UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
Just over two weeks later Biggs wrote Cornelius again — about the same time George Cole’s regiment began flaring up with violence between the officers and enlisted men.
Biggs had procured more letters of recommendation, but “without having a friend to attend to the request” the efforts would be “useless.”
Biggs enclosed a note from General Butler and expressed hope Butler’s word still carried weight among senators — given his various recent debacles in Virginia.
“It may be rather immodest for me to bother you with an account of my services but I see no other means of getting promotion, so please permit me to inform you in few words what I have been at.”
Biggs listed his exploits and merits and suggested the promotion could be realized if two key senators were persuaded and an enclosed letter handed to the Secretary of War.
“I don’t wish to blow my own horn,” he demurred.
But if “promotion comes of course I shall be very glad to receive it & will be under many obligations to you.”64
Cornelius apparently complied.
Biggs obtained his promotion to colonel with an Inspectorship in the Army of the James.
“I am much indebted to you for your good wishes & kind assistance,” Biggs closed his follow-up letter; returning to what was supposed to be his primary purpose for writing Cornelius in the first place: “I wish you would help your deserving brother to get [appointed] as Brig Genl."
"He has worked himself nearly out & should have had [command] of the Col[ored] Brig of cavalry….” Biggs, though, had not “worked himself” completely out.
In January of ’65, he penned Cornelius a final letter to ask for one last favor.
Cornelius must have seen it coming as similar letters trickled in from George as well.
“I believe you are familiar with the service I have rendered during this rebellion,” Biggs began his letter, this time rushing to the point.
He had again enclosed two letters which he seemed to use as seed-letters for sprouting new ones.
“If [in] your judgment I merit promotion,” went the letter “I would be under many obligations to you” by “securing a Brevet Brig Genl appt for me.”
I know it is not a very modest thing to ask for promotion, but I know that it seldom comes except through some political friend or friends….I would prefer at [the] close of this war to be called [General] to the title of Col[onel], though I am proud of the latter. I of course would prefer that no one should know I had requested your assistance.65
Biggs is an example of the volatile business of having friends have friends do favors.
He started off ostensibly on an errand for George Cole and ended up begging for his own generalship.
64 Cornelius evidently kept these obligations in mind as some time during the fall, he asked Biggs to help out with some sort of “inspection” in Cornelius’ home district in California; Biggs declined citing his own health problems -– adding that he needed to “attend to some business of my own.” Colonel Biggs to Cornelius Cole, June 10, 1864 and October 21, 1864, ibid..
65 Biggs along with hundreds of lower officers made efforts to obtain the title of general before going home. For more on this desire, see: McPherson, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era", 327-29 Colonel Biggs to Cornelius Cole, January 29, 1865, Cole family, "Papers".
TO BE CONTINUED ...
GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
“The Test of Rewards….”
For Officer Cole the entire process of obtaining higher rank at once consumed and disgusted him.
He suspected that Butler had it in for him, or that “the Beast” had made up his mind to give the sweetest promotions to fellow Bay State soldiers.
When Butler first took command of the Army of the James he immediately crossed Cole in the wrong way.
In the fall of ’63 Cole obtained a twenty-day furlough from Butler’s predecessor, General Foster, to return home to Syracuse, on sick leave.66
While home Cole defended himself in a civil lawsuit brought against him by a fellow Syracusan.
Cole claimed that the plaintiff had actually delayed, hoping that Cole would be forced to return to the fields and not be able to fight out the case.
Cole stayed beyond his allotted furlough and when he returned to camp nearly a week late was court martialled for “absence without leave.”
Cole argued that he had been “subpoenaed” to testify in his own case, and that his evidence “saved [him] at least $600.”
“I should have been pecuniarily responsible for not appearing as a witness in the…court as summoned,” Cole testified to a tribunal made of fellow officers.
His peers must have sympathized with Major Cole’s story that a civilian was actually attempting to use Cole’s war-time sacrifices as a way to defeat the soldier.
The tribunal found Cole guilty — as he certainly was — but added that it was without any “criminality,” advising that Cole be immediately returned to duty without punishment.
What was probably Butler and Cole’s first crossing of paths, the proceedings of the trial, were reviewed by the Major General who had just been given command of the Army of the James.
Butler approved the proceedings but not the verdict, stating that “the accused cannot be guilty without criminality.”
Perhaps one of the brightest legal minds of his generation, Butler — a soldier mired in accusations of bending the war for personal gain --- took Cole to task for flimsy reasoning and putting private interests before the nation’s.
Major Cole staid at home over his leave to attend to personal business. His defense that he caused himself to be summoned as a witness in his own case by himself so that he would be liable to himself for not attending…is an subterfuge evasion not worthy of an officer and a gentleman. Who could have moved for an attachment for not attending the court but Maj. Cole and who would have been punished for non attendance but Maj. Cole by Maj. Cole[?]
Butler mocked Cole’s defense, and then questioned his manhood.
In the first hours of the war, while trying a case in Boston, someone passed Butler a note charging him to prepare a regiment from his militia brigade to move to Washington by the morrow.
Butler immediately interrupted the trial, asking the court to postpone the case.
As he rushed off to become a soldier, Butler created a public spectacle that would play well in the local papers.
For him, cutting loose from a civilian courtroom meant military glory, and a claim on early war heroism and lore.67
Probably holding Cole to this patriotic image of manhood, Butler couldn’t help but make a personal dig.
“The more manly course” he added to his review of Cole’s trial, would have been to seek out permission from his “Commanding General.”
“As Maj. Cole was about his private business during his absence he should at least not ask the United States to pay him…” while he was at home doing his own bidding, violating the terms of his furlough.
Butler seems to have even considered “relieving” Cole from duty but then inked out this harsher judgment.
Even so, he cast opprobrium on an already jealous soldier for “attending to private business” and taking a less manly course.68
66 Cole obtained several furloughs for home by citing familial needs or health problems. In his compiled service record, this particular furlough was recorded as a sick leave. Compiled Service Record of George W. Cole, 3rd New York Cavalry, National Archives (NARA), Washington DC.
67 Butler, "Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler", 170; Goss, "The War within the Union High Command: Politics and Generalship during the Civil War", 28
68 Court Martial of Major George W. Cole. Record Group 153, NN 916. NARA,
Washington DC.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
“The Test of Rewards….”
For Officer Cole the entire process of obtaining higher rank at once consumed and disgusted him.
He suspected that Butler had it in for him, or that “the Beast” had made up his mind to give the sweetest promotions to fellow Bay State soldiers.
When Butler first took command of the Army of the James he immediately crossed Cole in the wrong way.
In the fall of ’63 Cole obtained a twenty-day furlough from Butler’s predecessor, General Foster, to return home to Syracuse, on sick leave.66
While home Cole defended himself in a civil lawsuit brought against him by a fellow Syracusan.
Cole claimed that the plaintiff had actually delayed, hoping that Cole would be forced to return to the fields and not be able to fight out the case.
Cole stayed beyond his allotted furlough and when he returned to camp nearly a week late was court martialled for “absence without leave.”
Cole argued that he had been “subpoenaed” to testify in his own case, and that his evidence “saved [him] at least $600.”
“I should have been pecuniarily responsible for not appearing as a witness in the…court as summoned,” Cole testified to a tribunal made of fellow officers.
His peers must have sympathized with Major Cole’s story that a civilian was actually attempting to use Cole’s war-time sacrifices as a way to defeat the soldier.
The tribunal found Cole guilty — as he certainly was — but added that it was without any “criminality,” advising that Cole be immediately returned to duty without punishment.
What was probably Butler and Cole’s first crossing of paths, the proceedings of the trial, were reviewed by the Major General who had just been given command of the Army of the James.
Butler approved the proceedings but not the verdict, stating that “the accused cannot be guilty without criminality.”
Perhaps one of the brightest legal minds of his generation, Butler — a soldier mired in accusations of bending the war for personal gain --- took Cole to task for flimsy reasoning and putting private interests before the nation’s.
Major Cole staid at home over his leave to attend to personal business. His defense that he caused himself to be summoned as a witness in his own case by himself so that he would be liable to himself for not attending…is an subterfuge evasion not worthy of an officer and a gentleman. Who could have moved for an attachment for not attending the court but Maj. Cole and who would have been punished for non attendance but Maj. Cole by Maj. Cole[?]
Butler mocked Cole’s defense, and then questioned his manhood.
In the first hours of the war, while trying a case in Boston, someone passed Butler a note charging him to prepare a regiment from his militia brigade to move to Washington by the morrow.
Butler immediately interrupted the trial, asking the court to postpone the case.
As he rushed off to become a soldier, Butler created a public spectacle that would play well in the local papers.
For him, cutting loose from a civilian courtroom meant military glory, and a claim on early war heroism and lore.67
Probably holding Cole to this patriotic image of manhood, Butler couldn’t help but make a personal dig.
“The more manly course” he added to his review of Cole’s trial, would have been to seek out permission from his “Commanding General.”
“As Maj. Cole was about his private business during his absence he should at least not ask the United States to pay him…” while he was at home doing his own bidding, violating the terms of his furlough.
Butler seems to have even considered “relieving” Cole from duty but then inked out this harsher judgment.
Even so, he cast opprobrium on an already jealous soldier for “attending to private business” and taking a less manly course.68
66 Cole obtained several furloughs for home by citing familial needs or health problems. In his compiled service record, this particular furlough was recorded as a sick leave. Compiled Service Record of George W. Cole, 3rd New York Cavalry, National Archives (NARA), Washington DC.
67 Butler, "Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler", 170; Goss, "The War within the Union High Command: Politics and Generalship during the Civil War", 28
68 Court Martial of Major George W. Cole. Record Group 153, NN 916. NARA,
Washington DC.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
Cole would never completely mend fences with Butler, though he soon was forced to approach Butler if he hoped to be promoted.
Cole’s method of asking for favors, though, was less begging and more about asserting merits.
We don’t have any letters from Cole to Butler, but Cole claimed that he refused to approach superiors with hat in hand.
As the year wore on, though, Cole came to believe he had been boxed out from his just deserts.
Later in the fall, he complained to his brother, “I shall not be commanded by my juniors & inferiors much longer.”
He then suggested that his lack of promotion could be traced to his unwillingness to scrape before patrons.
“I am the equal to any man I know of & not much given to begging or fawning.”69
Concerning an opening of a command over an African-American brigade, Cole later wrote, “the position belongs to me, even by rank, had I not earned it over and over.”70
Several weeks earlier Butler submitted a list to Secretary Stanton, recommending three of Cole’s fellow colonels for promotion.
Because of “gallant and meritorious” action in a charge at Spring Hill (Virginia, not the notable battle of the same name in Tennessee), Butler recommended they be brevetted to the rank of Brigadier General.71
When the promotions went through Cole vented that “Others who have laid off at home and in rear, are distancing me in promotion & grown wealthy on government spoils.”
He again half-convincingly assured his brother that “my conscience is clear I have done my duty.”
“Still,” he added, “history will carry names of gen[erals] Paine, Ludlow, Draper, Duncan and lots of others, who were home and making money while I was fighting the hardest two years of the war.”72
69 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, October 22, 1864, Cole family, "Papers".
70 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, October 24, 1864, ibid.
71 Colonel Ludlow, who eventually obtained the desired full promotion (not just brevet) had also shown composure under fire as he and his black troops were picked apart at Dutch Gap Canal, as we will see, an ill-informed project of Butler’s to dig a massive canal between the curvy bends of the James River. See: United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Volume 42, Part III; Jones, "Historical Dictionary of the Civil War", 442
72 It is not clear how much money any of Cole’s counterparts made while at home. And while it is true that none of these men enlisted as early as Cole, all of them began their service before the close of 1861, placing them in the army during Cole’s “hardest two years of the war.” Cole wrote letters and probably asked around to find out when his fellow officers began their service. Ludlow, who got the brigadier generalship, was cousins with Cole’s fellow colonel Jeptha Garrard, and a brother-in-law to Salmon Chase, Secretary of Treasury. John H. Eicher and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 214, 217, 356, 412-13.; George Cole to Cornelius Cole, no date [approximately fall of 1864], Cole family, "Papers".
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
Cole would never completely mend fences with Butler, though he soon was forced to approach Butler if he hoped to be promoted.
Cole’s method of asking for favors, though, was less begging and more about asserting merits.
We don’t have any letters from Cole to Butler, but Cole claimed that he refused to approach superiors with hat in hand.
As the year wore on, though, Cole came to believe he had been boxed out from his just deserts.
Later in the fall, he complained to his brother, “I shall not be commanded by my juniors & inferiors much longer.”
He then suggested that his lack of promotion could be traced to his unwillingness to scrape before patrons.
“I am the equal to any man I know of & not much given to begging or fawning.”69
Concerning an opening of a command over an African-American brigade, Cole later wrote, “the position belongs to me, even by rank, had I not earned it over and over.”70
Several weeks earlier Butler submitted a list to Secretary Stanton, recommending three of Cole’s fellow colonels for promotion.
Because of “gallant and meritorious” action in a charge at Spring Hill (Virginia, not the notable battle of the same name in Tennessee), Butler recommended they be brevetted to the rank of Brigadier General.71
When the promotions went through Cole vented that “Others who have laid off at home and in rear, are distancing me in promotion & grown wealthy on government spoils.”
He again half-convincingly assured his brother that “my conscience is clear I have done my duty.”
“Still,” he added, “history will carry names of gen[erals] Paine, Ludlow, Draper, Duncan and lots of others, who were home and making money while I was fighting the hardest two years of the war.”72
69 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, October 22, 1864, Cole family, "Papers".
70 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, October 24, 1864, ibid.
71 Colonel Ludlow, who eventually obtained the desired full promotion (not just brevet) had also shown composure under fire as he and his black troops were picked apart at Dutch Gap Canal, as we will see, an ill-informed project of Butler’s to dig a massive canal between the curvy bends of the James River. See: United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Volume 42, Part III; Jones, "Historical Dictionary of the Civil War", 442
72 It is not clear how much money any of Cole’s counterparts made while at home. And while it is true that none of these men enlisted as early as Cole, all of them began their service before the close of 1861, placing them in the army during Cole’s “hardest two years of the war.” Cole wrote letters and probably asked around to find out when his fellow officers began their service. Ludlow, who got the brigadier generalship, was cousins with Cole’s fellow colonel Jeptha Garrard, and a brother-in-law to Salmon Chase, Secretary of Treasury. John H. Eicher and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 214, 217, 356, 412-13.; George Cole to Cornelius Cole, no date [approximately fall of 1864], Cole family, "Papers".
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
Cole had tried to get his deserts by pushing his promotion through military channels.
Though he claimed he never fawned, he did send letters to General Butler asking his commander to pass along accounts of his (Cole’s) merits to the appropriate authorities.
And at the same time that Biggs made a last push to return home with the title “general,” Cole edged toward self-destruction in pursuit of the same.
He had recently hounded Butler to send a letter to Secretary Stanton.
Butler assured Cole that he had.
Cole, weak from waiting, wrote asking the Secretary of War if he had received such a letter from Butler.
Stanton responded that he “received no such thing.”
After some investigation Cole came to believe that Butler had actually sent the letter, but for some reason it never made it to Stanton.
He speculated to Cornelius that the letter had been “suppressed” by one of his rivals, recently promoted General Ludlow or General Farrar, in order to “oust me.”73
Cole finally sent a vitriolic letter of resignation to the Army of the James headquarters.
The letter, though, was intercepted by Brigadier General Edward Wild, perhaps the most radically abolitionist, vengeful and controversial officer in the entire Union army.
Wild — concerned where Cole’s vitriol was heading — returned the letter to the outraged colonel with a word of warning.
The letter has not survived but Wild believed the “present shape” of it would lead to Cole’s dismissal instead of honorable discharge.
“But that is a grievous error,” warned Wild, who had struggled to maintain his own manhood after having lost one arm and half of his remaining hand in various battles, and had been regularly court martialled and demoted by his superiors.74
If Cole was dismissed, Wild wrote, he “would learn in few months only."
"The stigma of a dismissal can never be washed out by any amount of explanations — it gives food to all enemies … it travels faster and further than all of a man’s good deeds put together.”75
Cole was not looking to supply his “enemies” with anything, as they seemed to already be on the increase.
Later that week he wrote his brother again, bemoaning the promotion of Ludlow to full Brigadier General.
Cole had lost the scramble to return home a general, claiming to have grown “tired of the ‘you tickle me & I’ll tickle you’ sort of business.”76
As this comment suggests, he had become weary of --- if dependent on -- a system where men traded on intimacy, and helped only those who could help back.
In the winter of ’65, with the collapse of the Confederacy only a matter of time, Cole began to question his future.
Like Biggs and many comrades, he began mulling over the implications of returning home with a military title, and worrying how a soldier might again become a civilian, father, or husband.
Some of his comrades had no intention of laying down their guns.
Referring to his subordinates like Dollard and Fox (though Fox was discharged from the army for killing Henry Edwards he apparently returned to the regiment anyway to be with his comrades) Cole informed his brother, “Several of my officers wish to go to Mexico on my leaving."
"What are the chances?"
"Write what you know about it, couldn’t a man make money soldiering there?"
"I would cut for Mexico filibustering if I thought I could make it pay, for I am rather poor to suit me.”77
73 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 2, 1865, ibid.; Though Butler may have grown tired of Cole’s pleadings for promotion, he seems to have made some effort to work on Cole’s behalf. If letters were intercepted they must have been cut off by officers below Butler. As early as the spring of 1864, Butler was already trying to find a way to get Cole promoted in some way. To Secretary Stanton, he wrote, “Sir as you are aware I have two (2) regiments of cavalry and a battery of horse artillery, colored. I wish to get a Brigadier General for them and yet I do not desire to add to the list of Brigadiers. What is the difficulty under the Act of Congress of giving brevet rank? May I ask therefore that you will give the brevet rank of Brigadier to Colonel George W. Cole, 2nd US Colored Cavalry, although second in rank, yet he ought to be first in command and I see no other way to do it. Colonel Cole is the brother of the Hon Mr Cole, member of Congress from California and is a Cavalry officer of fifteen years experience….” To this Butler received a response from Stanton’s assistant secretary, Colonel James A. Hardie: “letter is referred….The Secretary of War is not to make any special recommendation for brevet in advance of the general list.---Jas Hardie.” There is no reason to doubt that this rejection aligned with Stanton’s wishes, but Colonel Hardie certainly had his opinions about the race for generalships as his own commission to brigadier general was revoked a year earlier in January of 1863. Hardie was a veteran from the Mexican War and an ex-professor from West Pointe. See: Benjamin Butler to Secretary Stanton, April, 21st 1864 & response, April 26, 1864. M1064, in Letters received by the Commission Branch of the Adjutant General Office, 1863-70. Microfilm #B640CC1864, National Archives, Washington DC. About Hardie, see: Eicher and Eicher, "Civil War High Commands", 279.
74 The one-armed General Edward Wild fed racial and gender fires by his brash actions like taking confederate wives prisoner and publicly lynching dubiously accused Confederates. In one raid into rebel territory he urged slaves to whip the backs of their recently captured masters. Wild out-Butlered Butler, often making the Beast appear rather tame in comparison. Wild had been sent to the Invalid Corps but pushed his way back into the regular Army. Frances Harding Casstevens, Edward A. Wild and the African Brigade in the Civil War (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003), 325.
75 Enclosed letter from Wild to Cole in George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 3, 1865 (private), Cole family, "Papers".
76 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 7, 1865, ibid.
77 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 2, 1865, ibid.. Why Cole wrote “on my leaving” must mean that he had told his officers that he planned on resigning from the army.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, continued ...
Cole had tried to get his deserts by pushing his promotion through military channels.
Though he claimed he never fawned, he did send letters to General Butler asking his commander to pass along accounts of his (Cole’s) merits to the appropriate authorities.
And at the same time that Biggs made a last push to return home with the title “general,” Cole edged toward self-destruction in pursuit of the same.
He had recently hounded Butler to send a letter to Secretary Stanton.
Butler assured Cole that he had.
Cole, weak from waiting, wrote asking the Secretary of War if he had received such a letter from Butler.
Stanton responded that he “received no such thing.”
After some investigation Cole came to believe that Butler had actually sent the letter, but for some reason it never made it to Stanton.
He speculated to Cornelius that the letter had been “suppressed” by one of his rivals, recently promoted General Ludlow or General Farrar, in order to “oust me.”73
Cole finally sent a vitriolic letter of resignation to the Army of the James headquarters.
The letter, though, was intercepted by Brigadier General Edward Wild, perhaps the most radically abolitionist, vengeful and controversial officer in the entire Union army.
Wild — concerned where Cole’s vitriol was heading — returned the letter to the outraged colonel with a word of warning.
The letter has not survived but Wild believed the “present shape” of it would lead to Cole’s dismissal instead of honorable discharge.
“But that is a grievous error,” warned Wild, who had struggled to maintain his own manhood after having lost one arm and half of his remaining hand in various battles, and had been regularly court martialled and demoted by his superiors.74
If Cole was dismissed, Wild wrote, he “would learn in few months only."
"The stigma of a dismissal can never be washed out by any amount of explanations — it gives food to all enemies … it travels faster and further than all of a man’s good deeds put together.”75
Cole was not looking to supply his “enemies” with anything, as they seemed to already be on the increase.
Later that week he wrote his brother again, bemoaning the promotion of Ludlow to full Brigadier General.
Cole had lost the scramble to return home a general, claiming to have grown “tired of the ‘you tickle me & I’ll tickle you’ sort of business.”76
As this comment suggests, he had become weary of --- if dependent on -- a system where men traded on intimacy, and helped only those who could help back.
In the winter of ’65, with the collapse of the Confederacy only a matter of time, Cole began to question his future.
Like Biggs and many comrades, he began mulling over the implications of returning home with a military title, and worrying how a soldier might again become a civilian, father, or husband.
Some of his comrades had no intention of laying down their guns.
Referring to his subordinates like Dollard and Fox (though Fox was discharged from the army for killing Henry Edwards he apparently returned to the regiment anyway to be with his comrades) Cole informed his brother, “Several of my officers wish to go to Mexico on my leaving."
"What are the chances?"
"Write what you know about it, couldn’t a man make money soldiering there?"
"I would cut for Mexico filibustering if I thought I could make it pay, for I am rather poor to suit me.”77
73 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 2, 1865, ibid.; Though Butler may have grown tired of Cole’s pleadings for promotion, he seems to have made some effort to work on Cole’s behalf. If letters were intercepted they must have been cut off by officers below Butler. As early as the spring of 1864, Butler was already trying to find a way to get Cole promoted in some way. To Secretary Stanton, he wrote, “Sir as you are aware I have two (2) regiments of cavalry and a battery of horse artillery, colored. I wish to get a Brigadier General for them and yet I do not desire to add to the list of Brigadiers. What is the difficulty under the Act of Congress of giving brevet rank? May I ask therefore that you will give the brevet rank of Brigadier to Colonel George W. Cole, 2nd US Colored Cavalry, although second in rank, yet he ought to be first in command and I see no other way to do it. Colonel Cole is the brother of the Hon Mr Cole, member of Congress from California and is a Cavalry officer of fifteen years experience….” To this Butler received a response from Stanton’s assistant secretary, Colonel James A. Hardie: “letter is referred….The Secretary of War is not to make any special recommendation for brevet in advance of the general list.---Jas Hardie.” There is no reason to doubt that this rejection aligned with Stanton’s wishes, but Colonel Hardie certainly had his opinions about the race for generalships as his own commission to brigadier general was revoked a year earlier in January of 1863. Hardie was a veteran from the Mexican War and an ex-professor from West Pointe. See: Benjamin Butler to Secretary Stanton, April, 21st 1864 & response, April 26, 1864. M1064, in Letters received by the Commission Branch of the Adjutant General Office, 1863-70. Microfilm #B640CC1864, National Archives, Washington DC. About Hardie, see: Eicher and Eicher, "Civil War High Commands", 279.
74 The one-armed General Edward Wild fed racial and gender fires by his brash actions like taking confederate wives prisoner and publicly lynching dubiously accused Confederates. In one raid into rebel territory he urged slaves to whip the backs of their recently captured masters. Wild out-Butlered Butler, often making the Beast appear rather tame in comparison. Wild had been sent to the Invalid Corps but pushed his way back into the regular Army. Frances Harding Casstevens, Edward A. Wild and the African Brigade in the Civil War (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003), 325.
75 Enclosed letter from Wild to Cole in George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 3, 1865 (private), Cole family, "Papers".
76 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 7, 1865, ibid.
77 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 2, 1865, ibid.. Why Cole wrote “on my leaving” must mean that he had told his officers that he planned on resigning from the army.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, concluded ...
Cole, too, expressed an eagerness to drum up an investigation of General Butler for wartime corruption.
He wanted to push further the accusations of stealing private possessions from Southerners’ homes (thus the nickname “spoons”), taking kickbacks from competing contractors and trafficking in illegal trade with confederates.78
Though Butler received Lincoln’s permission to trade plows and agricultural equipment to friendly farmers in the occupied regions, Butler created new suspicions about his trading with (and abetting) the enemy in the North Carolina and Virginia — while relatives and Massachusetts men reaped enormous profits.79
Yet Cole had his eye on his own main chance.
He meanwhile began scouring the papers, cutting out announcements of government posts and sending them to Cornelius.
He especially wanted a post in the Treasury Department in Savannah, supervising the cotton trade, the very thing that had supposedly corrupted Butler.
“Write me the political prospects etc etc,” Cole closed another letter to his brother, “as I have small chance to learn any, outside as I am.”80
By February Butler had been dismissed from the Army of the James, yet Cole must have sent him one more letter asking the Major General for a recommendation.
From his home in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler responded,
My Dear Colonel, I sent forward on one occasion a report through the usual channels in which you were named for meritorious services and your promotion urged. I also wrote a letter upon the same topic to the Department….I trust you will yet receive the promotion which is due you. If you desire to press the matter I will give you such certificate of services as you have justly and nobly earned
Butler, though, ended the letter with something he must have known would eat at Cole — as it would any soldier frustrated between the lack of correlation between merit and rank: “Alas! Services are not always the test of rewards --- your truly, Benj Butler.”81
78 Soldiers and civilians have always made a killing out of killing. Enemies have traded with one another to various degrees in every American war. But more than the Revolution, or the War of 1812, the Civil War provided lucrative possibilities for enormous numbers of Americans, from both sides. Due to the Union embargo, southerners suddenly found themselves with unimaginable excesses of cotton and shortages in foodstuffs, clothing, salt, medicine, shoes, etc. Meanwhile northerners began paying several fold more for cotton and had also lost previous southern markets for foodstuffs, clothing, etc. Thus along the borders and especially in occupied territories scads of soldiers and speculators took advantage of the distorted supply and demand caused by the war. Because New Orleans was cut off both from transatlantic trade and by blockaded rivers, the occupied city was dry kindling for corrupt trade. Not all trade with the enemy was illegal however, as the administration believed that trading with occupied regions would create allegiance to the Union and reduce civilian suffering. The problem, though, arose in preventing “legal” trade with locals from spilling over into “illegal” trade with rebels who posed as loyalists and locals. Trading with or purchasing cotton from them often meant providing the rebel forces with uniforms and guns. It was never proven that General Butler abused his administrative powers in this regard, but it is highly likely. Even George Denison, who would become an admirer of Butler, admitted as much. In a letter to Salmon Chase, Denison testified that General Phelps (whom Butler squeezed out of the service) was well respected for his “integrity and disinterestedness.” “This is not strictly true of Gen. Butler,“ Denison confessed, “for while all admire his great ability, many of his soldiers think him selfish and cold-hearted, and many soldiers and citizens — Union and Secessionists — think he is interested in the speculations of his brother (Col. Butler) and others.” “Sometimes circumstances look very suspicious, but if I happen to hear his explanation of the same circumstances, suspicion almost entirely disappears. I have never been able to discover any good proof that Gen. Butler has improperly done, or permitted, anything for his own pecuniary advantage. He is such a smart man, that it would, in any case, be difficult to discover what he wished to conceal.” Butler’s own brother, Andrew, grew extremely wealthy from the so-called legal trade. Union men and speculators regularly purchased “confiscated” goods at rock-bottom prices. Speculators were also allowed (by greasing palms) to pass into enemy territory to secure cotton at advantageous prices. Butler never denied growing rich off the cotton trade, but instead claimed that it was a necessary part of reconstructing New Orleans. But the cotton he did purchase — legitimately or otherwise — was overwhelmingly sold back to his home region where Butler created a dependent clientele which promised political advantage for Butler after the war. Any Union soldier knew, or had heard stories, about cotton corruption. As Charles A. Dana described the problem from his vantage point in Tennessee, “Every colonel, captain, or quartermaster is in secret partnership with some operator in cotton; every soldier dreams of adding a bale of cotton to his monthly pay.” Dana quoted in: McPherson, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era", 620-25; George S. Denison to Salmon P. Chase, September 9, 1862, in Butler, "Private and Official Correspondence of General Benjamin F. Butler during the Period of the Civil War, Vol. 2, June, 1862-February, 1863", 270-71. Michael Smith argues that Butler came to embody the centrality of corruption and the obsession with manliness in the North during the Civil War era. See: Smith, ""the Enemy within: Corruption and Political Culture in the Civil War North."", 1-91; For a good summary of the accusations and investigation concerning Butler’s activities in Virginia throughout 1864, see: Bernarr Cresap, Appomattox Commander: The Story of General E.O.C. Ord (South Brunswick N.J.; London: A.S. Barnes; Tantivy Press, 1981), 147-57.
79 Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 142-46
80 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 1865, Cole family, "Papers"; George Cole to Cornelius Cole, written on paper with letterhead of “Inspector General’s Office,” estimated to be January, 1865, ibid.. As Biggs had received an Inspectorship, Cole may have obtained this paper from Biggs’s office.
81 Benjamin Butler to Colonel Cole, Feb 28th, 1865. M1064: Letters received by the Commission Branch of the Adjutant General Office, 1863-70. Microfilm # C1545CB1865, NARA.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 3: BELOW THE BEAST, concluded ...
Cole, too, expressed an eagerness to drum up an investigation of General Butler for wartime corruption.
He wanted to push further the accusations of stealing private possessions from Southerners’ homes (thus the nickname “spoons”), taking kickbacks from competing contractors and trafficking in illegal trade with confederates.78
Though Butler received Lincoln’s permission to trade plows and agricultural equipment to friendly farmers in the occupied regions, Butler created new suspicions about his trading with (and abetting) the enemy in the North Carolina and Virginia — while relatives and Massachusetts men reaped enormous profits.79
Yet Cole had his eye on his own main chance.
He meanwhile began scouring the papers, cutting out announcements of government posts and sending them to Cornelius.
He especially wanted a post in the Treasury Department in Savannah, supervising the cotton trade, the very thing that had supposedly corrupted Butler.
“Write me the political prospects etc etc,” Cole closed another letter to his brother, “as I have small chance to learn any, outside as I am.”80
By February Butler had been dismissed from the Army of the James, yet Cole must have sent him one more letter asking the Major General for a recommendation.
From his home in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler responded,
My Dear Colonel, I sent forward on one occasion a report through the usual channels in which you were named for meritorious services and your promotion urged. I also wrote a letter upon the same topic to the Department….I trust you will yet receive the promotion which is due you. If you desire to press the matter I will give you such certificate of services as you have justly and nobly earned
Butler, though, ended the letter with something he must have known would eat at Cole — as it would any soldier frustrated between the lack of correlation between merit and rank: “Alas! Services are not always the test of rewards --- your truly, Benj Butler.”81
78 Soldiers and civilians have always made a killing out of killing. Enemies have traded with one another to various degrees in every American war. But more than the Revolution, or the War of 1812, the Civil War provided lucrative possibilities for enormous numbers of Americans, from both sides. Due to the Union embargo, southerners suddenly found themselves with unimaginable excesses of cotton and shortages in foodstuffs, clothing, salt, medicine, shoes, etc. Meanwhile northerners began paying several fold more for cotton and had also lost previous southern markets for foodstuffs, clothing, etc. Thus along the borders and especially in occupied territories scads of soldiers and speculators took advantage of the distorted supply and demand caused by the war. Because New Orleans was cut off both from transatlantic trade and by blockaded rivers, the occupied city was dry kindling for corrupt trade. Not all trade with the enemy was illegal however, as the administration believed that trading with occupied regions would create allegiance to the Union and reduce civilian suffering. The problem, though, arose in preventing “legal” trade with locals from spilling over into “illegal” trade with rebels who posed as loyalists and locals. Trading with or purchasing cotton from them often meant providing the rebel forces with uniforms and guns. It was never proven that General Butler abused his administrative powers in this regard, but it is highly likely. Even George Denison, who would become an admirer of Butler, admitted as much. In a letter to Salmon Chase, Denison testified that General Phelps (whom Butler squeezed out of the service) was well respected for his “integrity and disinterestedness.” “This is not strictly true of Gen. Butler,“ Denison confessed, “for while all admire his great ability, many of his soldiers think him selfish and cold-hearted, and many soldiers and citizens — Union and Secessionists — think he is interested in the speculations of his brother (Col. Butler) and others.” “Sometimes circumstances look very suspicious, but if I happen to hear his explanation of the same circumstances, suspicion almost entirely disappears. I have never been able to discover any good proof that Gen. Butler has improperly done, or permitted, anything for his own pecuniary advantage. He is such a smart man, that it would, in any case, be difficult to discover what he wished to conceal.” Butler’s own brother, Andrew, grew extremely wealthy from the so-called legal trade. Union men and speculators regularly purchased “confiscated” goods at rock-bottom prices. Speculators were also allowed (by greasing palms) to pass into enemy territory to secure cotton at advantageous prices. Butler never denied growing rich off the cotton trade, but instead claimed that it was a necessary part of reconstructing New Orleans. But the cotton he did purchase — legitimately or otherwise — was overwhelmingly sold back to his home region where Butler created a dependent clientele which promised political advantage for Butler after the war. Any Union soldier knew, or had heard stories, about cotton corruption. As Charles A. Dana described the problem from his vantage point in Tennessee, “Every colonel, captain, or quartermaster is in secret partnership with some operator in cotton; every soldier dreams of adding a bale of cotton to his monthly pay.” Dana quoted in: McPherson, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era", 620-25; George S. Denison to Salmon P. Chase, September 9, 1862, in Butler, "Private and Official Correspondence of General Benjamin F. Butler during the Period of the Civil War, Vol. 2, June, 1862-February, 1863", 270-71. Michael Smith argues that Butler came to embody the centrality of corruption and the obsession with manliness in the North during the Civil War era. See: Smith, ""the Enemy within: Corruption and Political Culture in the Civil War North."", 1-91; For a good summary of the accusations and investigation concerning Butler’s activities in Virginia throughout 1864, see: Bernarr Cresap, Appomattox Commander: The Story of General E.O.C. Ord (South Brunswick N.J.; London: A.S. Barnes; Tantivy Press, 1981), 147-57.
79 Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 142-46
80 George Cole to Cornelius Cole, January 1865, Cole family, "Papers"; George Cole to Cornelius Cole, written on paper with letterhead of “Inspector General’s Office,” estimated to be January, 1865, ibid.. As Biggs had received an Inspectorship, Cole may have obtained this paper from Biggs’s office.
81 Benjamin Butler to Colonel Cole, Feb 28th, 1865. M1064: Letters received by the Commission Branch of the Adjutant General Office, 1863-70. Microfilm # C1545CB1865, NARA.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST
What is not apparent in Cole’s letters, but was the backdrop to his frustrations, is that over the course of 1864, as Cole grew increasingly agitated, and as white officers and black soldiers below him edged into mutiny and murder, General Butler flirted with a run for the presidency while miring his troops in one military debacle after the next.
For anybody paying close attention, the Army of the James certified itself as the template for military incompetence.
Ironically, though, even as Butler muffed almost every military endeavor, the larger war brought so much blood without decisive victory — sending erstwhile Lincoln men scrambling for a redeemer — that Butler came close to stealing the presidency from Lincoln.1
It is true that had Butler toppled Richmond, he might have stabilized Lincoln’s political future, while securing his own political fortunes.
Yet Butler’s military troubles seemed to add to the malaise that many northerners felt about the war effort.
Paradoxically, then, Butler’s own failures somehow kept his presidential hopes afloat.
Butler lusted for Richmond.
In late January, one of his indefatigable allies — the eccentric Lincoln hater with colored glasses, Count Adam Gurowsky — urged Butler to take the prize.
Gurowsky advised Butler to slowly build of his forces, and then without orders, effect a coup on Richmond, notifying the War Department mid-endeavor.
“Strike the blow without letting out your secret,” he continued.
“You know better than I, that if the administration would wince and smart to find Richmond in your hands, on its shoulders the people will carry you into the White House…."
"A great action, a great bold action, and Lincoln chances vanish as nightmare,” Gurowsky concluded his confidential letter.2
In February Butler bought into a one of his subordinate’s proposals to sneak into Richmond with a small force and free Union captives from Libby and Belle Island prisoners, destroy key properties, and capture confederate leaders.
Butler believed local intelligence that the southern rim of the city had been left nearly unprotected.
When the forces sent by Butler found the enemy waiting, with bridges torn up and fords obstructed, Butler’s men slumped back to base.
Undaunted by the embarrassment, Butler took no blame, instead firing off telegraphs to Lincoln and Stanton about the “brilliantly and ably executed movement” that would have succeeded had a union soldier — condemned to death for killing his own lieutenant — not been allowed to escape prison days before Butler’s operation.
Butler believed southern papers which reported that the escapee found his way into confederate lines by Richmond and revealed Butler’s secret plan to raid Richmond.
(How this prisoner came to know of the secret plans, Butler was unable to convincingly explain.)
Butler then transferred the blame to Lincoln by suggesting that had the president not suspended capital punishment in the Army of the James, the escaped prisoner would have been in a wood box, and Butler’s men national heroes.3
“Everything worked precisely as I expected,” Butler telegraphed Lincoln, before cutting to the chase.
Referring to a newspaper report he forwarded, about the escaped prisoner, he added, “I send it to you that you may see how your clemency has been misplaced.”4
1 Taylor Merrill, "General Benjamin F. Butler in the Presidential Campaign of 1864", 537-70
2 Count Gurowsky to General Butler, January 30th, 1864, in: Butler, "Private and Official Correspondence of General Benjamin F. Butler during the Period of the Civil War. Vol. 3, February 1863-March 1864"
3 Nash, "Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of General Benjamin F. Butler, 1818-1893", 188-89; Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 18-19
4 Butler to various officials, February 8-12, 1864. United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 33. pp. 143-45
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST
What is not apparent in Cole’s letters, but was the backdrop to his frustrations, is that over the course of 1864, as Cole grew increasingly agitated, and as white officers and black soldiers below him edged into mutiny and murder, General Butler flirted with a run for the presidency while miring his troops in one military debacle after the next.
For anybody paying close attention, the Army of the James certified itself as the template for military incompetence.
Ironically, though, even as Butler muffed almost every military endeavor, the larger war brought so much blood without decisive victory — sending erstwhile Lincoln men scrambling for a redeemer — that Butler came close to stealing the presidency from Lincoln.1
It is true that had Butler toppled Richmond, he might have stabilized Lincoln’s political future, while securing his own political fortunes.
Yet Butler’s military troubles seemed to add to the malaise that many northerners felt about the war effort.
Paradoxically, then, Butler’s own failures somehow kept his presidential hopes afloat.
Butler lusted for Richmond.
In late January, one of his indefatigable allies — the eccentric Lincoln hater with colored glasses, Count Adam Gurowsky — urged Butler to take the prize.
Gurowsky advised Butler to slowly build of his forces, and then without orders, effect a coup on Richmond, notifying the War Department mid-endeavor.
“Strike the blow without letting out your secret,” he continued.
“You know better than I, that if the administration would wince and smart to find Richmond in your hands, on its shoulders the people will carry you into the White House…."
"A great action, a great bold action, and Lincoln chances vanish as nightmare,” Gurowsky concluded his confidential letter.2
In February Butler bought into a one of his subordinate’s proposals to sneak into Richmond with a small force and free Union captives from Libby and Belle Island prisoners, destroy key properties, and capture confederate leaders.
Butler believed local intelligence that the southern rim of the city had been left nearly unprotected.
When the forces sent by Butler found the enemy waiting, with bridges torn up and fords obstructed, Butler’s men slumped back to base.
Undaunted by the embarrassment, Butler took no blame, instead firing off telegraphs to Lincoln and Stanton about the “brilliantly and ably executed movement” that would have succeeded had a union soldier — condemned to death for killing his own lieutenant — not been allowed to escape prison days before Butler’s operation.
Butler believed southern papers which reported that the escapee found his way into confederate lines by Richmond and revealed Butler’s secret plan to raid Richmond.
(How this prisoner came to know of the secret plans, Butler was unable to convincingly explain.)
Butler then transferred the blame to Lincoln by suggesting that had the president not suspended capital punishment in the Army of the James, the escaped prisoner would have been in a wood box, and Butler’s men national heroes.3
“Everything worked precisely as I expected,” Butler telegraphed Lincoln, before cutting to the chase.
Referring to a newspaper report he forwarded, about the escaped prisoner, he added, “I send it to you that you may see how your clemency has been misplaced.”4
1 Taylor Merrill, "General Benjamin F. Butler in the Presidential Campaign of 1864", 537-70
2 Count Gurowsky to General Butler, January 30th, 1864, in: Butler, "Private and Official Correspondence of General Benjamin F. Butler during the Period of the Civil War. Vol. 3, February 1863-March 1864"
3 Nash, "Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of General Benjamin F. Butler, 1818-1893", 188-89; Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 18-19
4 Butler to various officials, February 8-12, 1864. United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 33. pp. 143-45
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST, continued ...
The Army of the James suffered from chronic miscommunication between Butler and the newly installed Lieutenant General Grant, and Butler and his subordinates.
When Grant attempted to take Richmond in May, he and Butler began the campaign with almost perfect misunderstanding in fundamental tactics, especially timing and purpose.
Making things worse, Butler disregarded warnings given him by seasoned Navy officials, who despite their warnings that ships with fifteen-foot drafts could not navigate a river with ten-foot shoals, Butler commanded to transport troops up the James.5
Even more, Butler’s two corps commanders shared deep doubts about his strategy for taking Richmond.
During the operations, they stalled, and all but ignored some of Butler’s orders.
(This tension was part of a larger rub between professionally trained officers and “political generals” who claimed that character alone qualified them for the work.)6
Butler’s soldiers had a shot at taking both Richmond and Petersburg had they not endlessly stalled and been fooled by various bluffs.
Instead of playing a vital role in the fall of Richmond, Butler’s men were pushed back by rebel forces half their size.
Butler retreated through a narrow neck into a horseshoe of land formed by the James River, where he and his troops would find safety from attacking rebels.
But with the river to their backs, the same neck that provided safety, also allowed rebels to keep Butler’s forces trapped.
As Grant disapprovingly put it, “[Butler’s] army, therefore, though in a position of great security, was as completely shut off from further operations directly against Richmond as if it had been in a bottle, strongly corked.”
Butler had “hermetically sealed” his own army from the war at hand, so that it only required the smallest of rebel forces to keep it in the bottle.7
From Fortress Monroe, Sarah Butler wrote her stifled husband that she had already purchased a carriage hat of “straw, white velvet, and a long white feather,” in order “to grace the taking of Richmond.”
With the sudden reversal, though, she promised to immediately send it back to Massachusetts and order it “put in the darkest closet in the attic.”8
Much of the rest of ’64 was spent defending (or as some saw it, cowering in) the bottle while Grant siphoned off forces from the Army of the James.
Butler’s wife argued that the slow bleeding of Butler’s forces ordered by Grant was at root, a political move.
Grant had always shown a desire to remove Butler, but left him untouched perhaps at the request of the president.
(Or perhaps because no right-minded officer would dare get in a public feud with such a silver-tongued attorney.)9
5 Nash, "Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of General Benjamin F. Butler, 1818-1893", 190-93; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 136
6 Goss, "The War within the Union High Command: Politics and Generalship during the Civil War", 300
7 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 62-3, 74-5, 82-3; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 115-20; General report of Richmond Campaign, from U.S. Grant, July 22, 1865. United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 46, part 1, p. 19
8 Mrs. Butler to General Butler, May 21, 1864, in: Benjamin Franklin Butler, Private and Official Correspondence of General Benjamin F. Butler during the Period of the Civil War. Vol. 4, March 1864-August 1864 (Norwood, Mass: Plimpton Press, 1917), 244-45.
9 Robert Holzman suggested that Grant feared Butler would mercilessly re-open the debate about Grant’s purported alcoholism. When Grant first came east to assume command of the army he wanted to rid the army of Butler. But despite Grant’s resistance, Lincoln convinced his top general to leave Butler at the head of the Army of the James, because Butler had a strong following among Radical Republicans. See: Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 118-19; Smith, ""the Enemy within: Corruption and Political Culture in the Civil War North."", 39; Donald, "Lincoln", 498. By the summer Major General Halleck (the chief of staff for the army) and Lieutenant General Grant bandied about ideas of how to get rid of the troublesome Butler. Butler particularly vexed Halleck because though the latter was an experienced soldier, trained at West Point, Butler actually outranked him as major general due to Lincoln’s rush to promote Butler for poltical expediency in the first hours of the war. Butler --- a man of no real military experience -- actually outranked every single officer in the army save Grant who was given the long-retired rank of Lieutenant General. Halleck and Grant discussed sending Butler to Kentucky but feared he would clash with Sherman. Halleck also suggested paring away Butler’s army size as a way to weaken Butler’s leverage. See: Halleck to Grant, July 3, 1864, in United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 40, part II, p.598; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 131-32
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST, continued ...
The Army of the James suffered from chronic miscommunication between Butler and the newly installed Lieutenant General Grant, and Butler and his subordinates.
When Grant attempted to take Richmond in May, he and Butler began the campaign with almost perfect misunderstanding in fundamental tactics, especially timing and purpose.
Making things worse, Butler disregarded warnings given him by seasoned Navy officials, who despite their warnings that ships with fifteen-foot drafts could not navigate a river with ten-foot shoals, Butler commanded to transport troops up the James.5
Even more, Butler’s two corps commanders shared deep doubts about his strategy for taking Richmond.
During the operations, they stalled, and all but ignored some of Butler’s orders.
(This tension was part of a larger rub between professionally trained officers and “political generals” who claimed that character alone qualified them for the work.)6
Butler’s soldiers had a shot at taking both Richmond and Petersburg had they not endlessly stalled and been fooled by various bluffs.
Instead of playing a vital role in the fall of Richmond, Butler’s men were pushed back by rebel forces half their size.
Butler retreated through a narrow neck into a horseshoe of land formed by the James River, where he and his troops would find safety from attacking rebels.
But with the river to their backs, the same neck that provided safety, also allowed rebels to keep Butler’s forces trapped.
As Grant disapprovingly put it, “[Butler’s] army, therefore, though in a position of great security, was as completely shut off from further operations directly against Richmond as if it had been in a bottle, strongly corked.”
Butler had “hermetically sealed” his own army from the war at hand, so that it only required the smallest of rebel forces to keep it in the bottle.7
From Fortress Monroe, Sarah Butler wrote her stifled husband that she had already purchased a carriage hat of “straw, white velvet, and a long white feather,” in order “to grace the taking of Richmond.”
With the sudden reversal, though, she promised to immediately send it back to Massachusetts and order it “put in the darkest closet in the attic.”8
Much of the rest of ’64 was spent defending (or as some saw it, cowering in) the bottle while Grant siphoned off forces from the Army of the James.
Butler’s wife argued that the slow bleeding of Butler’s forces ordered by Grant was at root, a political move.
Grant had always shown a desire to remove Butler, but left him untouched perhaps at the request of the president.
(Or perhaps because no right-minded officer would dare get in a public feud with such a silver-tongued attorney.)9
5 Nash, "Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of General Benjamin F. Butler, 1818-1893", 190-93; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 136
6 Goss, "The War within the Union High Command: Politics and Generalship during the Civil War", 300
7 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 62-3, 74-5, 82-3; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 115-20; General report of Richmond Campaign, from U.S. Grant, July 22, 1865. United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 46, part 1, p. 19
8 Mrs. Butler to General Butler, May 21, 1864, in: Benjamin Franklin Butler, Private and Official Correspondence of General Benjamin F. Butler during the Period of the Civil War. Vol. 4, March 1864-August 1864 (Norwood, Mass: Plimpton Press, 1917), 244-45.
9 Robert Holzman suggested that Grant feared Butler would mercilessly re-open the debate about Grant’s purported alcoholism. When Grant first came east to assume command of the army he wanted to rid the army of Butler. But despite Grant’s resistance, Lincoln convinced his top general to leave Butler at the head of the Army of the James, because Butler had a strong following among Radical Republicans. See: Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 118-19; Smith, ""the Enemy within: Corruption and Political Culture in the Civil War North."", 39; Donald, "Lincoln", 498. By the summer Major General Halleck (the chief of staff for the army) and Lieutenant General Grant bandied about ideas of how to get rid of the troublesome Butler. Butler particularly vexed Halleck because though the latter was an experienced soldier, trained at West Point, Butler actually outranked him as major general due to Lincoln’s rush to promote Butler for poltical expediency in the first hours of the war. Butler --- a man of no real military experience -- actually outranked every single officer in the army save Grant who was given the long-retired rank of Lieutenant General. Halleck and Grant discussed sending Butler to Kentucky but feared he would clash with Sherman. Halleck also suggested paring away Butler’s army size as a way to weaken Butler’s leverage. See: Halleck to Grant, July 3, 1864, in United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 40, part II, p.598; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 131-32
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST, continued ...
Meanwhile Butler began purging his highest officers whom he felt had sabotaged his generalship.
Butler made uninvited visits to Grant’s headquarters, pressed the War Department, and had an agent in Washington read a letter to nine key senators, asking them to quash the nominations for promotion already afoot for Butler’s subordinates-cum-enemies.
The agent also told them that Butler would “esteem it a personal favor” if they would remove “the nuisance” altogether — that is demote or transfer Butler’s insubordinate Corps officer.10
By the close of the year Butler would dig his own military grave.
The War Department hoped to capture Fort Fisher, a key, and seemingly impregnable coastal holding that allowed rebels to smuggle in supplies from confederate blockade runners.
Butler hatched a plan to float a ship loaded with 300 tons of powder and detonate it as it drifted toward the fort.
Although the plan was initially dismissed as quixotic, one of Butler’s schoolmates convinced the military brass to mull it over.
Though skeptical, Grant eventually agreed to the plan, appointing General Weitzel (not Butler) to lead the troops in pace with the powder ship and an accompanying naval fleet.
But because Fort Fisher fell within Butler’s geographic command, Butler suppressed the order, and at the last minute, installed himself as the expedition’s ranking commander.
Grant had heard the night before that Butler would be accompanying the expedition, but incorrectly assumed that the ambitious general was only going along to witness his grandiose scheme.
Ending his military career in the Army of the James, just as he had begun it, Butler and his fellow officers suffered from an inexcusable lack of communication — partly because Butler and the other commander, Admiral Porter, despised one another so much that they had to communicate through intermediaries.
Because of confusion or ambition, Butler embarked with his men ahead of the naval portion, including Porter, who was supposed to take the lead.
After a series of miscues, and several days waiting, Porter’s fleet caught up with Butler and convinced him to move his ships further from the fort.
Butler took them so far out of range that they would arrive tardily on the shores, after the ship’s explosion.
When the ship, filled with open-topped powder kegs and a Gomez Fuse, detonated, though, it did little more than wake sleeping soldiers inside the fort.
(Butler would argue, with some justification, that the navy detonated it prematurely so that Butler’s forces would not be part of the glory.)
On Christmas day, when Butler’s men went ashore (some of them led by his own son-in-law) they captured a number of under-aged rebel soldiers before digging in for a siege.
Butler watched anxiously from his tugboat; when general Weitzel (the officer who was supposed to be in charge) informed Butler that the fortress incurred no damage, and it would soon receive reinforcements, Butler sank into a defeatist funk.
As if he had no fight left once his dream of pyrotechnical warfare sunk with the ship, he ordered immediate withdrawal.
Because of Butler’s panic and an unusually stormy shoreline, the general stranded many of his men on the beach.
While Butler would instantly try to spin the fiasco into a Sisyphus-like struggle against stormy weather and naval grandstanding (he had some merit in his claims), War Department memos, newspaper coverage, and letters from soldiers, roundly denounced Butler for yet another embarrassment to the Union.
Incredibly, Butler managed to pull off one last fizzle — even as his enemies were lowering his military career into the grave.
On New Year’s Day, he called together political notables and curious onlookers to witness what Butler hailed as one of the greatest military engineering feats in the annals of war.
Four months earlier Butler had persuaded Grant to approve the plan of digging a massive canal between the thin gap of a horseshoe formed by the James River (just north of the “bottle” that the Army of the James called home).
Butler believed by digging out some 167,000 cubit yards of earth, and then dynamiting the bulkheads holding the river back, he would form a crucial river pass whereby Union vessels could circumvent rebel shelling and dramatically hasten any attack on Richmond.
Grant thought the project fantastical, but allowed Butler to engage in it, if for no other reason than to keep him out of the frontlines.
Butler originally estimated that the Dutch Canal Gap could be finished in ten days.
Roughly four months later, on New Year’s Day a crowd of onlookers and journalists gathered to witness the tarnished general’s parting — and much delayed -- feat.
The explosives detonated as planned, but the tons of earth that shot to the sky crashed back into the void, damming the river all over again.
By the time the rubble would be removed, Butler would be out of uniform and the war all but over.11
10 ibid., 118-21
11 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 193-95, 258-59
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST, continued ...
Meanwhile Butler began purging his highest officers whom he felt had sabotaged his generalship.
Butler made uninvited visits to Grant’s headquarters, pressed the War Department, and had an agent in Washington read a letter to nine key senators, asking them to quash the nominations for promotion already afoot for Butler’s subordinates-cum-enemies.
The agent also told them that Butler would “esteem it a personal favor” if they would remove “the nuisance” altogether — that is demote or transfer Butler’s insubordinate Corps officer.10
By the close of the year Butler would dig his own military grave.
The War Department hoped to capture Fort Fisher, a key, and seemingly impregnable coastal holding that allowed rebels to smuggle in supplies from confederate blockade runners.
Butler hatched a plan to float a ship loaded with 300 tons of powder and detonate it as it drifted toward the fort.
Although the plan was initially dismissed as quixotic, one of Butler’s schoolmates convinced the military brass to mull it over.
Though skeptical, Grant eventually agreed to the plan, appointing General Weitzel (not Butler) to lead the troops in pace with the powder ship and an accompanying naval fleet.
But because Fort Fisher fell within Butler’s geographic command, Butler suppressed the order, and at the last minute, installed himself as the expedition’s ranking commander.
Grant had heard the night before that Butler would be accompanying the expedition, but incorrectly assumed that the ambitious general was only going along to witness his grandiose scheme.
Ending his military career in the Army of the James, just as he had begun it, Butler and his fellow officers suffered from an inexcusable lack of communication — partly because Butler and the other commander, Admiral Porter, despised one another so much that they had to communicate through intermediaries.
Because of confusion or ambition, Butler embarked with his men ahead of the naval portion, including Porter, who was supposed to take the lead.
After a series of miscues, and several days waiting, Porter’s fleet caught up with Butler and convinced him to move his ships further from the fort.
Butler took them so far out of range that they would arrive tardily on the shores, after the ship’s explosion.
When the ship, filled with open-topped powder kegs and a Gomez Fuse, detonated, though, it did little more than wake sleeping soldiers inside the fort.
(Butler would argue, with some justification, that the navy detonated it prematurely so that Butler’s forces would not be part of the glory.)
On Christmas day, when Butler’s men went ashore (some of them led by his own son-in-law) they captured a number of under-aged rebel soldiers before digging in for a siege.
Butler watched anxiously from his tugboat; when general Weitzel (the officer who was supposed to be in charge) informed Butler that the fortress incurred no damage, and it would soon receive reinforcements, Butler sank into a defeatist funk.
As if he had no fight left once his dream of pyrotechnical warfare sunk with the ship, he ordered immediate withdrawal.
Because of Butler’s panic and an unusually stormy shoreline, the general stranded many of his men on the beach.
While Butler would instantly try to spin the fiasco into a Sisyphus-like struggle against stormy weather and naval grandstanding (he had some merit in his claims), War Department memos, newspaper coverage, and letters from soldiers, roundly denounced Butler for yet another embarrassment to the Union.
Incredibly, Butler managed to pull off one last fizzle — even as his enemies were lowering his military career into the grave.
On New Year’s Day, he called together political notables and curious onlookers to witness what Butler hailed as one of the greatest military engineering feats in the annals of war.
Four months earlier Butler had persuaded Grant to approve the plan of digging a massive canal between the thin gap of a horseshoe formed by the James River (just north of the “bottle” that the Army of the James called home).
Butler believed by digging out some 167,000 cubit yards of earth, and then dynamiting the bulkheads holding the river back, he would form a crucial river pass whereby Union vessels could circumvent rebel shelling and dramatically hasten any attack on Richmond.
Grant thought the project fantastical, but allowed Butler to engage in it, if for no other reason than to keep him out of the frontlines.
Butler originally estimated that the Dutch Canal Gap could be finished in ten days.
Roughly four months later, on New Year’s Day a crowd of onlookers and journalists gathered to witness the tarnished general’s parting — and much delayed -- feat.
The explosives detonated as planned, but the tons of earth that shot to the sky crashed back into the void, damming the river all over again.
By the time the rubble would be removed, Butler would be out of uniform and the war all but over.11
10 ibid., 118-21
11 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 193-95, 258-59
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST, continued ...
Except by loyal hard-war Republicans, Butler was denounced as a coward who abandoned his own men.
The crew from Porter’s flagship made Butler a leather medal with “in commemoration of his heroic conduct” written on one side, and a pair of legs in the act of running on the other.12
And now Grant finally had his ironclad case for Butler’s removal.
Soon after, he asked Stanton and Lincoln to release the “unsafe commander.”
The Massachusetts general believed his removal was spearheaded by a cabal of West Pointers who could no longer brook a citizen soldier outranking them.
(In this he was right, though he would not own his spotty record.)
In his first executive order of ’65, Lincoln axed his longtime potential rival and sometimes political helpmeet, ordering him back to Lowell, Massachusetts.13
As Butler chuffed toward his hometown with his family secluded on board the steamer, Grant designated Major General E.O.C Ord to assume command of the Army of the James.
Ord tried to stop Butler’s final act of propaganda, by asking Grant for permission to suppress seven hundred copies of his farewell speech to his soldiers, in which Butler defended his overcautious record, claiming the “wasted blood of my men does not stain my garments.”
Grant ordered Ord to not interfere.
But officers, newspapers, and sizable portions of the population would ask questions about the bright star whose ambitions led him to ignominy.
Soon after Butler’s exit, Porter and a more cooperative general moved on Fort Fisher again, this time successfully doing what Butler had already begun arguing could never be done.
The newly successful operation was used by his many military adversaries as a sort of proof of his falsely won promotions.
And within the army Butler’s manhood was questioned.
To Grant, Admiral Porter quipped, “I hold it to be a good rule never to send a boy on a man’s errand…”
In a letter to Admiral Porter, Sherman would rub in the salt: “The best part of the taking of Fort Fisher was the killing of Butler."
"He has had no blood on his skirts and judging from the past, it will be long before his blood stains anything.”
Butler had no blood on his “skirts.”
The timid soldier had finally been buried.
Denouncing Butler’s final speech as a “bombastic order designed as a fling at Grant,” Sherman promised that even Butler’s greatest source of power could not redeem him.
“[Grant] has quietly and completely laid him low forever."
"Even the nigger cannot resurrect him.”14
Actually, Butler still believed in such a resurrection through African Americans.
Butler claimed later, that even after Fort Fisher, he “retained the full confidence” of Lincoln.
While in Washington just before the close of the war Butler called on the president who voiced concern about what to do with nearly two-hundred thousand black men who had learned to march and fire guns.
Butler claimed that Lincoln, fearing a “race war,” suggested the black soldiers be shipped off to a more hospitable, fertile country.
Butler returned the next day, telling Lincoln that the entire black population could not be exported to the island of San Domingo “half as fast as negro children will be born.”
But as for the soldiers, Butler reminded Lincoln that most of them still had over a year left on their original three-year enlistment, and that because the war had not been officially declared over, the president could order them anywhere.
“Now I have some experience in diggings canal,” Butler recalled telling Lincoln, only hinting at the fiasco at Dutch Gap.
He maintained that because black soldiers had spent “a large portion of their time in digging in forts and intrenchments” they would be well suited to dig a thirty mile canal across the Columbian isthmus.
“If you will put me in command of them, I will take them there and dig the canal.”
Butler promised that it would cost the government nothing but food and military pay.
Once there Butler would create a colony by setting a third of them to dig, another third to building, and the remaining portion to agriculture.
Once established they would petition the government “to send down to us our wives and children.”
The colony would “protect the canal and the interests of the United States.”
12 McPherson, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era", 819-20; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 149-53
13 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 245-59; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 152-53
14 General Sherman to Admiral Porter, January 21, 1865, in: United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 47, part II, pp. 104-05; Admiral Porter to Lieutenant General Grant, January 3, 1853, in: ibid., Series 1, volume 46, part II, p. 20.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST, continued ...
Except by loyal hard-war Republicans, Butler was denounced as a coward who abandoned his own men.
The crew from Porter’s flagship made Butler a leather medal with “in commemoration of his heroic conduct” written on one side, and a pair of legs in the act of running on the other.12
And now Grant finally had his ironclad case for Butler’s removal.
Soon after, he asked Stanton and Lincoln to release the “unsafe commander.”
The Massachusetts general believed his removal was spearheaded by a cabal of West Pointers who could no longer brook a citizen soldier outranking them.
(In this he was right, though he would not own his spotty record.)
In his first executive order of ’65, Lincoln axed his longtime potential rival and sometimes political helpmeet, ordering him back to Lowell, Massachusetts.13
As Butler chuffed toward his hometown with his family secluded on board the steamer, Grant designated Major General E.O.C Ord to assume command of the Army of the James.
Ord tried to stop Butler’s final act of propaganda, by asking Grant for permission to suppress seven hundred copies of his farewell speech to his soldiers, in which Butler defended his overcautious record, claiming the “wasted blood of my men does not stain my garments.”
Grant ordered Ord to not interfere.
But officers, newspapers, and sizable portions of the population would ask questions about the bright star whose ambitions led him to ignominy.
Soon after Butler’s exit, Porter and a more cooperative general moved on Fort Fisher again, this time successfully doing what Butler had already begun arguing could never be done.
The newly successful operation was used by his many military adversaries as a sort of proof of his falsely won promotions.
And within the army Butler’s manhood was questioned.
To Grant, Admiral Porter quipped, “I hold it to be a good rule never to send a boy on a man’s errand…”
In a letter to Admiral Porter, Sherman would rub in the salt: “The best part of the taking of Fort Fisher was the killing of Butler."
"He has had no blood on his skirts and judging from the past, it will be long before his blood stains anything.”
Butler had no blood on his “skirts.”
The timid soldier had finally been buried.
Denouncing Butler’s final speech as a “bombastic order designed as a fling at Grant,” Sherman promised that even Butler’s greatest source of power could not redeem him.
“[Grant] has quietly and completely laid him low forever."
"Even the nigger cannot resurrect him.”14
Actually, Butler still believed in such a resurrection through African Americans.
Butler claimed later, that even after Fort Fisher, he “retained the full confidence” of Lincoln.
While in Washington just before the close of the war Butler called on the president who voiced concern about what to do with nearly two-hundred thousand black men who had learned to march and fire guns.
Butler claimed that Lincoln, fearing a “race war,” suggested the black soldiers be shipped off to a more hospitable, fertile country.
Butler returned the next day, telling Lincoln that the entire black population could not be exported to the island of San Domingo “half as fast as negro children will be born.”
But as for the soldiers, Butler reminded Lincoln that most of them still had over a year left on their original three-year enlistment, and that because the war had not been officially declared over, the president could order them anywhere.
“Now I have some experience in diggings canal,” Butler recalled telling Lincoln, only hinting at the fiasco at Dutch Gap.
He maintained that because black soldiers had spent “a large portion of their time in digging in forts and intrenchments” they would be well suited to dig a thirty mile canal across the Columbian isthmus.
“If you will put me in command of them, I will take them there and dig the canal.”
Butler promised that it would cost the government nothing but food and military pay.
Once there Butler would create a colony by setting a third of them to dig, another third to building, and the remaining portion to agriculture.
Once established they would petition the government “to send down to us our wives and children.”
The colony would “protect the canal and the interests of the United States.”
12 McPherson, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era", 819-20; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 149-53
13 Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 245-59; Holzman, "Stormy Ben Butler", 152-53
14 General Sherman to Admiral Porter, January 21, 1865, in: United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, volume 47, part II, pp. 104-05; Admiral Porter to Lieutenant General Grant, January 3, 1853, in: ibid., Series 1, volume 46, part II, p. 20.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST, concluded ...
According to Butler, Lincoln took it into serious consideration but was murdered days later before he could act on the plan.15
Whether or not Butler embellished this incident (or even if he made it up as a way to argue that he never lost Lincoln’s approval) it shows how the defeated general continued to see a symbiotic relationship between his organization and stewardship of black men, and his wildest, manliest ambitions.
Like any good convert to free labor, Butler had come to believe that his own personal interests did not run crosswise with the interests of others.
What might make Butler a president, war hero, or famous Latin American colonizer, could also teach blacks the protestant work ethic — placating white fears of violence and laziness.
Black men — controlled, uniformed, regimented and made to sweat — were the key to rescuing their own race, while helping a few, like Butler stand atop his own.
Butler was not alone in believing that his dedicated, if tainted, humanitarianism and voracious appetite for power, somehow could be harmoniously negotiated.
It was part of a larger vision where men could “make” themselves, mostly by standing atop the shoulders of the unmade.
15 Butler, "Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler", 902-08
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 4: BOTTLED UP WITH THE BEAST, concluded ...
According to Butler, Lincoln took it into serious consideration but was murdered days later before he could act on the plan.15
Whether or not Butler embellished this incident (or even if he made it up as a way to argue that he never lost Lincoln’s approval) it shows how the defeated general continued to see a symbiotic relationship between his organization and stewardship of black men, and his wildest, manliest ambitions.
Like any good convert to free labor, Butler had come to believe that his own personal interests did not run crosswise with the interests of others.
What might make Butler a president, war hero, or famous Latin American colonizer, could also teach blacks the protestant work ethic — placating white fears of violence and laziness.
Black men — controlled, uniformed, regimented and made to sweat — were the key to rescuing their own race, while helping a few, like Butler stand atop his own.
Butler was not alone in believing that his dedicated, if tainted, humanitarianism and voracious appetite for power, somehow could be harmoniously negotiated.
It was part of a larger vision where men could “make” themselves, mostly by standing atop the shoulders of the unmade.
15 Butler, "Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler", 902-08
TO BE CONTINUED ...