As New Orleans saw him...

That is very amusing that Butler would have changed all his orders belatedly to appear as written from the field. Most of the time in the Petersburg operations he worked out of his famous fortress of Bermuda Hundred. I suppose you are fully aware that as far as tactical military matters Butler was dependent upon his competent Staff mostly the brilliant Godfrey Weitzel (a West Pointer) who was his most favorite. I have the excellent book A YOUNG GENERAL AND THE FALL OF RICHMOND: THE LIFE AND CAREER OF GODFREY WEITZE. by G. WILLIAM QUATMAN pub. 2015. I strongly recommend it. I am dismayed that my two favorite Federal Generals were such Spiders to one another but unfortunately that's the way political warfare worked among the Federals against each other not that the Confederates were any different.
Well we see almost eye to eye. Butler was not holed up all the time and the Harpers e gravity GA and his letters and hand written orders say otherwise. When the Bermuda 100 campaign was going on he was here and there on the field when Pburg was trying to get going he trusted West Point and they failed.
Weitzel was great and did wo fearful work with Butler. Did he not kill himself in Texas shortly after the war?
 
Weitzel died of complication from tyhoid, at age 49, and was buried at Cincinnati in 1884. He left a wife and three daughter I think.
I will have to get up and find out who from Butlers staff stayed in the army, got sent to Texas after the war only to kill himself.
Stay tuned.
Why your fascination with Ben?
 
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