BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER

CHARACTER AND RESULTS OF THE WAR

[Benjamin Franklin Butler, an American military leader and public man, whose speeches were long widely quoted throughout the United States, was born in New Hampshire in 1818. He received an academic education, practiced law in Massachusetts, entered politics as a Democrat, and when the Civil War broke out espoused the cause of the Union warmly. Going to the front he received steady promotion throughout the period of hostilities, his most conspicuous service being at New Orleans. After the war he became a member of Congress and governor of Massachusetts, and in 1884 he was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States on the "Greenback" ticket. He died in 1893. General Butler was a notable figure in American politics for many years, being a sagacious lawyer, a brilliant orator, a brave soldier, and a man of quick and decisive action in any great emergency. The ensuing speech was delivered in New York City in 1863, when the Civil War was at its height, and soon after some of his most brilliant military achievements.]

R. MAYOR: With the profoundest gratitude for the too flattering commendation of my administration. of the various trusts committed to me by the government, which, in behalf of your associates, you have been pleased to tender, I ask you to receive my most heartfelt thanks. To the citizens of New York here assembled, graced by the fairest and loveliest, in kind appreciation of my services, supposed to have been rendered to the country, I tender the deepest acknowledgments. I accept it all, not for myself, but for my brave comrades of the Army of the Gulf. I receive it as an earnest of your devotion to the country-an evidence of your loyalty to the Constitution under which you live and under which you hope to die.

And on this occasion, at the risk of being tedious to patient hearers, at the risk even of calling your attention to

what might seem otherwise too elementary, I propose to run down through the history of the contest, to see what it is that agitates the whole country at this day and this hour.

That we are in the midst of a civil commotion all know. But what is the commotion? Is it a riot, is it an insurrection, is it a rebellion, or is it a revolution? And pray, sir, although it may seem still more elementary, what is a riot? A riot, if I understand it, is simply an outburst of the passions of a number of men, for the moment, in breach of the law, by force of numbers to be put down and subdued by the civil authorities; if it goes further, to be dealt with by the military authorities. But you say, sir, why treat us to a definition of a riot upon this occasion? Why, of all things, should you undertake to instruct a New York audience in what a riot is?

To that I answer, because the administration of Mr. Buchanan dealt with this great change of affairs as if it were a riot; because his government officer gave his opinion that in Charleston it was but a riot.

I found a riot in Baltimore. The rioters had burned the bridges; but the riot had hardly risen to the dignity of an insurrection, because the state had not moved as an organized community. A few men were rioting at Baltimore, and as I marched into the state at the head of the United States troops, the question came up, What have I before me? You all remember that I offered then to put down all kinds of insurrections so long as the State of Maryland remained loyal to the United States. Upon the same theory by which I felt myself bound to put down insurrection in Maryland while it remained loyal, whether that insurrection was the work of blacks or whites-by the same loyalty to the Constitution and laws, I felt bound to take such measures that state property should be protected, and even confiscated, in the rebellious State of Virginia. Pardon me, sir, if right here I say I am a little sensitive on this subject.

While I am very much gratified at the kind expression. of your regard, whether that expression is justified can be told in a single word. When I left the Department of the Gulf, I sat down and deliberately put in the form of an address to the people of that department the exact acts

I had done while in their department; I said to them, "I have done these things." I have now waited more than three months, and I have yet to hear a denial from that department that the things therein stated were done.

And to that alone, sir, I can point as a justification of your too flattering eulogy, and to that I point forever as my answer to every slander and every calumny. The ladies of New Orleans knew whether they were safe: has any one of them ever said she was not? The men of New Orleans knew whether life and property were safe: has any man ever said they were not? The poor of New Orleans knew whether the money which was taken from the rich rebels was applied to the alleviation of their wants: has any man denied that it was? To that record I point-and it will be the only answer that I shall ever make; and I only do it now because I desire that you shall have neither doubt nor feeling upon this subject-it is the only answer I can ever make to the thousand calumnies that have been poured upon me and mine, and upon the officers who worked with me for the good of our country.

I desire now to say a single word upon the question, What are the prospects of this war? My simple opinion would be no better than that of another man; but let me show you the reason for the faith that is in me that this war is progressing steadily to a successful termination. Compare the state of the country on January 1, 1863, with the state of the country on January 1, 1862, and tell me whether there has not been progress. At that time the Union armies held no considerable portion of Missouri, of Kentucky, or of Tennessee; none of Virginia, except Fortress Monroe and Arlington Heights; none of North Carolina save Hatteras, and none of South Carolina save Port Royal. All the rest was ground of struggle at least, and all the rest furnishing supplies to the rebels.

Now they hold none of Missouri, none of Kentucky, none of Tennessee, for any valuable purpose of supplies, because the western portion is in our hands, and the eastern portion has been so run over by the contending armies that the supplies are gone. They hold no portion of Virginia valuable for supplies, for that is eaten out by their armies. We hold one-third of Virginia and half of North Carolina.

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We hold our own in South Carolina, and I hope that before the eleventh of this month we shall hold a little more. hold two-thirds of Louisiana in wealth and population. hold all Arkansas and all Texas so far as supplies are concerned, so long as Farragut is between Port Hudson and Vicksburg. And I believe the colored troops held Florida at the last accounts.

Now, then, let us see to what the rebellion is reduced. It is reduced to the remainder of Virginia, part of North and South Carolina, all of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, and a small portion of Louisiana and Tennessee; Texas and Arkansas, as I said before, being cut off. Why I draw strong hopes from this is, that their supplies come either from Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, or Texas, and these are now completely beyond their reach. To this fact I look largely for the suppression of this rebellion and the overthrow of this revolution.

They have got to the end of their conscription; we have not begun ours. They have got to the end of their national credit; we have not put ours in any market in the world. And why should any man be desponding? Why should any man say that this great work has gone on too slowly? Why should men feel impatient? The war of the Revolution was seven years. Why should men be so anxious that nations should march faster than they are prepared to march -faster than the tread of nations has ever been in the providence of God? Nations in war have ever moved slowly. We are too impatient-we never learn anything, it would seem to me, from reading history. I speak of myself as well as you I have shared in that impatience myself. I have shared in your various matters of disappointment.

I was saying but the other day to a friend of mine, “It seems strange to me that our navy cannot catch that steamer 'Alabama'; there must be something wrong in the navy department, I'm afraid "—and I got quite impatient. I had hardly got over the wound inflicted by the capture of the "Jacob Bell," when came the piracies of the "Golden Eagle," and the "Olive Jane," and as one was from Boston, it touched me keenly.

He replied: "Don't be impatient; remember that Paul Jones, with a sailing-ship on the coast of England, put the

whole British navy at defiance for many months, and wandered up and down that coast, and worked his will upon it, and England had no naval power to contend with, and had not twenty-five hundred miles of seacoast to blockade, as we have."

I remember that in the French war, Lord Cochrane, with one vessel, and that was by no means a steamship, held the whole French coast in terror against the French navy. And so it has been done by other nations. Let us have a little patience, and possess our souls with a little patriotism and less politics, and we shall have no difficulty.

But there is one circumstance of this war, I am bound to say in all frankness to you, that I do not like the appearance of, and that is because we cannot exactly reach it. I refer to the war made upon our commerce, which is not the fault of the navy, nor of any department of the government, but is the fault of our allies. Pardon me a moment, for I am speaking now in the commercial city of New York, where I think it is of interest to you, and of a matter to which I have given some reflection-pardon me a moment while we examine and see what England has done. She agreed to be neutral-I have tried to demonstrate to you that she ought to have been a little more than neutral-but has she been even that? ["No, no, no."] Let us see the evidences of that "No."

In the first place there has been nothing of the Union cause that her orators and her statesmen have not maligned; there has been nothing of sympathy or encouragement which she has not afforded our enemies; there has been nothing which she could do under the cover of neutrality which she has not done to aid them. Nassau has been a naval arsenal for pirate rebel boats to refit in. Kingston has been their coal depot, and Barbadoes has been the dancing hall to fête pirate chieftains in.

What cause, my friends; what cause, my countrymen, has England so to deal with us? What is the reason she does so deal with us? Is it because we have never shown sympathy toward her or love to her people? And mark me here, that I make a distinction between the English people as a mass and the English Government. I think the heart of her people beats responsive to ours-but I know her