploy and feed the starving poor of New Orleans, seventy-two 
 thousand dollars goes to foreigners, whose compatriots loudly 
 complain, and offensively thrust forward their neutrahty, when- 
 ever they are called upon to aid their suffering countrymen. 
 
 " I should need no extraordinary taxation to feed the poor of 
 New Orleans, if the bellies of the foreigners were as actively 
 with the rebels as are the heads of those who claim exemption 
 thus far from this taxation, made and used for the purposes 
 above set forth, upon the ground of their neutrality ; among 
 whom I find Rochereau & Co., the senior partner of which firm 
 took an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the Confed- 
 erate States. I find also the house of Riechard & Co., the senior 
 
HE GIVES EMPLOYMENT TO THE POOR. 95 
 
 partner of which, Gen. Riechard, is in the rebel army. I find the 
 junior partner, Mr. Kruttschmidt, the brother-in-law of Benja- 
 min, the rebel secretary of war, using all the funds in his hands 
 to purchase arms, and collecting securities of his correspondents 
 before they are due to get funds to loan to the rebel authori- 
 ties, and now acting Prussian consul here, doing quite as effec- 
 tive service to the rebels as his partner in the field. I find 
 M. Paesher & Co., bankers, whose clerks and employees 
 formed a part of the French Legion, organized to fight the 
 United States, and who contributed largely to arm and equip- 
 that corps. These are fair specimens of the 7ientrality of the 
 foreigners, for whom the Government is called upon to interfere 
 to prevent their paying any thing t-oward the Relief Fund for 
 their starving countrymen. 
 
 " If the representatives of the foreign governments will feed 
 their own starving people, — over whom the only protection they 
 extend, so far as I can see, is to tax them all, poor and rich, a 
 dollar and a half each for certificates of nationalit}', — I will 
 release the foreigners from all the exactions, fines, and imposts 
 whatever. 
 
 " I have the honor to be your obedient servant, 
 
 " Benjamin F. Butler, 
 
 " Major-General commanding.^'' 
 
 A second assessment for the same amount as the 
 first was made on the 9th of December, the first 
 having been exhausted. Further detail or comment 
 were unnecessary. The reader cannot fail to see the 
 justice, as well as the necessity^, of the course pur- 
 sued in this matter by Gen. Butler. 
 
96 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER AND THE SECESSIONIST WOMEN OF 
 NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 PERHAPS no act* of Gen. Butler's life has sub- 
 jected him to such severe and unjust criticism 
 as the following order : — 
 
 Headquarters Department of the Gulf, 
 New Orleans, May 15, 1862. 
 General Order No. 28 : 
 
 As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been 
 subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves 
 ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non- 
 interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered, that here- 
 after, when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, 
 insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United 
 States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a 
 woman of the town plying her avocation. 
 
 By command of 
 
 Major-General Butler. 
 George C. Strong, A. A. G., Chief of Staff. 
 
 The occasion, necessity, and full justification of 
 this order, was found in the fact that the women of 
 New Orleans, notably the more aristocratic, adopted 
 every device possible to feminine ingenuity and spite, 
 to flaunt their rebel sentiments in the faces of the 
 officers and soldiers of the United States, and to in- 
 
GEN. BUTLER AND SECESSIONIST WOMEN. 9/ 
 
 suit them openly on the street and in the public con- 
 veyances. They wore rebel flags upon their bonnets. 
 They would pull their skirts away when passing sol- 
 diers, as though to avoid contamination by contact 
 with them. They would sneer at them, and use in- 
 sulting epithets, and, in some instances, spit in their 
 faces on the street. These outrages were not occa- 
 sional, but constant and almost universal ; the officers 
 and soldiers, on their part, treating all the people well, 
 and the women with deferential politeness, and taking 
 no apparent notice of, and in no case resenting, the 
 insults offered. They chafed under this treatment, 
 however, and complained daily to the general, of 
 insults which they as gentlemen could not resent, 
 nor as sensitive men endure with patience. ■ The 
 general resolved to protect his men and these women 
 at the same time, and the above order was the plan 
 adopted to do it ; and the wisdom of it is sustained 
 by its entire success. 
 
 It has been charged, that in this order Gen. Butler 
 insulted the women of New Orleans, by classing the 
 whole of them as women of the town ; but no just 
 critic can di-aw any such conclusion from the lan- 
 guage of the document in question. Only those who 
 should choose to act like women of the town could be 
 treated as such. How do women of the town act ? 
 Why, they accost men on the street with whom they 
 have no acquaintance, or they stare at them, or make 
 signs designed to attract their attention, &c. ; and in 
 all cities of civilized countries women who do such 
 things are liable to be arrested, committed to prison, 
 and fined. 
 
98 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 No such punishment was meted out to the women 
 of New Orleans under this order, for the excellent 
 reason that from the day of its publication they all 
 comported themselves as became virtuous and well- 
 bred ladies. It was feared by some, even of the gen- 
 eral's staff, that the order might be misconstrued by 
 some of the soldiers, who might make it the pretext 
 for insulting women whom they might meet ; but no 
 instance of such misunderstanding or abuse of the 
 order occurred. On the contrary, the order produced 
 good fruits only; and, as we are to judge by fruits, we 
 cannot but commend most fully Gen. Butler's cele- 
 brated "Woman Order." 
 
 It was not popular in rebel circles, either South, 
 North, or in Europe. The mayor of New Orleans 
 was highly indignant. He wrote on the i6th of May 
 a most inflammatory and offensive letter to Gen. 
 Butler, saying, "As chief magistrate of this city I 
 cannot allow such an order published without my 
 protest. The passions of our people already aroused, 
 this must exasperate them beyond control ; and I will 
 not undertake to be responsible for the peace of the 
 city while such an edict remains in force." 
 
 Gen. Butler took him at his word. He having 
 said he would not be responsible for the order of the 
 city, the following reply was returned : — 
 
 "John T. Monroe, late mayor o£ New Orleans, is hereby 
 relieved from all responsibility for the peace of the city, and 
 suspended from any official functions, and committed to Fort 
 Jackson until further orders. B. F. Butler, 
 
 " Major-General commanding^!'* 
 
GEN. BUTLER AND SECESSIONIST WOMEN. 99 
 
 The mayor's bravado oozed out at once ; and he 
 begged not to be sent to prison, declaring that he had 
 no intention of insulting the general. Gen. Butler 
 explained his order to him, and he professed himself 
 entirely satisfied with it. He at once asked to with- 
 draw his letter ; and the general wrote at the foot of 
 it, " This communication having been sent under a 
 mistake of fact, and being improper in language, I 
 desire to apologize for and withdraw it." This the 
 mayor signed, and was relieved from arrest. 
 
 The very next day, having been bulldozed by his 
 rebel friends, he wrote to recall his recantation. 
 
 In reply Gen. Butler wrote : — 
 
 " There can be, there has been, no room for misunderstand- 
 ing of General Order No. 28. No lady will take any notice of 
 a strange gentleman in such form as to attract attention. Com- 
 mon women do. 
 
 " Therefore, whatever woman, lady, or mistress, gentle or 
 simple, who by gesture, look, or word insults, shows contempt 
 for, thus attracting to herself the notice of, my officers or sol- 
 diers, will be deemed to act as becomes her vocation of common 
 woman, and will be liable to be treated accordingly. 
 
 " I shall not, as I have not abated, a single word of that 
 order: it was well considered. If obeyed, it will protect the 
 true and modest woman from all possible insult : the others will 
 take care of themselves. 
 
 " You can publish your letter if you publish this note and 
 your apology. B. F. Butler, 
 
 " Major-General eoinmanding!''' 
 
 Again the mayor wilted ; and again, under the 
 influence of rebel counsellors, he stiffened up. Fi- 
 nally, on the invitation of Gen. Butler, the mayor 
 
lOO LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, 
 
 and the chief officers of the city had a conference 
 with the general at his office. The general delivered 
 a lecture to them, recounting the broken promises 
 and disloyal conduct of the mayor and council, as 
 well as the leading citizens. 
 
 Then addressing them individually he asked, " Do 
 you believe the mayor's letter insulting ? Do you aid 
 and abet the mayor ? Do you sustain the mayor in 
 reiterating the letter ? " 
 
 The chief of police. Judge Kennedy, and Mr. Dun- 
 can answered in the affirmative. The general then 
 ordered these three gentlemen and the mayor com- 
 mitted to Fort Jackson. 
 
 Gen. Butler immediately took control of the city 
 government by proclamation, organizing a police- 
 force, and restoring order. 
 
THE EXECUTION OF W. B. MUMFORD. lOI 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE EXECUTION BY HANGING OF W. B. MUMFORD. 
 
 IN the early part of the war Gen. Dix made himself 
 famous by his celebrated order, *' If any man pulls 
 down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." 
 The reader remembers the occurrence, already re- 
 lated, of pulling down the flag which Capt. Farragut 
 had ordered raised over the United-States Mint. The 
 man who did this was William B. Mumford, a pro- 
 fessional gambler of New Orleans. His act was of 
 treasonable character ; but it is not probable he 
 would have been arrested and tried for it if he had 
 afterwards behaved himself in a seemly manner. 
 But he was one of the most troublesome mob-leaders 
 in the city. He was almost daily seen on the street, 
 venting rebel sentiments, and boasting of his exploit 
 in tearing down and insulting the old flag. So bold 
 did he become, that he would repeat the story in 
 front of Gen. Butler's headquarters, and dare the 
 Lincoln hirelings to arrest him. While in the act of 
 repeating this challenge one day, he was arrested, 
 and taken to prison. His case having been thus 
 brought to the special attention of the provost-mar- 
 
I02 LIFE OF BENJAMJN F. BUTLER. 
 
 shal and provost-judg'e, he was put on trial ; and, 
 being found guilty, he was sentenced to be hung. 
 
 During the trial he treated the whole matter with 
 contempt ; and after he was condemned he and his 
 friends boldly proclaimed that Gen. Butler would not 
 dare to sign the order for his execution, as it would 
 cost him his life to do so. 
 
 They were mistaken in their man. Gen. Butler 
 makes no ostentatious display of his courage, but he 
 is one of the very last to be frightened from the dis- 
 charge of duty by threats of personal violence. 
 
 The general, believing his sentence just, and that 
 his execution would have a healthy influence upon his 
 traitor associates and the whole city, promptly signed 
 his death-warrant, and fixed a day for its execution, 
 naming Saturday, June the /th. 
 
 About this time six men who had broken their 
 parole by joining a secret rebel organization, known 
 as the Monroe Guard, in honor of the mayor, were 
 arrested while in the act of stealing out of the city 
 to join Gen. Lovell's command. These were tried, 
 and condemned to be. shot. This sentence the gene- 
 ral also indorsed. Hence there were seven men 
 under sentence of death in New Orleans at the same 
 time. 
 
 Although he had not acted as judge, hence to sen- 
 tence them was not his act, yet they could not be put 
 to death without his order ; and, even after this had 
 been given, the power to pardon still remained with 
 him. 
 
 Gen. Butler is a man of firmness and decision : 
 
THE EXECUTION OF W. B. MUMFORD. IO3 
 
 but he is also a man of fine sensibilities and tender 
 sympathies, his maligners to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. These seven human lives weighed down 
 his heart to so great an extent that he could neither 
 eat nor sleep with any degree of comfort. To add 
 to his embarrassment, Mumford's wife, his own wife, 
 the venerable and reverend Dr. Mercer, and others, 
 besought him, with prayers and tears, to pardon this 
 wretched man. But he remained firm. Not but 
 that he earnestly desired to grant the pardon ; but 
 the public good, aye, the safety of the city, demanded 
 that an example be made of this man. He believed, 
 and still believes, that if Mumford should be par- 
 doned it would be construed as an act of cowardice 
 on his part, and the mob-element Mumford repre- 
 sented would have become uncontrollable save by 
 grape and canister. It was simply a question whether 
 one bad man should meet the fate his crimes de- 
 served, or hundreds, perhaps thousands, should be 
 slain in the streets, the good and the bad together. 
 
 The other six men were worthy of death, accord- 
 ing to the laws of war ; but possibly one victim would 
 suffice. Hence,- when a statement came to the gen- 
 eral, that one of the poor fellows had said that he did 
 not understand about this paroling, that it was a mat- 
 ter for officers and gentlemen, — **We are not officers 
 nor gentlemen," — he promptly commuted their sen- 
 tence to imprisonment on Ship Island during the 
 pleasure of the President. He was doubtless influ- 
 enced toward this action by the earnest petition of 
 Hon. T.*J. Durant, then a prominent citizen of New 
 
I04 T.TFE OF BKNJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 Orleans, a pronounced Union-man, and now a distin- 
 guished member of the bar at Washington City, and 
 others of influence ; but the matter that touched his 
 heart in its most tender place was the words of the 
 poor fellow who unconsciously drew such a sharp 
 distinction between the intelligent traitors and their 
 deluded victims, the common rebel soldiers. 
 
 Mumford was hung on the 7th of June, in the 
 presence of an immense crowd ; and the city felt 
 safer from that hour. 
 
 Gen. Butler had received numerous letters threat- 
 ening him with assassination unless he pardoned 
 Mumford ; but no attempt of the sort occurred. 
 On the contrary, his life was much safer after than 
 before the execution. 
 
IN THE ROLE OF A DIPLOMAT. IO5 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER IN THE ROLE OF A DIPLOMAT. HE 
 
 PROVES MORE THAN A MATCH FOR THE FOREIGN 
 CONSULS. 
 
 BEING a great commercial city, New Orleans was 
 honored with the permanent presence of consul- 
 generals from the leading nations of the world ; and 
 during the war these, without exception, sympathized 
 with the rebel cause, and most if not all of them had 
 taken the oath of allegiance to the Southern Con- 
 federacy in 1 86 1. This act of theirs was without 
 excuse ; they being foreigners, and accredited repre- 
 sentatives of their respective governments to the 
 Government of the United States. Being in sympa- 
 thy with the rebels, -they opposed every measure of 
 Gen. Butler ; and, being foreign officials, they claimed 
 exemption from the rules and laws governing citi- 
 zens : hence they were a very troublesome set of fel- 
 lows. 
 
 There was a large foreign population in the city ; 
 and these consuls assumed the duty of protecting 
 these also from the action of such laws as Gen. 
 Butler ordained for the government of the city. 
 
I06 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 Had the commanding general been free to act with- 
 out fear of interference from the State Department, 
 he could have managed these obstreperous and offi- 
 cious officials without much difficulty ; but they were 
 constantly appealing to their ministers at Washing- 
 ton, who in turn laid their grievances before Secre- 
 tary Seward, who, it is well known, was nothing if 
 not a diplomat, — a suave and genial, not to say 
 timid, diplomat, with not one element of the soldier 
 in his make-up. 
 
 Gen. Butler is both a diplomat and a general, a 
 statesman and a soldier. He understood the rights 
 and duties of these foreign consuls, and respected 
 them ; and he also understood the rights of his own 
 Government, and was resolved to maintain them 
 against domestic foes and foreign enemies. 
 
 An organization known as the British Guard, com- 
 posed of wealthy Englishmen, sent their arms' and 
 equipments to Gen. Beauregard ; on learning which 
 fact. Gen. Butler ordered them to leave the city within 
 twenty-four hours, on pain of imprisonment in Fort 
 Jackson as dangerous foes. 
 
 The British consul, Mr. Coppell, protested. 
 
 The general replied, that, as they had thought it 
 important that Gen. Beauregard should have sixty 
 more uniforms and guns, he preferred that he should 
 have these faithless and dangerous men, to their re- 
 maining in the city as a disturbing element. He 
 therefore stood by his order ; and with the exception 
 of the captain and one man, who were sent to prison, 
 the legion fled the city. 
 
,, XHE K6.E OF A DIPLOMAT. 
 
 ^^^^^^-^^''''YZt':lt^^r.^^r at Mobile on 
 ■ ^ the oty ^-^'^X7L" which Gen. Butler had 
 the steamer "Dick Keys, .he city. For this 
 
 permitted to bring P---^';: 1°, *„.' '^he French 
 L was arrested -^ ^nt ° Pns^_ ^^^^^^^ ^^.^_ ,^ 
 
 consul P-^-^'^i' 7'secre ary Seward, through the 
 laid the matter before Secret y .^^^^^^ ^^ 
 
 fZ".^eSe:"aty,andhung,as he richly 
 
 nr ati.en. Ban. -----^If ^ertfh 
 
 thousand dollars in -^-^^^^ f ^^ty and, on learning 
 consul on the ^-ender of he c^y ^^^ ^^ 
 
 t^XSr-::^^^:^^^ . from bemg con. 
 
 dollars was found in possess^n of ^aW^^ ^^^_^ ^^^^ 
 Frenchman by the name o ^^.^^^^ 
 
 seized and held for ^^e -me ea - ^^ ^^.^^ ^^.^^ 
 
 object in both these «- ^^^ J,, the custody of 
 
 belonged to rebel eorpo aUons ^^^^^^ ^^ 
 
 foreign consuls for Pjte^to"^;^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^,^^^. 
 
 shipped to the Confederate au ^^^^ ^^ 
 
 fore property eonfiscat , but Gen ^^ ^.^ ^^^^^^_ 
 
 i„ a safe place ^-^^l^'^'^'J^ consuls protested, 
 ment. The Dutch and French ^^^^^^^ ^^ 
 
 and Reverdy Johnson -as ^ent^to^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^_^ 
 investigate the matter ^^^^^ ^^^1,^,3 
 
 Johnson turned a willing ear 
 
I08 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 and other interested parties, and a deaf ear to Gen. 
 Butler ; and this immense sum of fifteen hundred 
 thousand dollars was turned over to the enemies of 
 the Government, and ultimately found its way into 
 the Confederate treasury, and was used to pay for 
 foreign arms and equipments with which to fight the 
 Government of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Johnson decided various other cases, brought 
 before him by rebel merchants and others, and all in 
 their favor ; and all these decisions were made 
 against the earnest protest of Gen. Butler, sustained 
 by well-established facts and legal arguments, over- 
 whelmingly convincing to a mind free from preju- 
 dice. 
 
 Among the remarkable facts connected with Gen. 
 Butler's career at New Orleans, none testify to his 
 greatness, his wisdom in planning, and his energy in 
 execution, more prominently than the fact that not a 
 case of yellow-fever occurred in the city during the 
 season of 1862. This fearful disease raged in Nassau, 
 Havana, and other neighboring ports ; but although 
 New Orleans had formerly been one of its favorite 
 haunts, and notwithstanding the fact that the city 
 had twenty thousand unacclimated people in it, it 
 did not lose a life from yellow-fever during the time 
 Gen. Butler was in command. This wonderful ex- 
 emption from the fell pestilence was due to his 
 successful efforts to have the city cleaned, and his 
 excellent quarantine, which prevented both the spon- 
 taneous generation and the importation of the dis- 
 ease-germs. 
 
IN THE ROLE OF A DIPLOMAT. ICQ 
 
 The foes of the general and of the Government 
 predicted that the yellow-fever would relieve them of 
 his presence, and of the presence of a large portion 
 of the Northern troops, before the summer should 
 close : hence they were indignant at his determined 
 purpose and successful efforts to ward it off. The 
 foreign consuls complained of his strict quarantine, 
 system, and laid their complaints before the Secretary 
 of State. Gen. Butler replied in his characteristically 
 able and vigorous manner, defending himself most 
 . - perfectly by facts that were incontrovertible. He 
 closed by saying, — 
 
 " Allow me to repeat, that with the blessing of God, to whom 
 j our most devout thanks are duly due for his goodness, the fell 
 
 scourge, the yellow-fever, has been kept from my command 
 ( and the city of New Orleans, till now, when all danger is past, 
 
 ' by the firm administration of sanitary and quarantine regula- 
 
 I tions, in spite of complaints and difficulties ; and, if my acts 
 
 j need it, I point to the results as an unanswerable vindication." 
 
no LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER MAKES AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CONFI- 
 DENCE AND PROSPERITY THROUGHOUT THE STATE. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER is a strict constructionist. He 
 believes with all his heart in the strictest obedi- 
 ence to law. In times of peace, the common and 
 civil law are his sufficient guides : in a state of war, 
 •the rules of war and the orders of his superiors 
 govern his actions. He found himself, however, now 
 in an anomalous position ; and he felt at liberty to act 
 upon his own judgment, and the dictates of common 
 sense, humanity, and patriotism: He was engaged in 
 putting down an insurrection, not fighting a foreign 
 foe. He believed that so soon as the leaders of the 
 Rebellion should be vanquished or captured, the peo- 
 ple would see the folly and sin of secession, and re- 
 turn to their loyalty to the Government which had so 
 justly and benignly protected their rights, and fostered 
 their interests. Holding these views, and having con- 
 quered New Orleans and a good portion of Louisi- 
 ana, he not only resolved upon such measures as he 
 deemed necessary to the maintenance of the authority 
 of the United States over any who might be still 
 
MAKES AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE. 1 1 1 
 
 rebelliously disposed, but to restore as far as possi- 
 ble the conditions of peace and the elements of pros- 
 perity. 
 
 On the 4th of May, 1862, he issued the following 
 address to the people : — 
 
 " The commanding general of the department having been 
 informed that rebellious, lying, and desperate men have repre- 
 sented, and are now representing, to the honest planters and 
 good people of the State of Louisiana, that the United-States 
 Government, by its forces, have come here to confiscate and 
 destroy their crop of cotton and sugar, it is hereby ordered to 
 be made known by publication in all the newspapers of this 
 city, that all cargoes of cotton and sugar shall have safe con- 
 duct of the forces of the United States; and the boats bringing 
 them from beyond the lines of the United-States forces may be 
 allowed to return in safety, after a reasonable delay, if their 
 owners so desire, provided they bring no passengers except the 
 owners and managers of said boats and of the projDerty so con- 
 veyed, and no other merchandise except provisions, of which 
 such boats are requested to bring a full supply, for the benefit 
 of the poor of this city." 
 
 He not only authorized all merchants and other 
 tradesmen of the city to re-open their places of busi- 
 ness, and continue to carry on their regular trade ; 
 but those who refused were compelled to do so, on 
 penalty of fine. The currency of the city was. in a 
 bad condition ; the banks having suspended specie- 
 payments six months or more before, and adopted 
 the Confederate currency as the only circulating 
 medium except shinplasters issued by tradesmen, car- 
 tickets, &c. 
 
 The capture of the city sent Confederate notes 
 
I 12 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 down seventy per cent ; but, as they constituted the 
 bulk of the currency, they continued to circulate by 
 permission of Gen. Butler, and the consent of the 
 people, for some weeks. It was his fixed purpose, 
 however, to reconstruct the financial system as soon 
 as it could be done without violence or injustice. 
 The banks had suspended specie -payment, and also 
 stopped emitting their own bills, in September, 1861, 
 and had sent a large part of their gold and silver 
 coin to the secretary of the rebel treasury, who fur- 
 nished Confederate currency instead. Gen. Butler, 
 on learning these facts, resolved that these banks 
 should restore to the people the same currency, gold, 
 silver, and bank-notes, formerly in use ; and as the 
 worthless Confederate notes had been forced upon 
 the people, in place of their former currency, by the 
 banks, he thought it but just, that whatever loss 
 might occur, the banks, and not the people, should 
 sustain ; and on the i6th of May he issued the fol- 
 lowing order : — 
 
 " I. It is hereb^'- ordered that neither the city of New Orleans, 
 nor the banks thereof, exchange their notes, bills, or oblii;ations 
 for Confederate notes, bills, or bonds, nor issue any bill, note, 
 or obligation payable in Confederate notes. - 
 
 " II. On the twenty-seventh day of May inst., all circnlition 
 of, or trade in, Confederate notes and bills will cease within this 
 department; and all sales or transfers of property made on or 
 after that day, in consideration of such notes or bills, directly 
 or indirectly, will be void, and the property confiscated to the 
 United States, one-fourth thereof to go to the informer. 
 
 "B. F. Butler." 
 
 This threw the bankers into a panic ; and they 
 
MAKES AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE. IT3 
 
 resolved to unload their Confederate currency before 
 the 27th, thus throwing the loss involved by their 
 own former action upon the innocent people. 
 
 The papers of the next day contained announce- 
 ments from the various banks, of which the following 
 is a sample : — 
 
 " All persons having deposited Confederate notes in this 
 banking-house are notified to withdraw them before the 27th 
 inst. Such balances as may not be withdrawn will be con- 
 sidered at the risk of the owners." 
 
 As Mr. Parton, in his " Butler in New Orleans," 
 justly says, — 
 
 " The banks had introduced this worthless currency, had 
 grown rich upon it, and now determined to throw its loss upon 
 their innocent victims, — the people. What rendered the course 
 of the banks the more exasperating was the fact, that a wealthy 
 corporation, professing entire faith in the ultimate triumph of 
 the Confederacy, could afford to hold its paper, while a poor 
 trader would be ruined by the suspension of his little capital." 
 
 Gen. Butler read these advertisements as he sipped 
 his coffee on the morning they appeared, and imme- 
 diately wrote the following : — 
 
 New Orleans, May 19, 1862. 
 General Order No. 30 : 
 
 It is represented to the commanding general that great dis- 
 tress, privation, hunger, and even starvation, have been brought 
 upon the people of New Orleans and vicinage by the course 
 taken by the' banks and dealers in currency. 
 
 He has been urged to take measures to provide, as far as 
 may be, for the relief of the citizens, so that the loss may fall, 
 at least, on those who have caused and ought to bear it. 
 
 The general sees with regret that the banks and bankers 
 
114 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 causelessly suspended specie-payments in September last, in 
 contravention of the laws of the State and of the United 
 States. 
 
 Having done so, they introduced Confederate notes as cur- 
 rency, which they bought at a discount, in place of their own 
 bills, receiving them on deposit, paying them out for their dis- 
 counts, and collecting their customers' notes and drafts in them 
 as money, sometimes even against their will, thus giving these 
 notes credit and a wide general circulation ; so that they were 
 substituted in the hands of the middling-men, the poor and 
 unwary, as currency, in place of that provided by the Constitu- 
 tion and laws of the country, or of any valuable equivalent. 
 
 The banks and bankers now endeavor to take advantage of 
 the re-establishment of the authority of the United States to 
 throw the depreciation and loss from this worthless stuff of 
 their creation and fostering upon their creditors, depositors, and 
 bill-holders. 
 
 They refuse to receive these bills, while they pay them over 
 their counters. 
 
 They require their depositors to take them. 
 
 They change the obhgation of contracts by stamping their 
 bills, " Redeemable in Confederate notes." 
 
 They have invested the savings of labor and the pittance of 
 the widow in this paper. 
 
 They sent away or hid their specie, so that the people could 
 have nothing but these notes, which they now depreciate, with 
 which to buy bread. 
 
 All other property has become nearly valueless from the 
 calamities of this iniquitous and unjust war begun by rebelHous 
 guns turned on the flag of our prosperous and happy country 
 floating over Fort Sumter. Saved from the general ruin by a 
 system of financiering, bank-stocks alone are now selling at 
 great premiums in the market, while the stockholders have 
 received large dividends. 
 
 To equalize, as far as may be, this general loss ; to have it 
 fall, at least in part, where it ought to lie ; to enable the people 
 of this city and vicinage to have a currency which 'shall at least 
 
MAKES AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE. II5 
 
 be a semblance to that which the wisdom of the Constitution 
 provides for all citizens of the United States, — it is there- 
 fore 
 
 Ordered^ I. That the several incorporated banks pay out no 
 more Confederate notes to their depositors or creditors ; but 
 that all depositors be paid in the bills of the bank, United States 
 treasury notes, gold, or silver. 
 
 II. That all private bankers receiving deposits pay out to 
 their depositors only the current bills of the city banks, or 
 United-States treasury notes, gold, or silver. 
 
 III. That the savings banks pay to their depositors or credit- 
 ors only gold, silver, or United-States treasury notes, current 
 bills of city banks, or their own bills, to an amount not exceed- 
 ing one-third of their deposits, and of denomination not less 
 than one dollar, which they are authorized to issue, and for the 
 redemption of which their assets shall be held liable. 
 
 IV. The incorporated banks are authorized to issue bills of 
 a less denomination than five dollars, but not less than one dol- 
 lar, any thing in their charters to the contrary notwithstanding; 
 and are authorized to receive Confederate notes for any of their 
 bills until the twenty-seventh day of May inst. 
 
 V. That all persons and firms having issued small notes, or 
 " shinplasters " so called, are required to redeem them on pres- 
 entation at their places of business, between the hours of nine 
 A.M. and three p.m., either in gold, silver, United-States treas- 
 ury notes, or current bills of city banks, under penalty of con- 
 fiscation of their property, and sale thereof, for the purpose of 
 redemption of the notes so issued, or imprisonment for a term 
 at hard labor. 
 
 VI. Private bankers may issue notes of denomina^tions not 
 less than one dollar, nor more than ten dollars, to two-thirds of 
 the amount of specie which they show to a commissioner 
 appointed from these headquarters, in their vaults, actually kept 
 there for the purpose of redemption of such notes. 
 
 Mr. Parton tells us that ''The relief afforded by 
 the publication of this order was such that, as a 
 
Il6 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 secessionist remarked to a member of the general's 
 staff, it was equivalent to a re-enforcement of twenty 
 thousand men to the Union army ; and Union men 
 say that nothing but the continual bad news from 
 McClellan's army prevented this measure from caus- 
 ing an open and general manifestation of Union feel- 
 ing. But as it was thought probable that the city 
 would again, and soon, pass into the hands of the 
 rebels, the people feared to commit themselves to a 
 course that would invite the vengeance of the return- 
 ing Confederates." 
 
 One bank protested, but, the general remaining 
 firm, it was obliged to submit with the best grace it 
 could ; and in a very short period the city had as 
 sound a currency as New York or Boston, and com- 
 merce revived at once, — a remarkable illustration of 
 Gen. Butler's financial ability. It is said that the 
 bankers of New Orleans expressed great surprise at 
 finding a Yankee lawyer and volunteer general as 
 much at home in the domain of finance as ,if he had 
 spent his whole life in a bank. Having restored a 
 sound currency, the general turned his great powers 
 of intellect in favor of a general restoration of the 
 commerce of th'e city and the agriculture of the 
 State. He had brought his army to New Orleans on 
 board of chartered transport-ships. These he must 
 return in ballast ; and to ballast with sand from Ship 
 Island would cost a large sum. For example : the 
 steamer ** Mississippi " cost the Government fifteen 
 hundred dollars per day ; to bring two hundred and 
 fifty tons of sand in small boats, and load it in, would 
 
MAKES AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE. II/ 
 
 take ten days, and to discharge it in New York, four 
 more : fourteen days, at fifteen hundred dollars per 
 day, is twenty-one thousand dollars. He could bal- 
 last with sugar, and make a large profit, and besides 
 increase the revenues of the merchants of New 
 Orleans and the planters of Louisiana, as well as of 
 the United States. A briUiant idea! 
 
 He had very little government money ; so he 
 pledged his private credit for a hundred thousand 
 dollars, and loaned it to the Government to buy 
 sugar with which to load these ships. This transac- 
 tion was very profitable to the Government ; while all 
 Gen. Butler received in the way of reward was a large 
 dividend of abuse and slander, which grew out of the 
 fact that other people judged him by themselves. 
 The owners of the ships, though receiving enormous 
 rental for their vessels, insisted on being paid freights 
 on this sugar, which the general justly refused ; and, 
 failing in their efforts to rob the Government, 
 through the integrity of Gen. Butler, who opposed 
 their claims, they accused him, by insinuation and 
 hint only, of making money on this sugar operation. 
 It is possible they thought that in some way he was 
 re-imbursed for the use of his money; but the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury knew he did not make a dollar. 
 It has been stated as a fact by half the newspapers 
 of the country, and repeated by his political oppo- 
 nents thousands of times, that Gen. Butler got rich 
 while in New Orleans, by speculating in sugar and 
 cotton. The author, after thorough investigation, is 
 prepared to state positively, and does so state, that 
 
Il8 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 the charge is absolutely false in every part and par- 
 ticular. Not that these editors and politicians, and 
 even preachers, all mean to be guilty of wilful lying. 
 Some of them do ; but they gladly believe a lie which 
 sounds reasonable, and suits their purpose, — that of 
 injuring the man they envy or fear. Gen. Butler's 
 only cotton transaction was as follows : — 
 
 " The navy captured a small schooner laden with cotton. 
 ' I needed,' says the general, ' the schooner as a lighter, and 
 took her from the navy. What should be done with the cotton ? 
 A transport was going home empty : it would cost nothing 
 to transport it. To whom should I send it.^ To my quarter- 
 master at Boston ? But I supposed him on the way here. 
 Owing to the delays of the expedition, I found all the quarter- 
 masters, men, and artisans on the island, whose services were 
 indispensable, almost in a state of mutiny for want of pay. 
 There was not a dollar of government funds on the island. I 
 had but seventy-five dollars of my own. The sutler had money 
 he would loan on my draft on my private banker. I borrowed 
 on such draft about four thousand dollars, quite equal to the 
 value of the cotton, as I received it ; and with the money I 
 paid the government debts to the laborers, so that their wives 
 and children would not starve. In order that my draft should 
 be paid, I sent the cotton to my correspondent at Boston, with 
 directions to sell it, pay my draft out of the proceeds, and hold 
 the rest, if any, subject to my order, so that, upon the account 
 stated, I might settle with the Government. What was done ? 
 The Government seized the cotton, without a word of explana- 
 tion to me, kept it until it had dejDreciated ten per cent, and 
 allowed my draft to be dishonored ; and it had to be paid out 
 of the little fund I had left at home for the support of my chil- 
 dren in my absence." 
 
 When the history of the cotton, and of the trans- 
 actions connected with it, reached the Government, 
 
MAKES AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE. I I9 
 
 the money Gen. Butler had spent was refunded to 
 him, with an apology for the bad treatment he had 
 received. 
 
 It will be seen that the sole object in both transac- 
 tions was to serve the Government, and promote the 
 interests of others, — the planters in the one case, 
 and the employees in the other ; and these were the 
 only instances of his having any connection with 
 such matters. 
 
 It was to be expected that secessionists and seces- 
 sion organs. North and South, would denounce and 
 slander an ofihcer so able and active as Gen. Butler ; 
 and they did. His taking possession of and occupy- 
 ing the residence of Gen. Twiggs furnished an 
 excuse for starting on its rounds the now notorious 
 but absurd story that he stole the spoons and other 
 articles of silver plate which he found there. The 
 author asked Gen. Butler for a statement in resrard 
 to the plate found in the Twiggs mansion. He 
 said, — 
 
 '• On moving into the residence of Gen. Twiggs I found no 
 plate ; but a few days later one of the general's former servants 
 informed me that a box_ of valuables was buried beneath the 
 floor of a cellar. This I ordered dug up. I found with this 
 box three elegant swords which had been presented to Gen. 
 Twiggs in recognition of his public services in the Mexican 
 war, with a lot of silver plate. The swords I forwarded to the 
 President, with a recommendation that one of them be hung in 
 the Patent Office, one in West Point Academy, and the other 
 be presented to some officer of the army for distinguished 
 services. 
 
 " The President adopted my recommendation, and laid it 
 before Congress, where it rests still. The swords were still at 
 
I20 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 the White House after Mr. Johnson became President ; but at 
 my request I was permitted to deposit them in a treasury- 
 vault for safe keeping. The silver plate I ordered put back 
 on to the sideboard ; and during my residence there I used it 
 as I did other ware and furniture ; and on surrendering the 
 command to my successor, Gen. Banks, I turned it over to him, 
 taking the receipt of his quartermaster for it. I hear that it sub- 
 sequently disappeared in some mysterious v/ay, but I have no 
 means of knowing who got it. Some time after the war a daugh- 
 ter of Gen. Twiggs called upon me in Washington, accompanied 
 by Gen. Garfield, to inquire as to the disposal of her father's 
 swords. I told her that the swords were in one of the vaults of 
 the Treasury Building; that there were two keys to the box con- 
 taining them, one of which was in the possession of the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, and the other in my possession. Seeing 
 no reason why she should not now have these swords, I gave her 
 a letter to the Secretary, recommending that they be returned 
 to the family through her. It was not done, however; and the 
 swords are still where I deposited them, in the treasury. I 
 said to Miss Twiggs, 'Why don't you ask about the family 
 plate ? I suppose you think I took that, and I don't blame you 
 for thinking so ; but I am glad of this opportunity to relieve 
 myself from that suspicion,' I then told her of the voucher 
 of Gen. Banks, covering, among other things, this lost plate. 
 That [said the general] is all I know about the spoon story, 
 except that it was started in the Virginia legislature by one 
 Daniels, whom I had punished for subornation of perjury, a 
 secessionist member of that body, who' was afterwards appoint- 
 ed by Johnson to a customs office in Norfolk, defaulted, and 
 ran away." 
 
 Gen. Butler could not revive the trade of New 
 Orleans with the interior of the State very greatly, 
 for the reason, that, acting on the advice of fiery rebel 
 leaders, the planters had destroyed most of their cot- 
 ton to prevent its falling into the general's hands. 
 
MAKES AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE. 121 
 
 But his efforts proved his good intentions, and had 
 great influence in restoring confidence in and respect 
 for the Government he represented ; and all seemed 
 going well, till the news of the disasters to our forces 
 in Virginia raised the hopes of the rebels that it 
 would be but a short time before New Orleans would 
 again be under Confederate rule. As this impression 
 strensfthened under the influence of the continued 
 bad news from Washington and Richmond, the mob 
 element again asserted itself. On the loth of July 
 an alarming riot occurred. A woman not only dis- 
 played a secession badge on the street near the 
 general's headquarters, but used insulting language 
 toward a soldier, evidently for the purpose of provok- 
 ing an attempt to arrest her ; and when a policeman 
 took her in charge, she appealed to the Southern 
 chivalry for protection, in a manner so dramatic, 
 that an attack was at once made upon the officer by 
 the mob. Clubs were used freely, and a pistol was 
 fired. The policeman was knocked down, and a 
 soldier wounded. A military officer fired on the 
 assassin who shot the soldier, when at least one hun- 
 dred returned rebel soldiers joined the mob ; and, but 
 for the courage and firmness of the police and Union 
 soldiers present, a terrible tragedy would undoubt- 
 edly have occurred, and the riot would have become 
 general throughout the city, which was evidently the 
 purpose of this woman and her allies. She and 
 some of her chief supporters were taken before Gen. 
 Shepley, who sent her to Gen. Butler. The general 
 reco;2:nized her as the wife, or mistress, of a notorious 
 
122 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 gambler, then in Fort Jackson for a similar offence ; 
 and he sent her there to keep him company. 
 
 A few days subsequently, the funeral procession 
 accompanying the body of the gallant Lieut. De Kay 
 was insulted by rebel women ; and Mrs. Philips, wife 
 of Philip Philips, well known at Washington as a 
 prominent favorite at the White House during Bu- 
 chanan's administration, and who had been banished 
 from the capital for aiding the rebels early in the 
 war, was arrested and imprisoned. She was released 
 after a few weeks, by order of Gen. Butler, on her 
 promise to behave herself in a proper manner hence- 
 forth. 
 
 But to record all the incidents connected with 
 Gen. Butler's career at New Orleans would require 
 many volumes : a few only can be given in this brief 
 history, enough to show that his rule was vigorous, 
 humane, patriotic, just, and wise, hence successful. 
 
 That the mailed hand of this great chieftain rested 
 upon Southern men and women with such fearful 
 power, was due to the fact that they were in rebellion 
 against the Government, and he was putting down 
 rebellion. He did not spare his own men when they 
 violated the law, as the following incident clearly 
 shows. 
 
 Complaints reached the general on the I2th of 
 June, that a party of men, bearing a pretended order 
 from him, had robbed a house on Toulouse Street, 
 which they had entered under pretence of searching 
 for concealed arms. He took prompt measures for 
 their detection and arrest ; and on the same day four 
 
MAKES AN EFFORT TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE. 1 23 
 
 men were arrested, and brought before him. He 
 had an indistinct recollection of one* of them, and 
 asked, "Where have I seen you ?" 
 
 " In Boston." 
 
 "Where in Boston ? " 
 
 "In the municipal court." 
 
 " For what offence were you before that court } " 
 
 "Burglary." 
 
 " What regiment did you join ? " 
 
 "The Thirtieth Massachusetts.'" 
 
 " Why are you not with your regiment ^ " 
 
 "I was discharged." 
 
 "What for.?" 
 
 "Disease." 
 
 " Well, you ought to be hanged ; for you have 
 robbed before, and been convicted." 
 
 '' DontdiO it, general, and I'll tell you all about it." 
 
 He said he was a member of a band organized 
 for plundering houses. Two others confessed their 
 guilt, and three further arrests were made on the 
 next day. After a fair trial, Lieut. William M. Clary, 
 late second officer of the United-States steam trans- 
 port " Saxon," Stanislaus Roy of New Orleans, 
 George William Craig, late first officer of " The City 
 of New York," Frank Newton, late private of the 
 Thirteenth Connecticut Volunteers, and Theodore 
 Lieb of New Orleans, were convicted ; and on the 
 i6th of June, Craig, Newton, Clary, and Roy were 
 hung ; while Lieb, in consequence of his extreme 
 youth, he being but eighteen, was sent to prison 
 during the pleasure of the President. 
 
124 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 *' The effect of this," says Mr. Parton, " was most 
 salutary upon ' the minds of both j^arties in New 
 Orleans." It settled the fact that Gen. Butler was 
 a just man, who would protect the righteous, and 
 punish the iniquitous, whether friend or foe, as the 
 terms were then understood ; though 'Gen. Butler 
 knew no foes but those in open rebellion against the 
 Governrhent, nor friends save those who obeyed its 
 just laws. 
 
TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. 125 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. THE PEOPLE OF 
 
 NEW ORLEANS REQUIRED TO DEFINE THEIR POSI- 
 TION. MORE TROUBLE WITH THE CONSULS, ETC. 
 
 ON the loth of June, Gen. Butler issued General 
 Order No. 41, requiring all civil officers and 
 attorneys to take the oath of allegiance as a condition 
 precedent to their continuing to exercise their respec- 
 tive functions. All citizens who might desire to 
 receive the protection of the Government (except 
 mere protection from personal violence), or any favor, 
 privilege, passport, &c., or to have money paid them, 
 or property delivered to them, must take the oath of 
 allegiance. 
 
 All foreigners claiming protection or favors from 
 the United States were required to swear to do no 
 act, or conceal, or consent to any act that should aid 
 or comfort, any of the enemies or opposers of the 
 United States, while their respective governments 
 remained at peace with the United States. 
 
 This order aroused the ire of the foreign consuls, 
 as well as the domestic traitors. " The Delta " hu- 
 morously said, — - 
 
126 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 " If Gen. Butler rides up street, the consuls are sure to come 
 in a body, and protest that he did-not ride down. If he smokes 
 a pipe in the morning, a deputation calls upon him in the even- 
 ing to know why he did not smoke a cigar. If he drinks coffee, 
 they will send some rude messenger with a note asking in the 
 name of some tottering dynasty why he did not drink tea." 
 
 In this instance they joined in a lengthy protest, 
 which wholly misrepresented the order, and was evi- 
 dently meant to mislead the people, and prejudice 
 them against Gen. Butler, rather than to right any 
 wrong possible to those they professed to represent. 
 
 The general replied, reviewing in a most scathing 
 manner the treasonable record of the consuls and 
 other foreigners, showing that many had joined the 
 rebel army, and all had willingly sworn allegiance to 
 the Confederate Government : hence he could not 
 abate his order, to oblige even so respectable and 
 sensitive a body of gentlemen as the seven represen- 
 tatives of European states, whose names were signed 
 to the protest. 
 
 The aristocracy of New Orleans protested, not in 
 a formal, but a most effectual way. Persons who 
 took the oath were denied admission to the best 
 society. Gentlemen were cut on the street by ladies 
 of their acquaintance, and turned out of boarding- 
 houses by high-toned landladies. The advantages 
 were so great, however, that a very large number 
 took the oath, over fourteen thousand within a month. 
 With a view to the absolute preservation of the city 
 from riot and bloodshed, the general ordered all pri- 
 vate arms, revolvers, bowie-knives, &c., to be sur- 
 
TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. 12/ 
 
 rendered to the military authorities. Of course the 
 consuls protested ; but the city was completely dis- 
 armed, notwithstanding this official protest, every 
 man receiving a receipt for his property, with assur- 
 ance of its return so soon as the interests of the city 
 and country would justify it. 
 
 The complaint, that disarming the people would 
 subject them to danger of being robbed, caused the 
 general to issue the following order : — 
 
 " That, hereafter, the offences of robbery by violence or ag- 
 gravated assault, that ought to be repelled by the use of deadly 
 weapons, burglaries, rapes, and murders, whether committed 
 by blacks or whites, will be, on conviction, punished by 
 death." 
 
 Following upon the order to take the oath of alle- 
 giance, and the disarming of the city, came the one 
 to confiscate the property of rebellious citizens. 
 
 This was in direct obedience to the act of Congress 
 of July 17, 1862, which made it the duty of all com- 
 manding generals to confiscate to the use of the Gov- 
 ernment at once all property of all who held office, 
 civil or military, under the Confederate Government, 
 and of all others who refused to take the oath of al- 
 legiance to the United States within sixty days after 
 notice by proclamation by the President. 
 
 Among the leading traitors of New Orleans, Gen. 
 Twiggs and John Slidell were most prominent, and 
 their estates were the first which Gen. Butler seized ; 
 and the aristocratic mansion of the former became 
 the residence of the commanding general and his 
 staff. Among the papers of Gen. Twiggs were found 
 
128 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 letters which proved that he had sought the com- 
 mand of the Union forces in Texas for the express 
 purpose of betraying his Government, — an act only 
 paralleled by the treason of Benedict Arnold. Gen. 
 Butler found that constant vigilance was necessary 
 to defeat the ingenuity and activity of the rebel peo- 
 ple of New Orleans. Those who were allowed sixty 
 days' grace before the confiscation-act could reach 
 their property began at once to dispose of it by sale 
 at nominal prices to non-residents, minors, &c. The 
 general met this with an order rendering all such 
 transfers illegal and null. He was resolved that 
 nothing should save their property from confiscation 
 but the taking of the oath of allegiance. 
 
 The clergy of the city were all rebels in sentiment, 
 and resolved to remain so : yet they hoped to escape 
 the loss of their property on account of their sacred 
 profession, — surely no profane hand could ruthlessly 
 touch the money or property of a minister of the 
 gospel. Rev. Dr. Mercer wrote Gen. Butler, claim- 
 ing to be entirely neutral, but refusing to take the 
 oath. The general replied, — 
 
 " In my opinion, there can be no such thing as neutrahty by 
 a citizen of the United States. He that is not for us is against 
 us. As an officer, I cannot recognize such neutrality. All good 
 citizens are called upon to lend their influence to the United 
 States : all who do not do so are the enemies of the United 
 States. I cannot permit any reservation of property from the 
 list, or any exemption of persons from the requirements of 
 Order No. 76." 
 
 Rev. Dr. Leacock claimed to be a Union-man, 
 yet declined to take the oath ; but Gen. Butler had 
 
TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. 1 29 
 
 got possession of a sermon of his, preached in No- 
 v^ember, i860,, and pubhshed as a campaign docu- 
 ment by the leaders of the secession movement. 
 This sermon was full of rebel sentiment. It closed 
 as follows : — 
 
 '^ I am willing, at the call of my country, to die a free man ; 
 but I'll never, no, never, live a slave ; and the alternative now 
 presented by our enemies is secession or slavery. Let it be lib- 
 erty or death ! " 
 
 The reverend doctor did not sticceed in softening 
 the heart of the general so far as to secure exemp- 
 tion from the order. 
 
 Major Strong, chief of Gen. Butler's staff, being a 
 good Episcopalian, went into Rev. Dr. Goodrich's 
 church on an October sabbath, and joined the exer- 
 cises until the prayer for the President was reached, 
 which was omitted, the doctor asking the congrega- 
 tion to spend a few moments in silent prayer. There 
 could be but one reason for this, — to pray in silence 
 for Jefferson Davis. 
 
 The major was indignant ; and, rising to his feet, he 
 said, " Stop, sir ! It is my duty to bring these exer- 
 cises to a close. I came here for the sole purpose of 
 v/orshipping God ; but, as you omit invoking the bless- 
 ing our church-service requires upon the President of 
 the nation, I propose to close the services. This 
 house will be shut within ten minutes." 
 
 The minister was full of holy {.^) wrath, the ladies 
 indignant ; but the major's orders were obeyed. 
 
 Gen, Butler summoned the Episcopal clergy to 
 meet him at his office on the next day. They 
 
I JO LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 claimed that they were only obeying the orders of 
 their bishop, the Right Rev. Major-Gen. Polk. The 
 general refused to recognize the authority. 
 
 Dr. Leacock asked, " Well, general, are you going 
 to shut up the churches ? " 
 
 "No, sir. I am more likely to shut up the minis- 
 ters." And he did, filling their places by chaplains 
 from his army. 
 
 Major Strong and Dr. Goodrich subsequently met 
 in New York, and had a pleasant time talking and 
 laughing over their first meeting. The good doctor 
 had got pretty thoroughly reconstructed in the mean 
 time, — a fine illustratio-n of the flexibility of the hu- 
 man mind, which at one time, owing solely to the 
 prejudices of education and the circumstances sur- 
 rounding it, honestly holds to views which at another 
 it with equal sincerity repudiates. In this fact is 
 found the hope we all entertain of perfect restoration 
 of that fraternal feeling and bond of national unity 
 between the people of this country which character- 
 ized our fathers in the early days of the Republic. 
 
DEALING WITH*^THE NEGRO-QUESTION. I3I 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER DEALING WITH THE NEGRO-QUESTION. 
 
 GEN. PHELPS THINKS HIM AN OLD HUNKER ON 
 
 THE SUBJECT, AND RESIGNS. PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S 
 
 PRIVATE ORDERS TO GEN. BUTLER, THE SECRET OF 
 HIS POLICY, ETC. 
 
 W 
 
 HEN Gen. Butler was about leaving: Washing:- 
 ton for New Orleans, President Lincoln said 
 to him, '' The Government is not yet ready to an- 
 nounce a negro policy. We hope to arrive at one 
 ere long. In the mean time, endeavor to avoid rais- 
 ing insoluble problems and sharply defined issues. 
 Try to manage so that neither aboHtionists nor con- 
 servatives will have room to find fault." Rather 
 difficult instructions to follow under the circum- 
 stances surrounding Gen. Butler; but he followed 
 them as nearly as possible. 
 
 The negroes everywhere seemed to regard the sol- 
 diers as their friends ; and they only waited for the 
 smallest hint to rush in, and claim the protection of 
 the army. Indeed, it was a difficult task to keep 
 them out of the lines. In many cases it would have 
 been not only unjust and cruel to have done so, but 
 
132 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 impolitic, for the reason that they brought valuable 
 information which could be relied upon. The slaves 
 were all loyal to the Government ; but the army could 
 not feed, or find employment for, an army of one hun- 
 dred thousand black men, women, and children, nor 
 would it have been the proper thing to do, to take 
 them off the plantations while the crops were in pro- 
 cess of cultivation. Had Gen. Butler had full discre- 
 tionary power, he would have solved the problem by 
 issuing a proclamation of emancipation, including a 
 provision binding the negroes to remain with their 
 former masters on such wages as could afterwards be 
 agreed upon ; but he dared not risk a revocation of such 
 an order, after the news of the fate of Gen. Hunter's 
 emancipation proclamation in South Carolina. 
 
 In New Orleans negroes were given the same pro- 
 tection the whites received, even to the extent of 
 being permitted to testify in courts of justice : hence 
 cruelty to slaves substantially ceased in the city, for 
 the reason that if a negro was whipped, or in any 
 manner ill-treated, he or she could have the master 
 or mistress arrested, and Major Bell tried such cases 
 just as he would if such relations as slave and master 
 had not existed. 
 
 Gen. Butler gave orders which were to be consid- 
 ered permanent, to admit all colored persons who 
 might ask to see him : his chief reason for which 
 order was that he had a voluntary, vigilant, and trust- 
 worthy spy in every negro in his department, and 
 this because the negroes knew that in the general 
 they had a friend who would redress their wrongs. 
 
DEALING WITH THE NEGRO-QUESTION. 1 33 
 
 Gen. J. W. Phelps, an old-time Vermont abolition 
 ist, a man of honest purpose and strong convictions, 
 was in command of the post at Carrollton. To his 
 camp the poor slaves came singly and in gangs. He 
 welcomed them, and resolved, if not interfered with, 
 to turn all the able-bodied men into soldiers. 
 
 Complaints began to come to Gen. Butler, that 
 Gen. Phelps was harboring slaves of Union men ; and 
 the general, fearing that if not checked, this influx 
 of negroes would overwhelm Gen. Phelps, wrote him 
 to not permit unemployed persons, black or white, 
 to come into his lines, or remain there. Gen. Phelps 
 felt injured and grieved, and at once wrote a labored 
 protest, covering in his argument the whole question. 
 This was not only meant for the eye of his superior 
 officer, but for that of the President, to whom he 
 asked that it be sent. 
 
 Gen. Butler forwarded this able letter, accompany- 
 ing it by one of his own, in which he said, — 
 
 " Gen. Phelps, I believe, intends making this a test case for 
 the policy of the Government. I wish it might be so, for the 
 difference of our action upon this subject is a source of trouble. 
 I respect his honest sincerity of opinion ; but I am a soldier, 
 bound to carry out the wishes of my- Government so long as I 
 hold its commission, and I understand that policy to be the one I 
 am pursuing. I beg to leave the whole matter with the President, 
 with the assurance that his wishes shall be loyally followed." 
 
 No reply coming for a month, Gen. Phelps took it 
 for granted that his views were indorsed ; and he at 
 once organized three regiments of colored troops, 
 making a requisition for arms arid clothing, &c., on 
 
134 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 Capt. Davis, A.A.G., New Orleans. Gen. Butler 
 had just received authority to employ as many negro 
 laborers as the service might require ; and he ordered 
 Gen. Phelps to put his negroes to work cutting down 
 trees, and forming abattis, and instructed the quarter- 
 master to furnish axes, tents, &c. 
 
 Gen. Phelps refused to do this, and insisted upon 
 his own plan of making soldiers of the negroes. 
 Gen. Butler was patient but firm. A long corre- 
 spondence ensued; and finally Gen. Phelps, finding he 
 could not have his own way in the matter, resigned, 
 and left the service. He returned to his farm in the 
 •Green Mountain State, where the offer of a major- 
 general's commission reached him a year later ; but 
 he declined it on the ground that it did not date back 
 to the time of his resignation, so as to be an indorse- 
 ment of his position at that time. 
 
 ARMING THE FREE COLORED MEN, 
 
 After the battle of Baton Rouge, Gen. Butler re- 
 solved to arm the free colored men of New Orleans, 
 in doing which he was but following the example of 
 Gen. Jackson when in command of the city, during 
 the war of 1812. This measure seemed a necessity; 
 for, although the rebel forces were being re-enforced 
 all about him, his urgent requests for additional 
 troops had been refused by the authorities at Wash- 
 ington, on the ground that they could not spare 
 them. 
 
 On consultation with some of the principal colored 
 men, the general found them eager to enter the ranks 
 
DEALING WITH THE NEGRO-QUESTION. 1 35 
 
 of the army of freedom ; and in a short time three 
 regiments of infantry, and two companies of artil- 
 lery, were ready for duty. There were very few full- 
 blooded negroes, or mulattoes even, among them : 
 they were quadroons and octoroons, in whose veins 
 ran the best blood of Louisiana, and they did not 
 disgrace it on the battle-field. 
 
 This measure of Gen. Butler's met the approval of 
 the Union citizens of the city, as well as most of his 
 officers and men ; but the secessionists of course 
 objected, although the rebel governor, Moore, had 
 armed these same men in the interest of secession in 
 1861. 
 
 A mob of Frenchmen came in collision with a 
 detachment of colored troops, whom they attacked 
 on the street, the result of which was that the 
 Frenchmen got worsted, of which the French con- 
 sul complained to the commanding general, and was 
 answered that these men had as good blood in them, 
 indeed, the same that warmed the heart of the dis- 
 tinguished French author Alexandre Dumas, who 
 was treated with the utmost respect by the aristoc- 
 racy of Paris : and, besides, his countrymen had been 
 entirely to blame in this affair ; the colored troops 
 had simply defended themselves when attacked by 
 an unlawful and brutal mob. 
 
 About the middle of October, Gen. Butler resolved 
 to put the fugitive and contraband negroes to work 
 on the plantations that had been abandoned by 
 their owners. His plan was to work these planta- 
 tions on behalf of the Government, paying the 
 
136 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 negroes living wages. This or some other plan for 
 the relief of these poor creatures was a necessity if 
 he would not see them starve ; for there were many 
 thousands of them without masters, homes, or food. 
 
 The general also resolved to give the loyal plant- 
 ers of Louisiana an opportunity to try the experi- 
 ment of the wage-system with the negroes ; and this 
 resolution was put in the form of a general order on 
 the 1 8th of October. Both plans worked admirably. 
 
 On being informed by letter from Gen. Butler, of 
 these radical innovations, President Lincoln seemed 
 much interested and pleased. It will interest the' 
 reader to learn that the first barrel of sugar made by 
 the negroes of Louisiana under this new system of 
 paid labor was sent to the President of the United 
 States, accompanied by a letter from Gen. Butler in 
 which he says, *' The fact that it will have no flavor 
 of the cruel and degrading whip will not, I know, 
 render it less sweet to your taste." 
 
 Never, perhaps, in the history of the world, did it 
 devolve on one man to decide so many new ques- 
 tions, and establish so many precedents, under such 
 embarrassing circumstances, in so brief a period, as 
 fell to the lot of Gen. Butler during his career as 
 commander of the Department of the Gulf ; and 
 surely never were such generalship, statesmanship, 
 and executive wisdom displayed as characterized 
 his administration. The history of it reads like a 
 romance ; and, if it had come down to us from the 
 days of Julius Caesar, we would regard it as extrava- 
 gant fiction instead of reliable chronicle. Doubtless 
 
DEALING WITH THE NEGRO-QUESTION. 1 3/ 
 
 future generations will find it impossible to fully 
 credit it. The history of a single day at Gen. But- 
 ler's headquarters will give some definite idea of the 
 amount of work and the variety and multiplicity of 
 duties which pressed upon him. 
 
 We quote from Parton's " Butler in Nev/ Orleans : " 
 
 " From eight to nine he received at his residence ladies who 
 had business with him. At nine he drove to his office, where 
 six mounted orderlies and as many clerks awaited his orders ; 
 and from one to two hundred people were assembled in the 
 ante-room, anxious to give information, make complaints, or ask 
 favors. Being seated in his chair, beside a broad table on 
 which lay a pistol within easy reach, to protect himself from 
 .assassination, which was constantly threatened, the heads of de- 
 partments were admitted. Then the Relief Commission and the 
 Labor Commission. Next foreign consuls, bank-directors, and 
 other persons of importance. Then the pubhc were admitted, 
 thirty at a time, and ranged in a semicircle before him. Begin- 
 ning at one end of the line, he would ask, — 
 
 " ' What do you want ? ' 
 
 " They wanted every thing that creature ever wanted, — a pass 
 to go beyond the lines, an order on the Relief Committee for 
 food, protection against a hard landlord, a permit to search for 
 a slave, aid to recover a debt, the arbitration of a dispute, pay- 
 ment of a claim against the Government, the restoration of for- 
 feited property, the suppression of a nuisance, employment in 
 some pubhc office, a gift of money, information on points of 
 law, protection against cruel masters. Others came to give in- 
 formation, or to wreak revenge by denouncing a private foe as 
 a public enemy. A few short, sharp, incisive questions, and 
 then the decision, clear as yes or no could make it, and not 
 another word to be said. Every one got an answer, and the 
 answer was generally right. Under the general's cross-ques- 
 tioning all subterfuges and evasions melted away, and the truth 
 stood out clear and unmistakable. 
 
138 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 " At eleven o'clock the letters were placed upon his table, to 
 the number of eighty to one hundred. He read each one, and 
 disposed of them by indorsing short sentences upon the back, 
 when they were handed to the clerks to be answered in accord- 
 ance with the general's notes inscribed upon them. Others 
 were laid aside for further consideration or personal answer. 
 Military business was next in order, after which lunch was 
 served. Then, till dinner at half-past four or five, writing re- 
 ports and letters filled up the time. From half-past five till 
 dark, he was on horseback, reviewing regiments, visiting 
 posts, &c. Then home to his. private office, where he wrote 
 or dictated letters till ten. Dismissing his tired scribes, he 
 finished the day's work by writing his private letters and de- 
 spatches." 
 
 He kept his work up, — never put off till to-morrow 
 what should be done to-day. Letters from persons 
 at home, whose sons or husbands were in his army, 
 and who had ceased to write, were always promptly 
 answered, giving the fullest information that could 
 be obtained. It is a conceded fact, that no man ever 
 commanded an army who took more kindly and 
 watchful interest in his soldiers than Gen. Butler 
 during or since the war. 
 
 The first and most obvious duty of Gen. Butler 
 was to hold New Orleans ; and he felt confident of 
 his ability to do this with his present force. But he 
 desired to do more, and he did do a great deal more ; 
 and, if the re-enforcements he repeatedly asked for had 
 been furnished, he would have captured Port Hudson 
 and Vicksburg, and opened the Mississippi River, and 
 thus saved the immense loss of life and treasure which 
 was spent in their reduction a year later, after they 
 had been so thoroughly fortified and manned. 
 
DEALING WITH THE NEGRO-QUESTION. 1 39 
 
 He kept numerous small detachments of his army 
 active in various parts of Louisiana, capturing small 
 posts of the enemy, and subduing guerrillas. The 
 achievements of these detachments were of the most 
 daring and brilliant character, but the limits of our 
 work forbid detail. 
 
 The gallant repulse of Gen. Breckenridge and the 
 destruction of the ram *' Arkansas " at Baton Rouge, 
 on the 5th of August, was one of the most notable 
 victories of the war. It was here that the gallant 
 Gen. Williams fell. This brave man was everywhere 
 in the hottest of the fight until near the end, when, 
 coming to a regiment of Indiana troops which had 
 lost all its field-officers, he took command of it him^ 
 self, and fell mortally wounded while leading the 
 brave Hoosiers to a charge. 
 
 GENERAL BUTLER" IS SUPERSEDED. 
 
 On the 9th of November the Secretary of War 
 assigned Gen. Banks to the command of the Depart- 
 ment of the Gulf, including the State of Texas ; and 
 on the 1 6th of December Gen. Butler surrendered 
 the command to his successor. Why Gen. Butler 
 was relieved, has nefver been fully known to him- 
 self or the people. Secretary Stanton and President 
 Lincoln assured him that it was not on account of 
 any waning confidence in him as a man of honor, or 
 his ability as a general. A firm conviction rests in 
 the minds of the general, and the friends of the 
 Union, that Secretary Seward procured his recall, to 
 placate the foreign ministers who secretly sympa- 
 
I40 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 thized with the rebels, and objected to his vigorous 
 mode of suppressing treason. 
 
 That it was a great wrong to Gen. Butler, and a 
 still greater misfortune to the Union cause, is no 
 longer a debatable question. He had captured New 
 Orleans with fifteen thousand troops, against the 
 opinion of Gen. McClellan, who said it would require 
 fifty thousand. He had held it in spite of the efforts 
 of Breckenridge, Lovell, and Jeff Thompson to re- 
 take it, though their forces outnumbered his, proba- 
 bly five to one. What he did for New Orleans and 
 Louisiana has already been recorded here, and is a 
 part of the imperishable history of this country. 
 The following from his farewell address to the citi- 
 zens of New Orleans will serve as a brief summary 
 of his career in that city. He said, — 
 
 " Citizens of New Orleans, — I speak not in bitterness. 
 I have no personal animosity, I found you captured but not 
 surrendered; conquered but not orderly; relieved from the 
 presence of an army, but incapable of taking care of 5-ourselves. 
 I restored order, punished crime, opened commerce, brought 
 provisions to your starving people, reformed your currency, 
 and gave you quiet protection such as you had not enjoyed for 
 many years. 
 
 " The enemies of my country, unrepentant and implacable, 
 I have treated with merited severity. I hold that rebellion is 
 treason, and treason persisted in is death. Upon this thesis 
 have I ^administered the authority of the United States. I 
 have not been too harsh. I might have smoked you to death 
 in caverns as were the Covenanters of Scotland by a royal 
 British general, or roasted you like the people of Algiers were 
 roasted by the French ; your wives and daughters might have 
 been given over to the ravisher as v/ere the women of Spain in 
 
DEALING WITH THE NEGRO-QUESTION. I4I 
 
 the Peninsular war, and your property turned over to indis- 
 criminate plunder like that of the Chinese when the English 
 captured their capital ; you might have been blown from the 
 mouths of cannons as were the sepoys of Delhi, — and yet kept 
 within the rules of civilized war as practised by the most pol- 
 ished and hypocritical nations of Europe. 
 
 " But I have not so done. The worst punishment inflicted, 
 except for crimes punishable by any law, has been banishment 
 with labor. It is true, I have lived upon the wealthy rebels, 
 and paid out nearly half a million of dollars to feed forty thou- 
 sand starving people of all nations, assembled here, made so by 
 this war. 
 
 " I saw that this rebellion was a war of the aristocrats 
 against the masses, of the rich against the poor; that it was 
 a struggle for the retention of power in the hands of the 
 few against the many ; and I found no conclusion to it, save 
 in the subjugation of the few and the disinthralment of the 
 many. 
 
 " I therefore felt no hesitation in taking the substance of the 
 rich who caused the war, to feed the poor who sufEered by it. 
 And I leave you with the proud consciousness that I carry with 
 me the blessing of the humble and the loyal, in the cottage of 
 the free and the cabin of the slave. 
 
 " I have demonstrated that the yellow-fever can be kept 
 from your borders. 
 
 " I have given you freedom of the elections greater than 
 you have ever enjoyed before. 
 
 " I have caused jus-tice to be administered so impartially 
 that your own advocates have unanimously complimented the 
 judges of my appointment. 
 
 " You have seen, therefore, the benefit of the laws and jus- 
 tice of the Government against which you have rebelled. Why, 
 then, will you not all return to that Government, — not with lip- 
 service, but with the heart? 
 
 *' If you desire to leave to your children the inheritance you 
 received from your fathers, — a stable constitutional govern- 
 ment, — if you desire that they shall in the future be a portion 
 
142 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 of the greatest empire the sun ever shone upon, return to your 
 allegiance. 
 
 " There is but one thing that stands between you and the 
 Government, and that is slavery. The institution, cursed of 
 God, which has taken its last refuge here, in his providence 
 will be rooted out, as the tares from the wheat, though the 
 wheat be torn up with it. 
 
 " I have given much thought to this subject. 
 
 " Months of experience and observation have forced the con- 
 clusion that the existence of slavery is incompatible with the 
 safety of either yourselves or the Union. . . . 
 
 " I am speaking the farewell words of one who has shown 
 his devotion to his country at the peril of his life and fortune, 
 who in these words can have no interest nor hope, save the 
 good of those whom he addresses ; and let me here repeat, with 
 all the solemnity of an appeal to Heaven to bear me witness, 
 that such are the views forced upon me by experience. 
 
 " Come, then, to the unconditional support of the Govern- 
 ment. Take your own institutions into your own hands ; re- 
 model them according to the laws of nations and of God, and 
 thus attain that great prosperity assured to you by geographical 
 position, only a portion of which was heretofore yours." 
 
 Gen. Butler's policy and career are completely vin- 
 dicated by the fact that his successor was compelled 
 to adopt it, after finding his own a complete failure. 
 Gen. Banks soon learned that his efforts at concilia- 
 tion brought him into contempt with the rebels, who 
 attributed it to cowardice. They hated Butler, but 
 they feared and respected him. Had he been less 
 severe, they would have despised and defied him. 
 
 Gen. Butler sailed from New Orleans for home in 
 an unarmed transport, amid the boom of cannon ^■^^' 
 the shouts of a multitude of citizens and soldiers, 
 who crowded the wharves to see him embark. 
 
DEALING WITH THE NEGRO-QUESTION. I43 
 
 At Washington he was treated with every mark 
 of respect by the President and heads of departments, 
 and by the people. And from that city to his home 
 at Lowell, his journey was interrupted at each im- 
 portant place by ovations such as only great con- 
 querors or great public benefactors receive. All the 
 leading men of New York City, without regard to 
 party, joined in tendering him a public reception, at 
 which Mayor Opdyke presided, and Gen. Wool and 
 Senator Morgan made speeches full of eulogy to the 
 distinguished guest of the city. Gen Butler de- 
 livered, on that occasion, a speech of wonderful 
 power, in defence of the Union and in review of his 
 career, which was received with unbounded enthusi- 
 asm by the immense crowd of ladies and gentlemen 
 who filled the Academy of Music. 
 
144 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE 
 JAMES. HIS CAREER BEFORE RICHMOND. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER arrived from New Orleans on 
 the 1st of January, 1863. Before he left the 
 steamer, he received an autograph letter from Presi- 
 dent Lincoln, asking him to come to Washington as 
 soon as he had visited his family at Lowell. Having 
 his wife with him, the general repaired to Washing- 
 ton at once, and called upon the President. He 
 informed him that he was very desirous of having 
 enough negro troops recruited to hold the Mississippi 
 Valley, so as to relieve the white forces then operat- 
 ing there. Gen. Butler said, ** If you will send me 
 back to New Orleans in command of the Department 
 of the Gulf, I will recruit all the colored troops you 
 want." But, after having been relieved of that com- 
 mand without cause, he could not return as a sub- 
 ordinate. The President replied, "You were not 
 causelessly recalled from New Orleans, although the 
 reason for it does not reflect upon your honor as a 
 man, or ability as an officer." The French minister 
 had demanded his withdrawal, saying that, if it was 
 
TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES. I45 
 
 not done, his Government would probably recognize 
 the independence of the Confederate States. 
 
 He then asked him if he would be satisfied with 
 the command of Grant's army on the Mississippi. 
 No, he replied ; for that would be unjust to Gen, 
 Grant, of whom he had heard only good reports ; 
 and, besides, it. would create jealousy against him in 
 the army. "Then," said the President, ''we shall 
 find a place for you directly. In the mean time, go 
 home, and rest." 
 
 During the next few months Gen. Butler was 
 actively but variously employed, under direction of 
 the President ; and in June the matter of his taking 
 command of the army of Tennessee was quite ex- 
 tensively discussed, the President thinking him the 
 man to cut the Confederacy in two, by marching 
 through to Savannah, as Gen. Sherman afterwards 
 did. The committee on the conduct of the war sent 
 Hon. Stephen M. Allen to consult Gen. Butler on 
 the subject ; but the project was abandoned for the 
 time, because of the threatened invasion of the North 
 by Gen. Lee. The follov/ing letter of Hon. Stephen 
 M. Allen to the committee on the conduct of the war 
 describes an interview with Gen. Butler : — 
 
 Boston, Jan. 20, 1863. 
 
 But he thinks a glorious thing could be done by taking seventy- 
 five thousand men, which could be spared from the Potomac 
 and Washington (doing nothing there but keeping rebels off), 
 and starting from Fort Monroe, and landing near Charleston, 
 which he thinks could be done sooner than eny army could be 
 transported to their aid, and then take Charleston, which could be 
 
146 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 done without difficulty, pass up througli the highlands of Georgia, 
 where it is healthy, cut the rebels in two latitudinally, and thus 
 establishing a line of communication with our western army. 
 
 S. M. Allen. 
 
 In November, 1863, Gen, Butler was ordered to 
 relieve Gen. Foster, and take command of the de- 
 partment of Virginia and North Carolina, with in- 
 structions to make preparations for an early spring 
 movement upon Richmond. His first work was to 
 recruit a large number of negro troops ; and now, 
 as all the colored troops recruited in the North and 
 in Maryland were sent to him, he soon had quite a 
 large negro force, which he equipped and drilled. 
 
 About the ist of February, 1864, he learned that 
 the Confederate forces had chiefly been withdrawn 
 from Richmond ; and he planned an expedition, under 
 Gen. Wistar, to make a raid upon Richmond, with a 
 view to the capture of the Confederate Government. 
 He desired particularly to get Jefferson Davis into 
 his hands, as a prisoner, with a view to asking him 
 to revise a certain proclamation he had made in 
 regard to the general, after his recall from New 
 Orleans. 
 
 The expedition failed through the treachery of a 
 Union soldier, who deserted to the rebels, and put 
 them on their guard, thus preventing a surprise at 
 Bottom's Bridge, across the Chickahominy, upon 
 which the whole matter depended. 
 
 On the I St. of April, Gen. Grant having been 
 assigned to the command of the armies of the United 
 
TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES. I47 
 
 States, with headquarters at Washington, visited 
 Gen. Butler at Fortress Monroe, for the purpose of 
 conferring with him in regard to a plan for a cam- 
 paign against Richmond. The plan agreed upon at 
 that conference was substantially as follows ; and it 
 was Gen. Butler's plan, Gen. Grant seeing the wis- 
 dom of it, and adopting it. — 
 
 To capture City Point, and the peninsula of Ber- 
 muda Hundreds, between the rivers Appomattox, 
 and James, as a base of operations and supplies 
 against Richmond. Our navy being superior to that 
 of the rebels, it could hold both rivers as high up as 
 Aikin's Landing, eight miles from Richmond. There 
 was a deep, impassable ravine running nearly half 
 across the neck of the peninsula toward the Appomat- 
 tox, which was almost met by another ravine from 
 this river, having about one mile and a half of high 
 ground between them, which should be fortified and 
 made as impregnable as Fortress Monroe, thus secur- 
 ing for the Union army a foothold within eight miles 
 of the rebel capital, from which it could not be driven. 
 
 It was agreed, that, as soon as the roads should be 
 settled, Gen. Butler should march his army, re-en- 
 forced by the Tenth Corps, Gen. Gilmore command- 
 ing, by boats up the James River, seize the peninsula 
 of Bermuda Hundreds, and store supplies and provis-- 
 ions for both his own and Grant's armies, and fortify 
 according to his plan. It was agreed that the move- 
 ments should be so timed, that, after landing at Bef- 
 muda Hundreds, Gen. Butler should make a demon- 
 stration upon Petersburg, as though that were the 
 
148 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 object of the expedition ; and that within ten days 
 he should deploy the bulk of his army around Rich- 
 mond, enclosing it by the line of its outer fortifica- 
 tions, the left of the army striking the James River 
 above. That at the same time Gen. Grant, crossing 
 the Rapidan with his army, should march by the 
 right flank, drive Lee's army before him, if possible 
 striking the James River above Richmond, form a 
 junction with Butler, and scoop the capital out of the 
 Confederacy. 
 
 Gen. Butler made the most energetic preparations. 
 Transportation sufficient to move thirty thousand 
 troops, with their artillery, horses, and baggage, and 
 provisions for one hundred thousand troops for ninety 
 days, were procured. Preceded by the navy, he was 
 to advance up the river, and seize City Point and 
 Bermuda Hundreds, leave a force sufficient to begin 
 a line of defensive fortifications, and to hold it in 
 case of disaster. With the rest of the army he was 
 to put himself below Richmond, surrounding it from 
 below and above on the south, where Gen. Grant was 
 to meet him in ten days from the sailing of his expe- 
 dition, if possible, which was to be at the same 
 moment Gen, Grant crossed the Rapidan. 
 
 On the 4th of May, Gen. Butler received a tele- 
 gram from Gen. Grant in regard to his movements ; 
 and that night he commenced his, having diverted 
 the attention of the enemy by a demonstration at 
 West Point, at the head of York River, leading them 
 to believe that was the point at which the two 
 armies meant to form a junction, — which ruse sue- 
 
TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES. I49 
 
 ceeded entirely in deceiving the rebel commanders. 
 On the morning of the 5th, Butler's army sailed up 
 the James, preceded by the navy, and at five o'clock 
 arrived at City Point and Bermuda Hundreds, seizing 
 the only two salient points on the river below, and 
 which were afterwards fortified and held as Forts 
 Powhatan and Pocahontas. Ten thousand troops 
 were landed at Bermuda Hundreds, at eight o'clock 
 in the evening, while his negro cavalry, two thousand 
 strong on the Richmond side of the James, were 
 marching across the Chickahominy to join him at 
 Turkey Bend, opposite City Point, while Gen. 
 Kautz, in command of the white division of cavalry, 
 marched from below Norfolk at the. same time, 
 with instructions to cut the Weldon Railroad, de- 
 stroy the bridges, and then join Gen. Butler at 
 City Point, on the Petersburg side "of the river. 
 Learning from one of his secret-service men, just 
 returned from Richmond, that there was no consid- 
 erable force in that city, and being within twelve 
 marching miles of it, he desired to change his plan 
 so far as to send a flying column of ten thousand 
 men to capture the ^city that night. But his corps 
 commanders opposed it, not one of them being will- 
 ing to take command of the expedition. Gen. Butler 
 believed then, and still believes, that Richmond could 
 easily have been captured that night ; and the only 
 reason he did not take command of the expedition 
 personally was that he could not trust the details of 
 the expedition which he was managing in other 
 hands. Kautz and Cole, with their cavalry, were 
 
150 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 out in the neighborhood of the enemy, and might 
 require assistance at any moment. He urged the 
 command upon Smith, then upon Gilmore, and finally 
 offered it to his chief engineer Gen. Weitzel ; but 
 they each declined in turn, though Weitzel agreed 
 with Gen. Butler that the plan was entirely feasible, 
 and would probably succeed if attempted. 
 
 Gen. Butler thinks that army etiquette alone de- 
 terred Weitzel from accepting command of the expe- 
 dition, after it had been declined by his superior 
 officers. On the following day fortifications were 
 commenced on the left bank of the Appomattox, four 
 miles from Petersburg, and also on the right bank of 
 the James. The general then made a demonstration 
 upon Petersburg, and fought the battle of Swift Creek, 
 with the apparent intention of crossing it to capture 
 the city ; but, as soon as he thought his works strong 
 enough to justify it, he moved upon Richmond with 
 his whole force, except two brigades, which were left 
 on the Petersburg and Richmond turnpike, to hold the 
 rear in case of an advance of troops from Petersburg. 
 He drove the outposts of the enemy, and captured 
 his outer line of fortifications, below Fort Darling; 
 and on the 15th of May he was investing Richmond 
 on the south. His left wing was within a mile and a 
 half of the. river above the city, and his right rested 
 on the river below. This was his position, when 
 Gen, Sheridan came to his headquarters, and in- 
 formed him of the battle of the Wilderness, and that 
 Gen, Grant^ instead of marching by his right flank to 
 strike the James River above Richmond, and thus 
 
TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES. I5I 
 
 form a junction with him, was marching by his left 
 fiank toward Cold Harbor, and that Grant's cavalry- 
 forces were then at Turkey Bend, awaiting forage 
 and provisions. 
 
 Seeing that, owing to the disaster of the battle of 
 the Wilderness, the original plan had to be aban- 
 doned, that Grant was going to City Point, and 
 learning that Beauregard was now in Richmond, and 
 that a large number of troops were coming up from 
 North and South Carolina, and evidently having no 
 further business around Richmond, Gen. Butler re- 
 tired within his lines af Bermuda Hundreds, and 
 proceeded to carry out the other part of his instruc- 
 tions, by making the fortifications complete and 
 strong. 'Before that was done, however, Beauregard 
 came down with a large force, and made a vigorous 
 attack upon his lines, but was gallantly repulsed. 
 In speaking of this. Gen. Butler says, — 
 
 " If I had known Beauregard's force then as I do now, I 
 should have allowed him to come in, and then dealt with him 
 after he got there. But, as it was, we repulsed him, and con- 
 tinued the line of fortifications ; and, within ten days more, had 
 a line that was not and could not be carried, if defended by ten 
 thousand men, by any army of the Confederacy." 
 
 Meanwhile, finding that Petersburg had been left 
 undefended, Gen, Butler drew out a column of eleven 
 thousand men from the Eighteenth Corps, to attack 
 that place. This force was to march for that pur- 
 pose on the second day. It was only four miles ; 
 but that night an order arrived from Gen. Grant, for 
 
152 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 all the available forces to be sent at once to West 
 Point, to re-enforce him ; and this column of eleven 
 thousand men were sent forward, in obedience to 
 that order. Believing his hues defensible by a small 
 force, against any force the enemy could send against 
 them. Gen. Butler ordered Gen. Kautz, with his cav- 
 alry, to go around and assault Petersburg on the 
 south ; and Gen. Gilmore was ordered to assault it 
 on the north side. Kautz obeyed orders, absolutely 
 riding over the fortifications into the city ; but Gil- 
 more failed to do his part, and returned without 
 making an attack, — the reason for which has not 
 been satisfactorily given. He professed to have 
 learned that there was a large force in the city ; but 
 it was subsequently ascertained that it was 'defended 
 only by four companies of old men and boys. This 
 is the same Gen. Gilmore who declined to march 
 into Richmond on the 5th of May at the command 
 of Gen. Butler, not because he was afraid to do so, 
 but chiefly, it is supposed, to prevent Gen. Butler, 
 a citizen-general, from achieving that fame which 
 was justly due to him for his wisdom in planning 
 campaigns, and his promptness and energy in exe- 
 cuting his plans when not thwarted by insubordina- 
 tion on the part of corps and division commanders, 
 who, because they had been to West Point, thought 
 it an outrage on them to be placed under a man of 
 brains who had not received a military education 
 there. This was the true reason why Gen. Butler 
 failed to capture Richmond on the night of the 5th 
 of May, 1864. 
 
TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES. 1 53 
 
 The battle of Cold Harbor was fought by Gen. 
 Grant, on the 2d and 3d of June ; and here over five 
 thousand of the eleven thousand brave men sent to 
 him by Gen. Butler were lost, in killed and wounded. 
 The remnant returned, and reported that Grant was 
 marching to join Butler at City Point, and desired 
 that preparations be made for his crossing the river 
 at Fort Powhatan ; which was done. 
 
 As soon as the returned army was rested, Gen. 
 Butler sent Gen. Smith and Gen. Hinks, the latter 
 in command of the colored troops, to make another 
 attack upon Petersburg, which attack was ordered to 
 be made at sunrise ; but, although the distance to 
 march was only four miles, it was not made until near 
 sunset, yet it was successful ; the defences were all 
 carried. But, as night set in, Smith concluded to 
 wait for re-enforcements from Grant's army ; and, 
 while waiting for Hancock's corps to re-enforce him, 
 Petersburg was re-enforced by a portion of Lee's 
 army, who marched in on the other side, — on learn- 
 ing which, he held the lines with his forces, leaving 
 the enemy in possession of Petersburg, which had 
 easily been his, h^d he obeyed the orders of Gen. 
 Butler, and made the attack early in the morning. 
 Indeed, he could have occupied and held it, had he 
 gone in that night, instead of waiting for Hancock. 
 It is a matter of history, that no troops ever got 
 nearer Petersburg, until the final capture, than did 
 the colored troops under Gen. Hinks, and the white 
 soldiers under Gen. Smith, on that occasion. 
 
 After the disaster of the mine in front of Peters- 
 
154 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 burg, in which the army of the James had no part. 
 Gen. Butler obtained leave from Gen. Grant to cross 
 the James River at Deep Bottom, on the side next 
 to Richmond, and afterwards to occupy as far up as 
 Aiken's Landing, including Dutch Gap and the forti- 
 fications of the enemy near that, which was success- 
 fully done; and the ironclads were moved up just 
 below Trent's Beach, but could go no farther, be- 
 cause the Howlett House battery of the rebels com- 
 manded Trent's Beach, and because the water was 
 not sufficiently deep to float a vessel of more than 
 seven feet of draft, and the ironclads drew sixteen. 
 Gen. Butler saw that in any further approaches 
 toward Richmond, or attacks on the forts surround- 
 ing it, he could have no aid from the navy, unless 
 this obstacle at Trent's Beach could be overcome. 
 The beach is in the shape of a horseshoe, and seven 
 miles around ; and at the head the river bends in at 
 Dutch Gap, so as to be only about four hundred and 
 thirty to forty feet across. Under these circum- 
 stances, seeing the necessity of the navy getting 
 through there, he took Gen. Grant and the chief 
 engineer of the army with him to Dutch Gap, and, 
 pointing out the situation, suggested that a canal 
 sixty feet wide, and sixteen deep, be cut through 
 to the upper James River. After Gen. Butler had 
 fully explained- the matter, both Gen. Grant and his 
 chief engineer approved the project, and Gen. Butler 
 was ordered to proceed with it. He did proceed 
 with the Dutch Gap canal, until it was nearly com- 
 pleted ; indeed, but thirty feet remained to be cut, 
 
TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES. 1 55 
 
 to reach twenty-five feet water, and enable our navy 
 to sail within four miles of Richmond ; and over this 
 thirty feet, between two and three feet of water was 
 running. At this point, the officer in charge of the 
 work was informed that the naval commander did 
 not consider his force strong enough to hold the 
 river against the rebel gunboats. Thus, while Gen. 
 Butler was vigorously opening a channel, through 
 which he might sail to the attack of the rebel fleet, 
 this brave commodore got frightened out of his top- 
 boots at the possibility that the rebels might take it 
 into their heads to avail themselves of this opening to 
 get at him. Gen. Butler says, " I was opening the 
 door, to let the dog get at the wolf; but was ordered 
 to keep it shut, lest the wolf should get at the dog." 
 
 This is the secret, and the whole secret, of the 
 failure of the famous Dutch Gap canal project, for 
 which Gen. Butler has received so much criticism 
 from the newspapers, against which he could not 
 defend himself, had he been disposed to do so, with- 
 out a violation of army etiquette. 
 
 Subsequently the rebel vessels did come down, 
 
 and chase Commodore as far as City Point ; 
 
 and could have captured him, and Grant's head- 
 quarters, had they known their strength and the 
 cowardice of this naval poltroon. One of the rebel 
 gunboats got aground, and the others, fearing to 
 proceed without it, stopped to help it off ; which cir- 
 cumstance saved the capture of Grant's headquarters 
 and base of supplies at City Point, cutting our army 
 in two, and holding command of the river. 
 
156 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 The aforesaid naval commander need not be men- 
 tioned here by name. He was subsequently court- 
 martialed, Commodore Farragut presiding, on the 
 charge of cowardice in connection with this expedi- 
 tion ; and the court found him guilty. Let his name 
 sink into oblivion. 
 
 Some time in the latter part of August, Gen. 
 Grant sent two expeditions, under command of two 
 of his corps commanders, across the James River, 
 for the purpose of carrying the enemy's fortifications 
 at Newmarket Heights, and getting possession of the 
 outer line of works that protected Richmond. Both 
 expeditions were unsuccessful. 
 
 In September, Gen. Butler asked permission of 
 Gen. Grant, to organize an expedition with two corps 
 of white and colored troops, to cross the James River 
 at Deep Bottom, and one, the colored division and 
 a part of the Tenth Corps, to make an attack on 
 the fortifications at Newmarket Heights, and the 
 other to make an attack on Fort Harrison, a short 
 distance above Dutch Gap, on the Varina turnpike, 
 being the salient point of the whole line of fortifica- 
 tions of Richmond along the river, and a very strong 
 work. On the morning of the 29th of September, 
 the colored division, under Gen. Terry, made an attack 
 on Newmarket Heights, and took them after a gallant 
 charge. Then the entire Tenth Corps attacked the 
 fortifications on the Newmarket road. The Eigh- 
 teenth Corps, under Gen. Ord, crossing at Varina's 
 Landing, on a pontoon-bridge laid for that purpose, 
 made an attack at daybreak on Fort Harrison, cap- 
 
TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES. 15/ 
 
 tared it, and, but for the serious wounding of Gen. 
 Ord, would doubtless have proceeded to Richmond at 
 once, as Butler's army now had possession of the en- 
 tire line of fortifications from Fort Harrison around 
 to the Newmarket road, being the outer line of the 
 defences of Richmond, and but six miles from the city. 
 This success so alarmed Gen. Lee, that on the 30th 
 of September he sent two of his very best divisions 
 to attack Butler's forces. A severe battle was fought^ 
 resulting in a brilliant victory for the army of the 
 James. The loss to the rebels was sixteen battle- 
 flags, and a large number of men, chiefly captured. 
 It is worthy of mention, that from that day to the 
 final surrender of Richmond, no troops ever got 
 nearer the city than did the colored troops of But- 
 ler's army on that occasion ; and they v^ere the first 
 to enter the Confederate capital when it was finally 
 captured. 
 
 During the summer of 1864, Gen. Butler not only 
 had immediate command of the army of the James, 
 planning and conducting all its campaigns, but he 
 was also charged by the government with the task of 
 conducting the exchange of prisoners between the 
 two belligerent powers, a most laborious duty ; and, 
 besides all this, he had command of the rebel prison- 
 ers at Point Lookout. 
 
 A personal inspection of Wilmington convinced 
 Gen. Butler that the blockade there was not effective, 
 and that it cost a great deal of money to keep it up. 
 The secretary of the navy was very anxious that 
 Fort Fisher, which commanded the approaches of the 
 
158 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, 
 
 Cape Fear River, should be captured. Fort Fisher is 
 situated on a sandy promontory running out into the 
 sea, with deep water very close to it. The immense 
 damage done by an explosion of gunpowder at Aln- 
 wick, England, in the summer of 1864, suggested to 
 Gen. Butler the possibility of blowing up Fort Fisher 
 by that agent. He wrote to the secretary of the 
 navy, who laid the matter before a board of officers, 
 who approved of Gen. Butler's plan. The experiment 
 was attempted, but failed ; and the newspapers very 
 largely laid the blame of the whole matter upon Gen. 
 Butler. But the facts are, that the whole matter was 
 left to the navy, who utterly failed to adopt his plans, 
 or profit by his suggestions. His plan was to put, 
 say, two hundred and fifty tons of gunpowder into a 
 steamer, with fuses of a certain kind, which he pro- 
 cured, running all through the magazine of powder, 
 so as to explode the whole of it at once. The steamer 
 was to be run immediately under the fort, where the 
 explosion would occur in a certain brief period, regu- 
 lated by clock-work. 
 
 He supplied the naval officer having the matter in 
 charge with- the proper fuse ; but it was not used. 
 The vessel that contained the powder, instead of 
 being run ashore under the walls of the fort, was 
 anchored more than half a mile above it, beside a 
 sandy beach ; and, instead of the powder being simul- 
 taneously exploded by clock-work, as was planned by 
 Gen. Butler, a fire' was simply kindled on the fore- 
 castle of the vessel, which, when it burned down to 
 the powder, exploded a small portion of it, and blew 
 
TAKES COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES. 1 59 
 
 the rest into the sea, where, of course, it never 
 burned. Thus it is seen, that although Gen. Butler 
 is entitled to the honor of having suggested a plan 
 for blowing up. Fort Fisher, and a plan which doubt- 
 less would have succeeded, his plan was not adopted. 
 But Admiral Porter, who had the whole matter in 
 charge, under direction of the Naval Office, and over 
 whom Gen. Butler had no control, adopted a plan of 
 his own, which proved a scandalous failure. 
 
 Porter was sanguine of success ; and so fearful of 
 the effect of the explosion, tljat he took his fleet 
 eleven miles away, as a measure of safety. Gen. 
 Butler took his troops down to Fort Fisher ; and, 
 after witnessing the bombardment by the fleet, which 
 • followed the explosion, and being satisfied that the 
 fort, being practically uninjured, could be taken only 
 by a sacrifice of life too great to be justified under the 
 circumstances, when all that could be gained would 
 be to stop blockade-running, while Sherman was then 
 marching to Savannah, and Fort Fisher and all must 
 soon fall, he, like a brave, humane, and wise com- 
 mander, resisted the temptation to win fame at the sac- 
 rifice of his soldiers, and marched back to City Point. 
 
 Prior to this, however, in November, the Secretary 
 of War had sent Gen. Butler to New York City with 
 a portion of his command, with orders to see that 
 no disturbance occurred on presidential-election day. 
 He obeyed this order ; and for once, at least. New 
 York enjoyed a quiet and fair election. 
 
 After he was relieved from command. Fort Fisher 
 was taken, with a loss of about eight thousand men 
 
l60 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 killed and wounded ; shortly after which, it fell into 
 the hands of Gen. Sherman, just as it would have 
 done, without any loss of blood or life. 
 
 The author will close the history of Gen. Butler's 
 military career with the following from Gen. Grant, 
 as given to a correspondent of *'The New York 
 Herald," and published in that paper, on the 25th of 
 May, 1878: — 
 
 " As it was, I confronted Lee, and held him and all his hosts 
 far from Richmond and the James ; while I sent, the same day 
 of my advance across the Rapidan, a force by the James River, 
 sufficient, as I thought, to have captured all south of Richmond 
 to Petersburg, and hold it. I believe now, that if Gen. Butler 
 had had two corps commanders such as I might have selected, 
 had I known the material of the entire army as well as I did 
 afterwards, he would have done so ; and would have threatened 
 Richmond itself, so as materially to have aided me farther 
 north." 
 
GEN. BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER. l6l 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 GEN. BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER. 
 
 WE have, in former chapters, considered Gen. 
 Butler's career as a lawyer, a politician, a sol= 
 dier, and an executive officer. We now come to a 
 consideration of his record as a statesman and politi- 
 cal economist. 
 
 Gen. Butler is a radical conservative, by which is 
 meant that his mind not only traverses the gamut of 
 ideas, from the basic principles to the ultimate, but 
 possesses the logical power to grasp, hold, and apply 
 the practical deductions of all propositions of truly 
 philosophic character. 
 
 He is, therefore, a statesman after the type of 
 Cuvier, Franklin, ai^d Jefferson, the three greatest 
 statesmen and most profound political economists of 
 their time, and all of whom recognized and advocated 
 the fundamental principles of the financial system of 
 which Gen. Butler is the leading representative and 
 most prominent advocate, and which are sustained by 
 the leading financial writers of this country and 
 Europe still, and which were ably set forth by John 
 C. Calhoun and other distinguished foes of the United 
 States Bank. 
 
1 62 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 To write a history of Gen. Butler's career as a 
 financial reformer, is to present the chief events that 
 have culminated in the formation of the national 
 party, and the principles upon which it is founded ; 
 for although Thaddeus Stevens, as chairman of the 
 Ways and Means Committee in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives in Congress, reported the legal tender 
 greenback bill of 1862, it was Gen. Butler who, in 
 January, 1869, framed the first bill which embodies 
 the principles of a perfect paper money. 
 
 The greenback is a government note, a promise to 
 pay, simply a substitute for bank-paper. It is supe- 
 rior to bank-paper in that it rests upon the credit of 
 the nation, instead of depending for its redemption 
 upon a bank corporation : hence it has a uniform 
 value throughout the whole country. It is true that 
 there is no time set when it shall be redeemed, nor 
 any specific provision for its redemption in coin or 
 any other form of money ; but the fact that it bears 
 upon its face the promise of the Government of the 
 United States to pay the bearer the amount repre- 
 sented by the bill implies a time when it shall be 
 paid, and furnishes the bullionists an excuse for 
 unsettling the currency and business of the countiy 
 by constant clamors and efforts for a return to a 
 specie basis and a redemption of the greenback in 
 coin. There is another defect in the greenback, — a 
 defect for which Mr. Stevens was not responsible : it 
 is not a legal tender in the payment of custom dues, 
 or the interest on the public debt, which fact alone 
 has been the cause of the fluctuations in coin, and all 
 
GEN. BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER. 163 
 
 the infamous evils of gold speculations, and the depre- 
 ciation of our interest-bearing bonds. The bill above 
 referred to, which Gen. Butler introduced in the 40th 
 Congress, January, 1869, authorizes the issuance, by 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, of treasury certificates, 
 which shall not be promises to pay, but shall bear 
 upon their face the denomination or value repre- 
 sented, and a vignette, to prevent counterfeiting ; 
 and, on the back, the law authorizing their issuance. 
 In all other respects they would be in the similitude 
 of the greenback. The law printed upon the back 
 makes them legal tender money, equal to any money 
 coined by the authority of the United States. The 
 bill provides for the repeal of that part of the national 
 bank law which authorizes the banks to issue cur- 
 rency, and compels the redemption of all national 
 bank-notes in these treasury certificates. It also 
 provides, that, when the banks surrender their own 
 notes for treasury certificates, the securities, govern- 
 ment bonds, which form the basis of their currency, 
 shall remain in the United-States treasury, and that 
 3tS^o P^'' ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ interest accruing thereon shall 
 be paid to the Government for the use of said treas- 
 ury certificates. The bill further provides that any 
 corporation or individual may deposit the interest- 
 bearing bonds of the Government with the United- 
 States Treasurer, or any sub-treasurer, and receive 
 ninety per cent of the face of said bonds in treasury 
 certificates, for which they will be charged interest 
 at the rate of Sjq%, to be deducted from the interest 
 accruing on the said bonds so deposited. 
 
164 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 On the 1 2th of January, 1869, Gen. Butler delivered 
 a speech in the House of Representatives of Con- 
 gress, in support of his said bill. The following are 
 the chief points of that speech : — 
 
 He said, — 
 
 " We want a unifor?n, sound, cheap, stable, and elastic cur- 
 rency. 
 
 " All financial writers agree that paper money is the cheapest 
 of any circulating medium. Experience has proven that na- 
 tional bank-notes, based upon the faith and credit of the coun- 
 try, possess the quality of soundness equal to any possible 
 currency; and, as to the elasticity of paper money, there can 
 be no room for argument. Stability is the fixedness of volume 
 of the currency as compared with the property to be measured 
 by it ; and no one can doubt that paper money, regulated as to 
 volume by law, is absolutely stable, while money coined of gold 
 or silver, or any other substance, limited in production, and 
 fluctuating as to amount, is unstable and fluctuating. 
 
 " Our present paper currency is sound and uniform, and, as 
 to its production, cheap. But, while it costs but little to produce 
 it, it is dear to the people, because monopohzed by privileged 
 capitalists : about half of it being fundable into gold-bearing 
 six per cent bonds, which are free from taxation ; and the other 
 half issued through banks, which, while they get about eighteen 
 million dollars a year from the Government for issuing the three 
 hundred million dollars for which they pay nothing, they charge 
 the people an average of about ten per cent a year. 
 
 " Another fault of our present currency is, that, while it is a 
 legal tender among the people, it is not so in the payment of 
 import dues, or the interest on the pubhc debt, to which fact is 
 due the disastrous fluctuations that have occurred in our mixed 
 system of currency. 
 
 "The remedy for this, presented by the hard-money men, is 
 to resume specie payments, that is, return to the system of cur- 
 rency existing before the war ; which, if it were not impossible, 
 
GEN. BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER. 165 
 
 would be absurd. The first effect of an attempt to reach a specie 
 basis would be a ruinous depreciation of every species of prop- 
 erty except government bonds, and of all wages save those of 
 salaried officers, while every bond and note would increase in 
 value to an extent most oppressive and ruinous to the tax-payers 
 and those in debt. Such an unsettling in values the world has 
 never seen, nor any nation endured. It would be equivalent to 
 confiscation by act of Congress of one-third the value of all the 
 property in the country, except bonds and notes. I will not 
 insult the intelligence of the House by any argument upon the 
 feasibility or practicability of tjiis scheme, which proposes to 
 deprive the farmers, manufacturers, merchants, and industrial 
 and enterprising classes, of one-third their values, for the benefit 
 of a few capitalists." 
 
 In the light of the fearful experience through 
 which this country has passed since the contraction 
 of the currency began, and especially since the pas- 
 sage of the resumption law, these words of Gen. 
 Butler, uttered ten years ago, become prophetic wis- 
 dom of the highest type. 
 
 He foresaw then the evils that must attend the 
 financial scherpes, which, if not villanous, were in- 
 sane or idiotic, of those who advocated a return to a 
 coin basis ; and, like a wise statesman, a true friend 
 of the people, he proposed an excellent remedy, in 
 the bill for the establishment of a government paper 
 money, which should be equal to gold in all respects, 
 and free from the limitations and other defects of the 
 old greenback and the national-bank currency. 
 
 He says, — 
 
 " Let no man say that I desire to establish or perpetuate a 
 depreciated currency. I think I have proposed a currency as 
 valuable as gold, and, for all purposes of a circulating medium, 
 
l66 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 better than gold ; every dollar of which, I doubt not, will soon 
 be made equal to gold. But what I do desire is, that the cur- 
 rency shall not be redeemable in gold and silver, so that any 
 man, because he has a dollar of it, can call for so many grains 
 of gold, which must be paid him, and the currency cancelled to 
 that extent ; but with his currency he must buy his gold as he 
 does his wheat, where it can be had in open market. In other 
 words, the value of the currency of this country, its volume, its 
 stability, the values of all property of the country, shall no longer 
 be at the mercy of the panics, the caprice, the speculations, or 
 the needs, of the bankers of Europe or the traders of Asia. 
 
 " But I hear the bullionists exclaim, ' Our money must be the 
 same as the money of the world.' ' We cannot have a different 
 standard of value from other nations.' I would as soon, or 
 sooner, have our government, our laws, our institutions, the same 
 as the institutions of the rest of the world. We have divested 
 our government of every trait of the despotisms, every attribute 
 of the monarchies, and every vestige of the slaveries, of the Old 
 World, save one ; and that is the all-controlling and all-absorb- 
 ing power by which masses of the people of all nations of the 
 earth have ever been enslaved, — coined money. 
 
 " More than three thousand years ago the despots of the 
 world, as the most potent method to enrich themselves and 
 their favorites, and perpetuate their tyranny, hit upon the device 
 of impressing their ' image and superscription,' or other peculiar 
 stamp, upon pieces of two of the metals, not the most intrin- 
 sically useful or the most beautiful, but the most scarce, and diffi- 
 cult of attainment by the masses of the people ; thus arbitrarily 
 making a measure of value and equivalent for which the prop- 
 erty of their subjects must be exchanged. Because of their 
 capabilities of being so converted into equivalents of power, 
 the so-called precious metals were eagerly sought after by all 
 men, in such a degree that they came falsely to be deemed to 
 have a special intrinsic value in themselves equal to the effigy 
 of value stamped upon them. 
 
 "In the earliest republics, when governments were estab- 
 lished by the people for themselves, the worth and potency of 
 
GEN, BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER. 167 
 
 these metals were antagonized as attributes of despotism. 
 They stamped value upon the more common and equally useful 
 metals generally distributed among the people, to be used by 
 them as instruments of exchange and trade. 
 
 " Thus, in early Greece, the effigy of the ox, the most valua- 
 ble of the people's possessions, was impressed upon pieces of 
 brass or iron, intrinsically of little value, but thus made the 
 equivalent of comparatively considerable wealth. 
 
 " So Rome, for more than five centuries, used the effigy of 
 the shQep, pecus, impressed upon copper for currency, thereby 
 giving the name pecunia^ by which money and wealth were 
 afterwards designated throughout the world. It is now ad- 
 mitted by all pohtical economists, that finely engraved printing 
 upon paper, fixing its value, is the best of all possible substi- 
 tutes for coined money for circulation, and cheaper as a cur- 
 rency for a people than gold itself. It may therefore be safely 
 assumed, that, had the arts and education been sufficiently 
 advanced in the Grecian and Roman republics, the money of 
 the people would have been such paper, instead of the ponder- 
 ous and inconvenient metals. 
 
 " Not until the people of these free commonwealths became 
 deteriorated by vices and luxury, yielding their hberties to 
 tyrants either by choice or usurpation, did gold and silver, the 
 ever-ready adjuncts of despotic power in all its forms and 
 degrees, obtain place and scope to do their appropriate and 
 never-failing work, the enslavement of the labor of the masses. 
 It will be remembered, when the victorious Gaul threw his 
 sheathed sword into th6 scale as the counterpoise of Rome's 
 degradation, the beam was not balanced by her money, but by 
 the ornaments and trinkets of the richer of her citizens ; for 
 she had neither gold nor silver coins for more than a century. 
 
 " Twelve centuries afterward, when the feudal system 
 divided Europe, just then emerging from the dark ages, into 
 many small principalities and powers, had given petty princes, 
 dukes, barons, and bishops, control of the liberties of the 
 impoverished people, each claimed as his prerogative the right 
 to fix his value to pieces of gold and silver, and the same to 
 
1 68 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 change and debase at his will, by which his serfs must measure 
 their possessions, and pay tribute to him of all they had. 
 Coined gold and silver has ever been the handmaid of despot- 
 ism ; the prop of monarchical power ; the supporter of thrones ; 
 the upholder of nobilities and priesthoods ; the engine by 
 which the privileges and pretensions of aristocrats have always 
 been sustained in trampling down the rights, devouring the sub- 
 stance, and absorbing the unrequited labors, of the masses. 
 Through all time the possession of money has given power to 
 the few to enslave the labor of the many for the benefit of 
 princes and nobles ; and its use has been the badge of servi- 
 tude of all peoples of some king or tyrant. To deny this, at 
 one time, was treason. 
 
 " Our patriot fathers, founding a government for themselves 
 on this continent, carefully eliminated from its framework every 
 attribute of monarchy and aristocracy, the divine right of kings, 
 patents of nobility, the succession of primogeniture, the law of 
 entail, the fealty of one man to another, — every one of the 
 devices of kingcraft and oppression with which the people are 
 governed by a class, — all, save one : they retained, whether for 
 good or evil, the precious metals stamped with the king's image 
 as the standard by which to measure the property and industry 
 of the new Republic. ' It was a grievous fault,' and grievously 
 have their children answered it. Great, wise, and good men, 
 we marvel that they foresaw so much ; ' but they saw not all 
 things.' 
 
 " It is easy to understand what determined them in this ex- 
 ceptional adoption of gold and silver, which were the monar- 
 chical standards of value. They had just emerged from a war 
 for liberty, during which they had seen their paper substitute 
 for that standard rendered quite valueless and useless, because 
 made convertible and redeemable in gold and silver only, 
 where gold and silver were impossible to be had. 
 
 " But the Continental currency wanted every thing which 
 could give it value. Issued by an aggregation, or conglomera- 
 tion rather, of States just struggling for existence, trying an 
 experiment of government in a new world which many of their 
 
 I 
 
GEN. BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER, 169 
 
 best people more than doubted would be a failure, and end in 
 anarchy ; without checks and guards against over-issues, coarsely 
 engraved, easy of forgery, degraded by counterfeits by their ene- 
 mies so that it was difficult to distinguish the genuine from the 
 false, — the only wonder is that such a currency was ever capa- 
 ble of the good service it did do in the war of independence." 
 
 After a masterly and scholarly review of the his- 
 tory of currency in our own country and Europe, 
 showing that in that period when gold and silver had 
 been the nominal money, paper currency had really 
 been the circulating medium, and that, while coin 
 had been the pretended basis of the paper currency, 
 it had always failed as a redeeming power whenever 
 put to the test. Gen. Butler closed his speech as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " Instead of this money, the instrument of tyrants, which 
 has wrought all these evils, I propose a paper currency, admittedly 
 the cheapest and most convenient, its value based not only 
 upon the gold in the country, but upon every other source and 
 element of the national prosperity, emancipated from the con- 
 trol of all other nations, whether civilized or barbarous. It is 
 the currency for a free people, strong enough to maintain every 
 other of their institutions against the world, whose governments 
 they have antagonized ; strong enough to sustain the measure 
 of their business transactions with each other, independent of 
 kings, the least, — or bankers, now the most, — potent sovereigns 
 in the world. It is one of the blessings of the war, that we are 
 enabled for the first time to stand alone in our industries and 
 internal commerce, as we have in our institutions. 
 
 "It cannot fail to have attracted attention, that the only rem- 
 edy for all evils brought on by a currency convertible into spe- 
 cie when distress is upon the merchant, ruin upon the manu- 
 facturer, and disaster upon the banker, when the banks of the 
 United States, of England, and of France could afford no aid, 
 
I/O LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, 
 
 has always been a suspension of specie payments ; i.e., by the 
 use in these, the foremost nations of the world, of an inconvert- 
 ible paper currency. If such currency is so potent as a remedy 
 for all financial diseases which beset a nation, whether in peace 
 or war, whether arising from over-trading, over-speculation, or 
 over-investment, why may it not be equally beneficial as a fixed, 
 permanent, and staple circulating medium, to supply the de- 
 mands of business and the necessities of the people ? 
 
 " The experiment of an inconvertible currency has been 
 tried on the most extended scale, and through long periods of 
 time, and under the most trying circumstances, and has never 
 failed. In 1797, when the British Empire was threatened with 
 rebellion in Ireland, and was sustaining all Europe against the 
 victories of Bonaparte with its subsidies of gold, the question 
 came to her great war-minister, Pitt, Shall the integrity of the 
 empire be lost ? Shall France overrun all Europe, and threaten 
 Great Britain in the East .'' or shall the currency of the empire 
 be the inconvertible note of the Bank of England ? He chose 
 the latter, — how wisely, the success of England and the allied 
 armies culminating at Waterloo attest. An inconvertible cur- 
 rency fought the battles of England and of the world from that 
 Sunday morning, the 23d of February, 1797, when the king him- 
 self, in council, ordered the suspension of specie payments till 
 the i8th of June, 1815. 
 
 " Irredeemable paper laid the foundation of England's man- 
 ufacturing and commercial prosperity, supplied her navy, which 
 at Trafalgar made her the mistress of the seas, and procured 
 the gold with which all the armies of Europe were paid ; and 
 for eighteen years there was neither financial revulsion, busi- 
 ness-panic, nor distress. In answer to the objection that it is 
 necessary to have gold currency for foreign trade, I quote 
 Maclaren, — one of the most philosophical as well as accurate 
 writers of England, — in his History of the Currency: — 
 
 " * It is remarkable that no difficulty was experienced by our merchants in 
 carrying on their trade with other nations during this period, though they no 
 longer had a stock of bullion kept for them at the bank, by means of which 
 they might adjust their foreign payments. No inconvenience, indeed, of any 
 
GEN. BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER. I /I 
 
 kind, was felt from the substitution of paper for gold ; and, if the bank-directors 
 had so ordered their issues as to keep the mint and market price of gold on an 
 equality, it seems that no objection could have been urged against the paper 
 currency, except its liability to forgery, and we should never have heard of the 
 currency controversy.' 
 
 " We remember our ov/n war of the Rebellion, without the 
 legal-tender note, must have come to an end in the beginning 
 of 1862. The banks had suspended, and, like broken reeds 
 the Government could no longer lean upon them. Business 
 was paralyzed, men and supplies could hardly be obtained, the 
 armies were unpaid, and no decisive battle had been fought 
 when Congress passed the legal-tender act of 1862. From 
 that tim.e business received a new impulse, labor was employed, 
 manufactures everywhere sprung up, supplies were abundant ; 
 and although by a great error the legal-tender note was not 
 made the money of the Government for all purposes, as it 
 should have been, yet, crippled as it was, it supplied and paid 
 our soldiers, pensioned the wounded, provided for the widow 
 and orphan, and produced a degree of prosperity heretofore 
 unknown, which has been maintained ever since ; and during 
 this period of six years financial panics and disasters were un- 
 known and unthought of until the insane attempt of the bank- 
 er and capitalist to force a return to specie payments by a con- 
 traction of the currency. 
 
 " During the year 1864 we exported more than one hundred 
 millions of gold and silver, only thirty-five millions of which 
 came from San Francisco, and no one knew the fact from any 
 effect it had on the busin'ess of the country. In any other year, 
 while our currency was upon a specie basis, the export of one- 
 tenth part of that sum beyond our production would have pro- 
 duced financial panics, ruin, and distress, greater than that of 
 1837, when our total export of specie was less than six million 
 dollars. 
 
 " Point me to any other six years in the financial histo*-y of 
 the country, in which labor has been so well paid ; in which pro- 
 duction has been so varied and so successful ; in which there 
 has not been more than one financial panic, scattering ruin and 
 
1/2 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 disaster through the land. We have heard much of the patri- 
 otism of the bankers and capitalists, who are said to have come 
 forward to lend their gold to the country in its time of utmost 
 need ; but that is exactly what they did not do. 
 
 ''In December, 1861, the banks suspended specie payments 
 without right, without authority of law, in violation of their own 
 plighted faith and promises, so that neither the Government nor 
 any one else could get a dollar of their gold from their vaults. 
 When, in pursuance of the act of Congress of 25th February, 
 1862, $150,000,000 of legal-tender notes were issued, with which 
 our soldiers were paid, and the debts of the United States can- 
 celled, did the banks or capitalists loan these to the Govern- 
 ment, or did we make them for ourselves.^ On the contrary, 
 the banks refused even to receive the Government notes on 
 deposit. When the Government wanted more money to pay 
 the soldier, and carry on the war, did they get it from the 
 banker and capitalist? No : they issued their own legal-tender 
 notes as money, and paid their debts. Having provided that 
 these notes might be funded into a gold-bearing six per cent 
 bond, the capitalists bought them up when they fell to a dis- 
 count of sixty per cent, by selling the gold at that premium, 
 which they had hoarded in their vaults, and had refused to loan 
 to the Government, and funded this, which they now call failed 
 paper, in bonds for the payment of which in gold, or, what is its 
 equivalent, a return to specie payments, they now howl at the 
 doors of the Capitol, unmindful of the destruction of value, the 
 starving of the laborer, and the ruin and devastation they may 
 cause. 
 
 " Although this return to specie payment has been agitated 
 ever since the war, what petition has come up to you from the 
 people demanding it at your hands.? What meetings of the 
 people have been held to make to you petitions for relief from, 
 grievances in this behalf.? Not one, — not one: only resolu- 
 tions of boards of trade and bankers. 
 
 " I stand here, therefore, for inconvertible paper money, the 
 greenback, which has fought our battles, and saved our country ; 
 which has been held by us as a just equivalent for the blood 
 
GEN. BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER. 1 73 
 
 of our soldiers, the lives of our sons, the widowhood of our 
 daughters, and the orphanage of their children. 
 
 " I stand here for a currency by which the business 
 transactions of forty million people are safely and successfully 
 done ; which, founded on the faith, the wealth, and property of 
 the nation, is at once the exemplar and engine of its industry 
 and power, — the money which saved the country in war, and 
 which has given it prosperity and happiness in peace. To it 
 four million men owe their emancipation from slavery; to it 
 labor is indebted for elevation from that thrall of degradation 
 in which it has been enveloped for ages. I stand for that 
 money, therefore, which is by far the better agent and instru- 
 ment of exchange of an enlightened and free people than gold 
 and silver, — the money alike of the barbarian and the despot." 
 
 Gen. Butler has not found it necessary to materially 
 change his views since the delivery of this speech. 
 On the contrary, he has maintained the position on 
 the currency question then assumed ; and by tongue 
 and pen, in the halls of Congress, on the lecture-plat- 
 form, in the chambers of commerce, on the public 
 rostrum, he has done what he could to educate the 
 people on this vital issue, — the most vital issue ever 
 presented to the American people. 
 
 In the mean time the public sentiment of the coun- 
 try has been, at first slowly, but now rapidly, coming 
 in favor of his views. On the 26th of February, 
 1878, in the House of Representatives of Congress, 
 Gen. Butler delivered a speech upon finance, in which 
 he summarizes his doctrines in a manner so terse, 
 comprehensive, and clear, that none can fail to under- 
 stand him. He said, — 
 
 " We want the greenback for our currency, and mean to 
 have it. 
 
174 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 " But I do not desire that the greenback currency should be 
 made to serve the country as it has done, — vilified, insulted, 
 depreciated by the act of the Government itself ; being refused 
 not only to be received for all debts due the Government, not 
 even paid for all demands due from the Government. 
 
 " The ' American system of finance ' vi^hich will obtain in 
 the near future, — and I hope at once, — which I desire, is : — 
 
 " First, a dollar that shall have at all times a certain fixed 
 and stable value below which it cannot go. 
 
 " Second, I demand that that dollar shall be issued by the 
 Government alone, in the exercise of its high prerogative and 
 constitutional power, and that that power shall not be delegated 
 to any corporation or individual, any more than Charles the 
 Second ought to have delegated his prerogative of stamping 
 gold coin for the benefit of his paramours, as a monopoly. 
 
 " Third, I want that dollar stamped upon some convenient 
 and cheap material of the least possible intrinsic value, so that 
 neither its wear nor its destruction will be any loss to the Gov- 
 ernment issuing it. 
 
 " Fourth, I also desire the dollar to be made of such material 
 for the purpose that it shall never be exported or desirable to 
 carry out of the country. Framing an American system of 
 finance, I do not propose to adapt it to the wants of any other 
 nation, and especially the Chinese, who are nearly one-quarter 
 of the world. 
 
 " Fifth, I desire that the dollar so issued shall never be re- 
 deemed. I see no more reason why the unit of measure of 
 value should be redeemed or redeemable, than that the yard- 
 stick with which I measure my cloth or the quart with which I 
 measure my milk should be redeemed. 
 
 " Sixth, For convenience only, I propose that the dollar so 
 issued shall be quite equal to, or a little better than, the present 
 value of the average gold dollar of the world, not to be changed 
 or changeable, if the gold dollar grows lower in value or grows 
 higher, or to be obliged to conform itself in value in any regard 
 to the dollars of any other nation of the world ; keeping itself 
 always stable and fixed, so that, when all the property of the 
 
GEN. BUTLER AS A FINANCIAL REFORMER. 1/5 
 
 country adjusts itsdf to it as a measure of value, it shall remain 
 a fixed standard forever. But, if it is ever changed, it shall 
 change equally and alike for the creditor and the debtor ; noc 
 as the dollar based upon supposed gold, whose changes always 
 have given the creditor the advantage. 
 
 " This would tend to bring to an end in all matters of finance 
 the contest between capital and labor, the rewards of both being 
 brought into the same medium of exchange. 
 
 " By this system of finance the unforeseen fluctuations in the 
 volume of the currency ; the fall in values of property, not to be 
 provided against by business foresight ; the high rate of interest 
 which eats out the very vitals of enterprise ; the means of 
 manipulating the currency, by which the banker grows rich, and 
 the business man grows poor; and the fluctuations of real 
 estate, the most valuable and stable of all possessions, now 
 changing like the variations of the barometer as the whirlwind 
 approaches, — will be as much a thing of the past as are the 
 products of hand-spinning and hand-weaving as compared with 
 the textures woven by the power-loom. 
 
 " I sketched in this place this system of finance nine years 
 ago. It was not popular then, perhaps because unknown: it 
 is now much more known, and has become the demand of the 
 people. I have received political persecution, and sometimes 
 almost social ostracism, because of these views, ever since. 
 What motive could I then have had, and now have, to advocate 
 them, except the prosperity, power, and glory of my country .? 
 
 " Because of this advocacy I have been called a demagogue. 
 If a demagogue, why did I advocate then, and still cling to, an 
 unpopular measure ? Demagogues seek to ride into power on 
 popular prejudices. On the contrary, the statesman seeks to 
 remedy hurtful errors in the government of his country, and 
 instruct the popular mind in regard to them, regardless of loss 
 or gain, of place or power. By that standard I am ready to 
 have all my acts tried in the candid judgment of all just men." 
 
 It is an interesting though disagreeable fact, that 
 the progressive statesman and religious reformer 
 
176 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 share the same fate in all ages and (!;ountries-, — that 
 of being misunderstood, misrepresented, maligned, 
 and persecuted by those in power and position. As 
 illustrations the author points to Garrison, Phillips, 
 Giddings, Hale, Sumner, and Lincoln. The cause 
 for which these labored and suffered has triumphed, 
 hence their persecutions have ceased. They are he- 
 roes now, not martyrs ; statesmen, not demagogues. 
 But thirty years ago every one of these men were 
 the subjects of the vilest abuse and bitterest denun- 
 ciation by the majority of the politicians and editors ; 
 and even the pulpit was in large measure against 
 them. The demagogue floats with the current of 
 popular opinion, merely reflecting the opinions of 
 others, never daring to have one of his own. Thus 
 he avoids arousing the ignorant prejudices of pulpit, 
 press, and party, who join in pronouncing him a 
 statesman. 
 
 The true statesman, however, is a different sort of 
 man. He has opinions, and the courage and honesty 
 to express them and defend them. Those who do 
 not agree with him, yet cannot successfully criticise 
 his views, denounce him as a fool or a demagogue. 
 This is the secret of all the ridicule and vile abuse, 
 fulminated at Gen. Butler on account of his currency 
 doctrines. 
 
AS A FRIEND OF THE WORKING-CLASSES. 
 
 177 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 GEN. BLTLER AS A FRIEND OF THE WORKING-CLASSES. 
 
 DURING his entire career, public and private, 
 Gen. Butler has shown a keen and active sense 
 of justice. This sentiment is his guide. ' By it he 
 is governed in his business relations, and to it he is 
 ever true in his political action. 
 
 As a private citizen, an officer in the army, a mem- 
 ber of the assembly of his State or of the National 
 Legislature, his influence, his pen, and his voice are 
 active in behalf of those, who, as he justly says, 
 create the wealth of the world by the toil of the 
 hand, and the sweat of the face, but who get but a 
 meagre share of what they create. 
 
 In a speech delivered in Congress, May 21, 1878, 
 on Jiis own bill for the relief of the laboring classes, 
 the following eloquent and thrilling sentences 
 occur : — 
 
 "Within two years, 1862 and 1864, Congress appropriated 
 sixty-four million dollars to railroad companies, besides giving 
 them, at that time and since, 285,000,000 of acres of the public 
 lands, an empire in extent, and worth, at the price these corpo- 
 rations are charging the emigrants, five dollars per acre, $1,425,- 
 000,000, being, when added to the money subsidies, an amount 
 
178 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 almost equal to the entire bonded debt of the nation. How 
 much capital received of these vast sums, and how much la- 
 bor got for its share, can never be accurately known. But one 
 thing is certain : that the industrial classes never got one dollar 
 that they did not work and pay for by their labor. No divi- 
 dends, no subsidies, no Credit Mobiliers, ever come to labor. 
 
 "The laborer is the producer of wealth; capital is the receiver 
 and distributor ; and there should be no contest, but an equita- 
 ble reciprocity between them ; neither should get more in fair 
 proportion than the other. As the veins and arteries take up 
 and circulate the blood in the nourishment of the human body, 
 so capital ought to circulate wealth by means of the veins and 
 arteries of trade through the body politic for the nourishment 
 of every part thereof. When the circulation of "our blood stag- 
 nates, or any organ or member of our body absorbs more than 
 its share, disease ensues, and if a remedy is not applied death 
 follows. 
 
 "Is there no stagnation now? Is there no disease in the 
 body politic ? and does wealth equally and properly share in just 
 proportion, and nourish all the members of the body of the 
 nation, and circulate equally and steadily through every vein 
 and artery ? Or is it stagnant and corrupt around the heart and 
 the head, leaving the arms and feet cold as in death, and the 
 whole body ready to perish ? Woe to us if fever sets in, and 
 the paralyzed arm becomes uncontrolled by the will, and strikes 
 home, scattering confusion, riot, and death ! 
 
 " I speak these words in all soberness and sorrow, because I 
 feel it my duty so to do. I call attention to the wrong, and the 
 necessity of remedy. I call upon Congress here and now to 
 apply that remedy at once. We have spent more than a week 
 over a political question which for its utmost can have no sig- 
 nificance in affecting the. business of the country, being only 
 whether A or B shall distribute the Federal offices. Would 
 that that week could have been devoted to steady, careful exami- 
 nation of the dangers which sorround us, and an endeavor to 
 apply a remedy ! 
 
 " Mark my words, for I desire to be held responsible for 
 
AS A FRIEND OF THE WORKING-CE ASSES. 1 79 
 
 them : there is great danger if we allow ourselves to go home, 
 and give no relief to the present condition of the country. When 
 the day of reckoning comes, as come it must, how mean and piti- 
 ful will our economies in appropriations appear ! 
 
 " I know that these views and the consideration of this sub- 
 ject is not a pleasant one. I neither ask for, hope, nor expect 
 applause for presenting them to this House. If I desired that, 
 I would make a speech, if I could, showing how the value of a 
 United States bond in the hand of a foreign banker could be 
 raised ten per cent ; or how it were possible that a favorite 
 claim of some section of the country could be saddled on the 
 treasury ; or how the favorite interest of some portion of the 
 country could be subserved by a law adapted to its special inter- 
 ests. Or, if I desired to ' bring down the house ' in a storm 
 of applause, I would utter some biting sarcasm upon the intel- 
 lect, or some attack upon the character, of some member of the 
 House. 
 
 " For myself, let it not be said I have given no plan or details 
 by which a remedy may be administered." 
 
 Strange words these to fall from the lips of a mem- 
 ber of Congress, and harshly they doubtless grated 
 upon the delicate ears of political demagogues of 
 both parties. But they are words of wisdom, born in 
 the brain of a statesman whose love of justice is far 
 greater than his love of party, or office, or power. 
 They reveal a heart that beats responsive to the 
 demand for justice, that in this age, and this country, 
 is being made as never before in any nation. 
 
 Gen. Butler is not a sentimentalist. He is not a 
 reformer, in the common acceptance of that term. 
 But he believes in the principles of equity. He has 
 profound respect for right. Did he live in a country 
 ruled by despotic power, he would doubtless be a 
 
l8o LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 revolutionist. He would demand a re-organization of 
 the government, on the principles of freedom, equal 
 rights, and justice. But, recognizing the fact that 
 this government is based upon those grand princi- 
 ples, he simply demands that they should become 
 active forces in the body politic, that the statute laws 
 shall conform to the Constitution. This is all that is 
 needed to cure the evils of which the laboring classes 
 complain. 
 
 He is not a communist, agrarian, Jacobin, or red 
 republican, but a true democrat. He demands that 
 class legislation shall cease, and all laws be equal in 
 their influence upon all classes, and that all rights 
 under the Constitution shall be maintained and 
 enforced by the legislative, executive, and judiciary 
 powers of the nation. The Constitution makes it 
 the duty of Congress to coin money, and regulate its 
 value, to provide the country with a medium of ex- 
 change. Gen. Butler demands that it shall discharge 
 this important duty, and not farm out the job to 
 privileged individuals or corporations. This is the 
 fundamental basis of his currency-reform doctrines. 
 He holds that the public domain belongs to the whole 
 people, and that for Congress to parcel out the public 
 lands to railroad corporations is unjust and vicious 
 legislation. 
 
 HE BELIEVES IN UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Gen. Butler is an uncompromising advocate for 
 universal citizen suffrage, both because that is the 
 palladium of liberty, and because the Constitution 
 
AS A FRIEND OF THE WORKING-CLASSES. 151 
 
 guarantees to every citizen of this Republic the right 
 to vote. He was a member of the Judiciary Commit- 
 tee of the Forty-first Congress. His committee was 
 called upon, in the discharge of its duties, to make 
 report upon the subject of the right of the female 
 citizens of the Republic to vote for members of Con- 
 gress. The committee made two reports : a majority 
 report, written by Mr. Bingham, against the right of 
 woman to the ballot ; and a minority report, present- 
 ed by Mr. Loughridge, but signed also by Gen. Butler, 
 and the authorship of which is credited to him. Thar 
 the reader may understand his position on that ques- 
 tion, the following extract from that report is quoted 
 here : — 
 
 The Constitution is necessarily confined to the statement ot 
 general principles. There are regulations necessary to be made 
 as to the qualifications of voters, as to their proper age, their 
 domicile, the length of residence necessary to entitle the citi- 
 zen to vote in a given State or place. These particulars could 
 not be provided in the Constitution, but are necessarily left to 
 the States ; and this section is thus construed as to be in har- 
 mony with itself, and with the expressed objects of .the framers 
 of the Constitution, and the principles of free government. 
 
 When the majority of the committee can demonstrate that 
 "the people of the States," and one-half the people of the 
 States, are equivalent terms, or that, when the Constitution pro- 
 vides that the representatives shall be elected by the people, 
 its requirements are met by an election in which less than one- 
 half the adult people are allowed to vote, then it will be admitted 
 that this section to some extent sustains them. 
 
 The committee say, that, if it had been intended that Congress 
 should prescribe the qualifications of electors, the grant would 
 have given Congress that power specifically. We do not claim 
 that Congress has that power : on the contrary, admit that the 
 
1 82 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 States have it ; but the section of the Constitution does prescribe 
 who the electors shall be. That is what we claim — nothing 
 more. They shall be " the people." Their qualifications may 
 be regulated by the States ; but to the claim of the majority of 
 the committee that they may be " qualified " out of existence, 
 we cannot assent. 
 
 We are told that the acquiescence by the people, since the 
 adoption of the Constitution, in the denial of political rights to 
 women citizens, and the general understanding that such denial 
 was in conformity with the Constitution, should be taken to 
 settle the construction of that instrument. 
 
 Any force this argument may have, it can only apply to the 
 original text, and not to the fourteenth amendment, which is of 
 but recent date. 
 
 But, as a general principle, this theory is fallacious. It would 
 stop all political progress ; it would put an end to all original 
 thought, and put the people under that tyranny with which the 
 friends of liberty have always had to contend, — the tyranny of 
 precedent. 
 
 From the beginning, our Government has been right in 
 theory, but wrong in practice. The Constitution, had it been 
 carried out in its true spirit, and its principles enforced, would 
 have stricken the chains from every slave in the Repubhc long 
 since. Yet, for all this, it was but a few years since declared, by 
 the highest judicial tribunal of the Republic, that, according to. 
 the " general understanding," the black man in this country had 
 no rights the white man was bound to respect. General under- 
 standing and acquiescence is a very unsafe rule by which to try 
 questions of constitutional law, and precedents are not infalhble 
 guides toward liberty and the rights of man. 
 
 Without any law to authorize it, slavery existed in England, 
 and was sustained and perpetuated by popular opinion, univer- 
 sal custom, and the acquiescence of all departments of the gov- 
 ernment, as well as by the subjects of its oppression. A few 
 fearless champions of liberty struggled against the universal 
 sentiment, and contended that, by the laws of England slavery 
 could not exist in the kingdom ; and, though for years unable 
 to obtain a hearing in any British court, the Sommersett case 
 
AS A FRIEND OF THE WORKING-CLASSES. 1 83 
 
 was finally tried in the Court of King's Bench in 1771, Lord 
 Mansfield presiding, wherein that great and good man, after a 
 long and patient hearing, declared that no law of England al- 
 lowed or approved of slavery, and discharged the negro. And 
 it was then judicially declared that no slave could breathe upon 
 the soil of England, although slavery had up to that time existed 
 for centuries, under the then existing laws. The laws were 
 right, but the practice and public opinion were wrong. 
 
 It is said by the majority of the committee, that, " if the right 
 of female citizens to suffrage is vested by the Constitution, that 
 right can be estabhshed in the courts." 
 
 We respectfully submit that, with regard to the competency 
 and qualification of electors for members of this House, the 
 courts have no jurisdiction. 
 
 This House is the sole judge of the election, return, and 
 qualification of its own members (Art. V. sect. 5, of the Con- 
 stitution) ; and it is for the House alone to decide, upon a 
 contest, who are, and who are not, competent and qualified to 
 vote. The judicial department cannot thus invade the preroga- 
 tives of the political department. 
 
 ' And it is therefore perfectly proper, in our opinion, for the 
 House to pass a declaratory resolution, which would be an index 
 to the action of the House, should the question be brought 
 before it by a contest for a seat. 
 
 We therefore recommend to the House the adoption of the 
 following resolution : — 
 
 Resolved, by the House of Representatives, That the right of 
 suffrage is one of the inalienable rights of citizens of the United 
 States, subject to regulation by the States, through equal and 
 just laws. 
 
 That this right is included in the " privileges of citizens of 
 the United States," which are guaranteed by sect, i of Art. 
 XIV. of amendments to the Constitution of the United States ; 
 and that women citizens, who are otherwise qualified by the 
 laws of the State where they reside are competent voters for 
 Representatives in Congress. 
 
 WM. LOUGHRIDGE. 
 BENJ. F. BUTLER. 
 
184 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 There is no sentimentality in this report. It is 
 simply a legal opinion based upon the Constitution of 
 the United States of America, a deduction which he, 
 as an intelligent and honest member of the Judiciary 
 Committee, could not avoid giving. And the fact 
 that he had the moral heroism to stand by his con- 
 victions, against the prejudice of the age, which few 
 public men dare oppose, is proof of his courage, as 
 well as his statesmanship. 
 
HIS CAMPAIGN FOR GOVERNOR IN 1878. 1 85 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 GEN. butler's campaign FOR GOVERNOR IN 1878. 
 
 SINCE the late civil war Gen. Butler has been 
 recognized as a leader of the Republican party ; 
 and he has mainly acted with that organization on 
 all matters of national policy except finance. On 
 the latter subject he has long held views in advance 
 of both the great parties. In Massachusetts the 
 general has, for years, been forcing certain questions 
 of State reform upon the attention of the people. 
 Unfortunately for the Republican party, it is respon- 
 sible for the abuses which he desires to abolish : 
 hence those Republican leaders who are benefited 
 by the wrongs to the people, of which Gen. Butler 
 complains, find their selfish interests antagonized by 
 his reformatory propositions. They therefore oppose 
 any and every movement looking to his election to 
 the governorship. In 1871 the large majority of the 
 voters of that party desired the nomination of Gen. 
 Butler for governor of the State, but the party mana- 
 gers defeated him in the convention by means known 
 only to party managers. Col. Russell H. Conwell, 
 in an address before the Aurora Club of Boston in 
 
1 86 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 1874, in speaking of this matter, said, *'Gen. Butler 
 saw the State-House lobby so eager for office, that 
 the governor's chair had to be divided and sub- 
 divided, and given to 'commissions,' until Massachu- 
 setts had twenty-four governors instead of one, and 
 as many politicians had fat places. He saw they 
 were powerful. At the risk of his nomination he 
 fought them. He saw the newspapers aiding in the 
 work of taxing the people more than ought in justice 
 to be. He needed their influence if office was all he 
 wanted, but he fought them with unsparing hand. 
 He had rather fight monopolies, corrupt office-seek- 
 ers, and newspapers which could be bought with 
 money, than be governor of the Commonwealth." 
 In 1876 Gen. Butler was nominated for Congress by 
 the Republicans of the Fourth, District. The party 
 managers and the newspapers opposed his nomina- 
 tion by all means in their power, fair and foul ; but 
 the people were too strong for the rings, and their 
 organs. 
 
 Having failed to defeat his nomination, they re- 
 solved to prevent his election. The plan adopted 
 was to put Judge E. R. Hoar in opposition to him, 
 with a view to divide the Republican vote, and give 
 the election to the Democratic candidate, Mr. Tarbox. 
 This scheme also failed : Gen. Butler was triumph- 
 antly elected to the Forty-fifth Congress by the peo- 
 ple, over the opposition of both the Democratic and 
 Republican parties. He has faithfully represented 
 his constituents, the people, without regard to the 
 wishes of the politicians. 
 
HIS CAMPAIGN FOR GOVERNOR IN 1878. iS/ 
 
 That campaign of 1876 marks an era in the his- 
 tory of Massachusetts politics. The nomination of 
 Gen. Butler was a declaration by the people of in- 
 dependence of ring-rule. The campaign which en- 
 sued was a war of rebellion against party despotism ; 
 and his election, a triumph for the principles of popu- 
 lar sovereignty in the Fourth District. 
 
 In the summer of 1878, the people of the State, 
 to the number of 51,700, signed a petition headed by 
 Wendell Phillips, to Gen. Butler, asking him to be- 
 come an independent candidate for governor of the 
 State, on the issue of "State reform." These peti- 
 tioners were from all parties, Republican, Demo- 
 cratic, and National, who, without regard to previous 
 condition of party servitude, joined in a movement to 
 emancipate the tax-payers from the despotic, extrava- 
 gant and corrupt rule of the partisan leeches who had 
 fastened themselves upon the public treasury. 
 
 Gen. Butler accepted this popular nomination, in 
 a letter of great ability, but in which he confined 
 himself to the discussion of '' State issues." 
 
 His nomination was indorsed by the Nationals ; 
 and the Democratic party leaders, on assembling in 
 State convention at Worcester, found that a large 
 majority of the delegates coming fresh from the 
 people were in favor of also indorsing the nomina- 
 tion of the champion of reform, Gen. Butler. These 
 leaders protested ; but finding themselves unable to 
 control the convention, they seceded from it, and the 
 general's candidacy was unanimously ratified. The 
 seceding faction met some days later in Boston, and 
 
1 88 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 put in nomination Judge Abbott. The Republican 
 party nominated Hon. Thomas Talbot ; and the Pro- 
 hibitionists, Rev. Dr. Miner. All knew from the 
 first that either Gen. Butler or Mr. Talbot would be 
 elected. The Abbott party put the judge in the 
 field for the express purpose of aiding the Republi- 
 can nominee, by dividing the Democratic vote. The 
 Prohibition party, doubtless, acted from conscien- 
 tious motives, in resolving to stand up and be 
 counted as radical temperance men ; but it is proba- 
 ble that the candidacy of Dr. Miner took more votes 
 from Butler than Talbot, for the reason that the 
 general is considered much more sound and firm on 
 the temperance question than Mr. Talbot This 
 nomination of Gen. Butler for governor was to the 
 whole State, what his nomination for Congress, two 
 years before, had been to the Fourth District. It 
 was a popular uprising of the people against party 
 dictation and ring-rule. 
 
 The managers of both the old parties understood 
 this, and became allies at once ; and they fought side 
 by side, and shoulder to shoulder, throughout the 
 campaign. 
 
 Knowing their weakness, their utter inability to 
 meet Gen. Butler on the true issues before the peo- 
 ple, — State reforms, — they resolved to ignore these, 
 and compel a discussion of the great national ques- 
 tion of finance instead. They knew he was in ad- 
 vance of the public sentiment of the State on that 
 question ; and they shrewdly guessed that it would 
 be impossible for him to educate a majority of the 
 
HIS CAMPAIGN FOR GOVERNOR IN 1878. 1 89 
 
 voters, and thus overcome their prejudices in favor 
 of hard money, in one campaign of a few weeks. 
 
 Gen. Butler opened the campaign by discussing 
 the State reforms ; but finding the opposition speak- 
 ers and journals persistent in their determination 
 to ignore these issues, and confine themselves to 
 the basest misrepresentations of his views of na- 
 tional finance, and the vilest personal abuse of his 
 private character and public record, he resolved to 
 discuss the currency question as well as State re- 
 form. He made the most able and vigorous canvass 
 of which the annals of American politics contain a 
 record. He delivered about one hundred speeches to 
 immense audiences, in various cities and villages of 
 the State. A few earnest, well-informed speakers 
 supplemented his efforts by sound and vigorous 
 speeches, but it was impossible for him, and his vol- 
 unteer friends to cover the whole State, or reach a 
 majority of the voters ; but wherever they were heard 
 the people were profoundly impressed with the able 
 arguments presented in favor of a reconstruction of 
 the financial system of the country in the interest of 
 the enterprising and industrial classes of the nation. 
 
 But Democratic and Republican hard-money ora- 
 tors literally swarmed over the land, like the locusts 
 and frogs of Egypt. Not only were all politicians 
 of Massachusetts actively engaged in slandering and 
 denouncing Gen. Butler's currency doctrines, but 
 Senator Blaine, Secretary Schurz, Congressman Frye, 
 Col. Ingersoll, and a host of less luminous lights, were 
 imported from other States, to aid in diverting the 
 
190 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 attention of the people of Massachusetts from the 
 real questions before them, mystify their minds on 
 the true doctrines of finance, and thus roll back the 
 waves of revolution and reform that threatened to 
 ingulf the old parties, and redeem the State. 
 
 The author was in this canvass : hence he writes 
 from the standpoint of personal observation. He 
 does not hesitate to say that while Gen. Butler and 
 his friends conducted the campaign, on their part, in 
 a manner worthy American citizens and statesmen, 
 confining themselves to honorable discussion of vital 
 questions ; the majority of the opposition speakers 
 and papers resorted to every species of political jug- 
 glery known to the modern demagogue. Still fear- 
 ing defeat at the hands of the people's champion, the 
 Republican party, through its executive committee, 
 ■issued a circular letter to the clergy of the State, 
 urging them to come to the rescue, and save the 
 party from defeat. Quite a number of the preachers 
 responded by preaching hard-money sermons. 
 
 To the old party leaders and their friends, defeat 
 by the people's candidate seemed such a terrible 
 thing, that they resolved to resort to the method 
 known in the South as " bulldozing." Massachusetts 
 justly claims to be an intelligent and cultured State, 
 hence the crude methods of South Carolina were out 
 of place there ; but other methods, more refined but 
 no less effective, were available. 
 
 "The Boston Herald" gave the anti-Butler men 
 the "cue," in the following editorial which appeared 
 in its issue of Sept. 12, 1878 : — 
 
HIS CAMPAIGN FOR GOVERNOR IN 1878. I9I 
 
 " There will probably be a good deal of ' bulldozing ' done 
 in Massachusetts this year, of a civilized type. The laborers 
 employed by Gen. Butler in his various enterprises — mills, 
 quarries, &c. — will be expected to vote for him, or give up their 
 situations. The same rule will hold good on the other side. 
 There will be no shotguns or threats. Every thing will be 
 managed with decorum, adorned by noble sentiments. But the 
 men who oppose Butler employ three-fourths, if not seven- 
 eighths, of the labor of the State. They honestly believe that 
 Butler's election would injure their prosperity. They know 
 that idle hands are waiting to do their work. It is not to be 
 expected that they will look on indifferently, and see their em- 
 ployees vote for a destructive like Butler. Human nature is 
 much the same in Massachusetts and Mississippi. Only meth- 
 ods are different. Brains, capital, and enterprise will tell in any 
 community. It is very improper, of course, to intimidate 
 voters, but there is a way of giving advice that is 
 
 QUITE CONVINCING." 
 
 The assumption that the employees of those man- 
 ufacturing estabHshments, in which Gen. Butler is a 
 stockholder, would be required to vote for him, was 
 wholly gratuitous, and merely presented for the pur- 
 pose of an apology for the infamous suggestion which 
 followed. Although Gen. Butler is a patron of manufac- 
 turing enterprises, he does not control a single mill in 
 Lowell or anywhere else ; and, if he did, no one who 
 knows him would believe him capable of any unfair 
 attempt to influence the votes of his employees. 
 
 In an article commenting upon the above para- 
 graph from ''The Boston Herald," "The New York 
 World" says, — 
 
 "That paragraph outlined the campaign on the part of the 
 Massachusetts Republicans; and 'advice 'of this 'quiet, con- 
 
192 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 vincing ' nature was freely given to men whose daily necessi- 
 ties and families to be supported would not allow them to dis- 
 regard it. Following this declaration a call was issued by 
 Adin Thayer, Chairman of the Republican State Committee, to 
 the manufacturers, inviting them to a secret meeting at the 
 Parker House, Boston, to discuss the subjects connected with 
 the approaching election. The meeting was numerously 
 attended ; among others, George F. Hoar being present ; and 
 the question of how far manufacturers and employers could 
 safely go in influencing the votes of their employees was con- 
 sidered with much earnestness. It was finally decided, with 
 but few dissenters, that efforts should be made in the direction 
 of influencing the votes of workmen ; and the result of this 
 action was made very manifest on election day in the manufac- 
 turing towns of Eastern Massachusetts. A few of the men 
 who attended this meeting at the Parker House were disgusted 
 with the spirit of polite bulldozing manifested, and turned their 
 backs upon the whole proceeding. From them the action of 
 the mutiny was subsequently ascertained. This was the begin- 
 ning, and the plans adopted here and manifested throughout the 
 campaign are believed by many to have effected Gen. Butler's 
 defeat. The usual campaign tricks of shaking hands, &c., 
 were neglected ; and, instead of winning men's votes by affected 
 consideration for their families, they were terrorized with hints 
 of the coming winter with no employment. Then a circular, 
 printed cautiously in New York, was sent secretly to all manu- 
 facturers who could be reached, as follows : — 
 
 '' Dear Sir, —Your co-operation with the Massachusetts Republican State 
 Central Committee is most earnestly requested. It is in your power, by the 
 authority you can exercise over those employed by you, to maintain the honor 
 of Massachusetts, and keep it out of the hands of spoilers and political 
 knaves who have selected Gen. Butler as their candidate. His election would 
 disgrace our State, and ruin our standing at home and abroad. A thorough 
 canvass of those you employ, and an early report to the Secretary of the Repub- 
 lican State Central Committee, will be thankfully received." 
 
 That anti-Butler manufacturers, merchants, and 
 bankers compelled their employees to vote for Mr. 
 
Ills CAMPAIGN FOR GOVERNOR IN 1S7S. 1 93 
 
 Talbot on pain of being discharged, in numerous 
 cases, is a fact well known to many persons in Mas- 
 sachusetts ; and it is-established by sworn testimony 
 now in possession of Senator Thurman. 
 
 In the light of the facts given here, the election. of 
 Mr. Talbot by a small plurality is not a matter for 
 surprise. On the contrary, the fact, that, under all 
 the circumstances. Gen. Butler received the largest 
 number of votes (110,000) ever cast in the State 
 for a defeated candidate, proves the power and estab- 
 lishes the popularity of the man. 
 
 Victory often follows fast upon the heels of defeat 
 when the cause one fights for is just. Such is sure 
 to be the result in this case, if Gen. Butler will permit 
 his friends to vote for him for the office of governor 
 this year, 1879. 
 
194 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 J 
 
 AMES PARTON says of Gen. Butler: — 
 
 ' He is a great achiever. He is a victorious kind of man. 
 He is that combination of qualities and powers which is most 
 potent in bringing things to pass. He is endowed with a large, 
 healthy, active, educated brain. 
 
 " He has courage. He dares to take responsibility. He 
 dares to incur obloquy. He dares to tell the truth. 
 
 " He is honest. With opportunities such as no other man 
 has had since the days of Warren Hastings, his hands are 
 spotless. 
 
 " He could have made a half-million by a wink ; and, if he 
 had done so, he could have come home with a marked reputa- 
 tion for integrity; because then he would have had an interest 
 to create such a reputation, and could not have indulged the 
 noble carelessness with regard to his good name which is the 
 privilege of a man strong in conscious rectitude. 
 
 " He is humorous. The pointed humor and vivacity of Gen. 
 Butler's utterances are an element of his success. 
 
 " He is a man of faith. He never doubts that the right 
 will triumph. 
 
 " He is humane. He was always kindly considerate of the 
 men in his command. He was lenient toward offences result- 
 ing from the weakness of human nature. He is generous to 
 the poor. He sympathized with the anxiety of parents who 
 
CONCLUSION. 195 
 
 had sons in the army. He is courteous, not to officers and 
 prominent persons only, but to private soldiers, and even the 
 beggar on the street." 
 
 Col. Russell H. Conwell, in an address before 
 the Aurora Club of Boston, says of him : — 
 
 •' Fellow-citizens, I have not attempted to do more in this 
 superficial review than to suggest a few thoughts to lead you in 
 your discussion. But the search which I have made among 
 public documents has been of service to me in explaining many 
 things which seemed dark, and in convincing me that Gen. But- 
 ler has greater executive ability, is a braver patriot, a wiser 
 statesman, and a truer friend, than many of us have believed. 
 I am greatly surprised that, notwithstanding the storm of accu- 
 sation and the thousands of insinuations which almost over- 
 whelm us when we begin an investigation of his public life, — 
 that out of it all there should stand confirmed or proven not 
 one of all these derogatory assertions. That one should suffer 
 himself to be so slandered and misrepresented without more fre- 
 quent replies, is so strange as to be equalled only by the estab- 
 lished fact that the newspapers publish falsehoods about him 
 nearly every day, and the people believe them as often, which 
 have not the slightest foundation in fact or probability. He is 
 a great man ; but a whole army of men as able as he, could not 
 accomplish one-half the evils which rival politicians and their 
 newspapers have laid to his charge. It is a good thing for us 
 to look into these matters, — not in this case only, but in all 
 others like it, — that we may hereafter know whereof we speak, 
 and be able to vote intelligently and without bias in matters of 
 public policy. 
 
 " Let me then, candidly and fairly, state to you my conclu- 
 sions regarding Gen. Butler, with the same freedom with which 
 I intend to speak of other pubhc and representative men of 
 our Commonwealth. 
 
 "He is a keen, disciplined lawyer, a shrewd observer of 
 men. He never forgets his friends or his enemies. His bat- 
 
196 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 ties for himself have sometimes flagged : yet, when he entered 
 the lists as a champion for his friends, he was never known to 
 yield. In behalf of his friends he refuses no weapon placed 
 within his reach, except such as would dishonor his cause. 
 Unselfish in the extreme while his armor is on, he hesitates at 
 no risk, falters not at any sacrifice. Be his enemies or the ene- 
 mies of his friends who they may, — president, senators, kings, 
 parliaments, legislatures, armies, his own party, the newspapers, 
 or even the churches, — no matter, his foes must succumb. 
 His wars are always on the offensive, and seldom partake of 
 the defensive. The party or the man must be saintly as an 
 angel, strong as Hercules, and as firmly set as the Rock of Gib- 
 raltar, to escape the pen or the hand of the artillery of his pro- 
 lific and wonderful genius. 
 
 " As I declared in the beo^inninsf, warfare of some kind is his 
 natural element. That passion has made him a great man. That 
 spirit, guided by a powerful, steady brain, has given him the fore- 
 most places among the statesmen of this nation and of the world. 
 That desire, coupled with a heart that beats warmly for his com- 
 rades, has led him to combat the whole congressional delegation 
 of his State, when by sacrificing a friend to their demand he 
 could himself have ridden triumphant into public favor. That 
 inomentuni^ with a desire to see fair play, led him to risk all his 
 own chances for political preferment in the cause of his much- 
 slandered associates. That fearless, chivalric heroism leads 
 him at all times to listen to the millions of applications for 
 assistance, coming from the lowly, to answer which, and to help 
 whom, requires hundreds of letters every day, and a great share 
 of his valuable time. That love of conflict, and the excite- 
 ment of combat, made him the greatest criminal lawyer of the 
 United States, and naturally led him to the bar as the defender 
 of those who, while under accusation, no matter whether guilty 
 or not, had at the time no friend but him. Lastly, that knightly 
 inborn desire to fight for those who looked upon him for pro- 
 tection has compelled him to provide beautiful homes for his 
 family, and to make provision for companions less fortunate 
 than he, because less hardy and valiant. 
 
CONCLUSION. 197 
 
 *' Ah ! my friends, I am sure that none of you will accuse me 
 of partisan or illiberal spirit when I say, after mature delibera- 
 tion, that, when Gen. Butler goes to his grave, there will be 
 more genuine grief in this land than there has been for the death 
 of any statesman since the assassination of Lincoln ! Ask the 
 negroes, who first saw the star of freedom through the flashes 
 of his sword, who received the first fire-arms from him, and a 
 brigade of whom were the first troops to enter Richmond ! Ask 
 the widows who would have had no bounty ! Ask the crippled 
 soldiers and penniless orphans he piloted to clerkships ! Ask 
 the unfortunate, ignorant criminals, who would never have been 
 law-breakers had they known friends like him ! Ask the mer- 
 chants of this city, whose homes would have passed under the 
 hammer but for his earnest and freely-given aid ! Ask the dis- 
 tinguished members of the Judiciary Committee, the chairman- 
 ship of which it is an honor for Massachusetts to hold ! Ask 
 our old Commonwealth, who was first and foremost in the war 
 because he offered himself And his all for her good name when 
 he stood all alone ! Ask the nation, for whose flag many traitors 
 suffered under his iron hand, and for whose glory and prosperity 
 he has ever fought with unabated zeal against rebels in the field, 
 traitors in Congress, apathy in the Senate, threats from arrogant 
 foreign nations, and the machinations of sneaking, dangerous 
 foes in countless other forms ! 
 
 " When that time comes, sir, will not some of us regret, — 
 yea, I may say repent^ — for our supineness in permitting so 
 able a statesman, and so noted a friend of the poor and the 
 weak, to live without'our plaudits and encouragement, and fight 
 on in our battles alone ? " 
 
 In a letter to ''The Boston Globe," giving his 
 reasons why he should vote for Gen. Butler for gov- 
 ernor, Wendell Phillips said, — 
 
 " My friend Mr. Blaine wonders that I and the South should 
 join in this movement, — currency reform. Let me tell him, 
 such movements as this are not of men. Such questions ripen 
 
198 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 of themselves. It was inevitable, that, after emancipation, this 
 politic-economical issue should present itself. He must not 
 think the bankruptcy of this class, the ambition of that man, 
 the cunning of a party, or the theories of a cHque, lifted this 
 question to the surface. As the French courtier said to Louis 
 XVI., ' Sire, this is not a riot, it is a revolution,' so I say 
 to Schurz, Blaine, and Sherman : Jhis is no rotten party falling 
 to pieces, no discontented class clamoring in the dark ; this is a 
 step in the ages, a revolution deeper than that which was sealed 
 at Appomattox. It began when Congress declared all men 
 equal : it will never end till it is settled that the people are the 
 source of all power, and safely to be trusted with its exercise 
 over every interest, and in every direction. On one side of the 
 question stand the tory and the coward ; those who hate the 
 people, and those who honestly doubt their capacity and discre- 
 tion. On the other side we see the men who still believe in 
 the Declaration of Independence, and are willing and resolved 
 that this shall be, as Lincoln said, — ' a government of the peo- 
 ple, for the people, and by the people.' 
 
 " I vote for Gen. Butler because he represents this move- 
 ment. Ten years ago he had the sagacity to anticipate its ap- 
 pearance, and the patriotism, courage, and magnanimity, to 
 range himself on its side. To-day he is the only prominent 
 political servant of the Commonwealth who accepts it, and 
 throws his influence in its support. 
 
 " Men say his advocacy of it is only selfish ambition, seeking 
 to use a popular cry for his own advancement. Ten years ago, 
 when he first gave it his support, it had nothing to offer. The 
 Democratic party, which had held up Jackson's hands in the 
 same battle with banks and money-kings, had forgotten its own 
 record. The Republican party, contented with the flesh-pots 
 of Egypt, frowned on any attempt to curb the power of capital 
 When Butler committed himself to the plan of a national cur- 
 rency, he seemed to cut himself off from all support ; and most 
 men well remember the universal ridicule or howl with which 
 his speech was received. To-day, when this reform is about to 
 seize the helm, he is its rightful representative and leader, who, 
 
CONCLUSION. 199 
 
 of all living statesmen, has done the most to honor the Com- 
 monwealth by brilliant and efficient service in different ca- 
 pacities. 
 
 " Who of our volunteer commanders in the war ranks any- 
 where near him? His friends have but to name Annapolis, 
 Baltimore, New Orleans, and the ' contraband,' in order to put 
 him in the front rank, if not at the very head, of all volunteer 
 commanders. 
 
 " But one service which he rendered the nation in 1861 out- 
 does, in the view history will take, even all his subsequent well- 
 doing. In 1861, all will remember, there was an hour when it 
 hung doubtful whether the impending war was to be a war of 
 parties, — Democrat against Republican in each State, — or 
 whether it would be the nation putting down a rebellion. But- 
 ler, Dix, and a score of such Democrats, by accepting com- 
 missions, and flinging their fortunes in with the flag, settled 
 that doubt, and saved the Union. Let no man rashly criticise 
 the patriots who in that dread hour made the scale of the rebel 
 kick the beam. 
 
 " In Congress no injustice will be done his Massachusetts 
 associates, and no claim will be made for Butler that any man 
 familiar with Washington will dispute, if one says of him as 
 Lord Clarendon says of Sir Harry Vane, ' Sir Harry Vane was 
 one of the Commissioners, and therefore the others need not be 
 named, since he was all in any business where others were 
 joined with him? 
 
 " In spite of all that is alleged against him, I dare affirm that 
 he is, in private life and in his great offices, as upright and 
 honorable as any public servant of the State. 
 
 " The political issue which seems ripest to-day for settlement 
 is finance. The man who prophesied, and has done as much as" 
 any other to create, this state of affairs, is Gen. Butler. 
 
 " The man who has shown the largest capacity to rouse the 
 spirit of the State, and concentrate its strength for any needed 
 purpose, is Gen. Butler. 
 
 " The man who, watched by the lynx-eyed malice of a hun- 
 dred journals, and never shrinking from responsibility in gre:it 
 
200 LIFE OF BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 
 
 crises, stands yet as mir in his record as any of his rivals, and 
 far more consistent, is Gen. Butler. 
 
 " The man who seems fittest to lead the people in their effort 
 to break the yoke to which Congress has submitted, and which 
 capital now seeks to fasten on the nation itself, is Gen. Butler, 
 
 " I shall vote to make him governor of Massachusetts. His 
 success wi.U be the people's triumph." ) 
 
 Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, in a speech in Congress 
 in 1865, said of him : — 
 
 "His patriotism, his talents, his acquirements, will hold him 
 aloft amid the attacks of all his enemies. He has rendered ser- 
 vices and shown patriotic intention which will make him beloved 
 throughout all this country; and I venture the declaration this 
 day, that if the question could be put to the loyal people, whom 
 they would prefer for the next president, a majority of them 
 would vote for Gen. Butler." 
 
 The men whose opinions are quoted here are not 
 only well known to the American people, but they 
 are universally recognized as exceptionally sincere 
 and reliable. They are not politicians. They regard 
 Gen. Butler from the standpoints of the critic, the 
 historian, the reformer. 
 
 The public records of the country furnish abun- 
 dant proof, however, that the military and civil career 
 of Gen. Butler is fully vindicated and amply in- 
 dorsed by the leading statesmen and generals of this 
 country. The Legislature of Ohio unanimously 
 adopted the following resolution : — 
 
 ^'-Resolved, That Major-Gen. Butler, by reason of his dis- 
 tinguished services to his country during the present rebelHon, 
 is entitled to the most grateful acknowledgment and thanks of 
 the loyal people of the country." 
 
CONCLUSION. 20I 
 
 The Legislature of Massachusetts 
 
 '■'■Resolved^ That the thanks of the House are truly tendered 
 to Major-Gen. Benjamin F. Butler for the energy, ability, and 
 success of his administration of the Department of the Gulf." 
 
 The following was unanimously adopted by the 
 Cono^ress of the United States : — ^ 
 
 '■'■ Resolved^ That* the thanks of this House are hereby ten- 
 dered to Major-Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, for the energetic, 
 able^ and humane administration during his command of the 
 Department of the Gulf." 
 
 The brief but pointed resolutions quoted have 
 been selected from an abundant stock of similar 
 documents in possession of the author, all show- 
 ing the high appreciation of the public services of 
 Gen. Butler to the country. Benjamin F. Butler is a 
 man of great and positive character. He leaves the 
 impress of his mind upon whatever he does. He 
 re-organizes public opinion. He establishes prece- 
 dents. He is a factor in human progress. He 
 makes history. He is one of the colossal figures of 
 this age, which is destined to stand out in bold relief, 
 while the annals of America shall have a place in the 
 memory of the race. 
 
 He is essentially an American. He belongs to 
 the people. His fame rests solely upon the solid 
 basis of personal merit as exhibited in grand achieve- 
 ments, and it reflects credit upon the institutions of 
 the land of his birth. 
 
 His fame is world-wide. His words and his ac- 
 tions are discussed in every civilized country on the 
 
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