Benjamin Butler

[James_tiberous]

Was Butler in some way associated with black troops that were massacred late in the after they were captured? I can't find it on line but think I remember something MacPhson noted in his major work

 

[John Hartwell]

Was Butler in some way associated with black troops that were massacred late in the after they were captured? I can't find it on line but think I remember something MacPhson noted in his major work

No. I believe that by that time Butler no longer had an active command.

EDIT: Ft. Pillow, of course, was earlier, but not within Butler's jurisdiction.

 

[leftyhunter]

Was Butler in some way associated with black troops that were massacred late in the after they were captured? I can't find it on line but think I remember something MacPhson noted in his major work

I just read somewhere today during an attack he told his USCT troops too remember Ft.Pillow.
Leftyhunter

 

[leftyhunter]

I meant no attack against you personally. I do thank you for the information it was something I was not aware of.

I was and still am genuinely questioning the idea of Lincoln doing anything in 1861 with an towards 1864, but am more than happy to be corrected by anyone anywhere who knows more about the subject than I do.

No worries about being personal. Here is Moyar's quote from page. 29 " Eventually whispers would be heard that Lincoln kept Butler in the military to prevent him from running for president".
Leftyhunter

 

[Mark Roth]

I just read somewhere today during an attack he told his USCT troops too remember Ft.Pillow.
Leftyhunter

New Market Heights

I believe Butler was also the negotiator who passed along a threat to end prisoner exchanges if Blacks weren't treated as soldiers.

No worries about being personal. Here is Moyar's quote from page. 29 " Eventually whispers would be heard that Lincoln kept Butler in the military to prevent him from running for president"

Keeping him in uniform with a mind towards the elections makes perfect sense to me.

 

[civilken]

Don't know much about the man yet but thought I'd add this recent article to his thread...

June 5, 2016
The Virginian~Pilot

"More than two dozen people gathered in Chesapeake on Memorial Day to honor African American veterans of the Civil War."

"When Gen. Butler gave up command of the Army of the James in January 1865, he specifically honored the U.S.Colored Troops in his farewell address. Robert O. Johnson Jr. shared this passage from Butler's speech during the Memorial Day event:

To the Colored Troops of the Army of the James – In this army you have been treated not as laborers, but as soldiers. You have shown yourselves worthy of the uniform you wear. The best officers of the Union seek to command you. Your bravery has won the admiration even of those who would be your masters. Your patriotism, fidelity and courage have illustrated the best qualities of manhood. With the bayonet you have unlocked the iron-barred gates of prejudice, opening new fields of freedom, liberty and equality of rights to yourselves and to your race forever."

pilotonline.com

He was a righteous dude

 

[Drew]

Just like they always followed the same proclamation's orders demanding that Black troops never be treated as POWs?

If nothing else, the fear of reprisals would have limited most, if not all, officers willingness to summarily hang a general or his senior officers.

Bolded is pure conjecture on your part. Any officer who could have caught and hanged Butler, pursuant to Davis' order, would have been made famous. A hero to the South. That's the way it was, like it or not.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

FWIW I had a senior seminar classmate in college who wrote her paper on Butler in New Orleans. She ended up being surprised by her research - Butler turned out much better and the local ladies much worse than she expected.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Butler was no paragon of virtue, true; but he was a handy target (and, notably, he didn't particularly mind being hated by enemies). I doubt any commanding general occupying New Orleans would have been at all popular with the locals (heck, a chamber pot was upended on Farragut's head, and he was a one-time resident), but Butler seemed to actually revel in it, and he appears to have enjoyed evoking a reaction.

 

[Drew]

Butler was no paragon of virtue, true; but he was a handy target (and, notably, he didn't particularly mind being hated by enemies). I doubt any commanding general occupying New Orleans would have been at all popular with the locals (heck, a chamber pot was upended on Farragut's head, and he was a one-time resident), but Butler seemed to actually revel in it, and he appears to have enjoyed evoking a reaction.

Banks, who replaced him, was never vilified by locals the way Butler was. The former also didn't play Butler's money games, profiting from trade with the enemy. That may have had something to do with it.

 

[cash]

Banks, who replaced him, was never vilified by locals the way Butler was. The former also didn't play Butler's money games, profiting from trade with the enemy. That may have had something to do with it.

Banks didn't come up with the idea of refusing to return fugitive slaves because they were "contraband of war," didn't point out that the fugitive slave clause wouldn't apply to a foreign nation, which the confederacy had claimed to be, and didn't publish the "Women's Order." That probably had a lot to do with it.

 

[18thVirginia]

Also likely didn't explain to those in NOLA claiming French and British citizenship, that those countries no longer permitted slavery.

I've always wondered if the women dumping excrement on naval officers were likely to have actually been prostitutes. The City had a long history with trying to restrict the houses of prostitution--unsuccessfully. Most of the buildings where they operated were owned by the upper class elites of New Orleans, the kind of guys who weren't very happy with Butler.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Banks, who replaced him, was never vilified by locals the way Butler was. The former also didn't play Butler's money games, profiting from trade with the enemy. That may have had something to do with it.

Banks also came in with a mandate to soothe ruffled feathers, whereas Butler seems to have enjoyed ruffling them. I think that had more to do with it.

 

[18thVirginia]

Banks also came in with a mandate to soothe ruffled feathers, whereas Butler seems to have enjoyed ruffling them. I think that had more to do with it.

The various foreign consuls, who'd lived much of their lives in the U. S. and owned plantations, were not terribly happy with Butler, as he confiscated funds that they were planning to use to order fabric and other material from France and Great Britain for the Confederacy. New Orleans was a very litigious place, with the local courts and the Supreme Court located in the city. The large amounts of shipping and riverboat traffic meant a lot of maritime law cases.

Butler, as you've noted above, was a skilled lawyer who put his own people to work looking at the legalities of whatever the elites were trying to insist upon. That must have aggravated the locals immensely. I mean, he even closed the Boston Club, where the elite of elites met to do business.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Yeah. I just get the mental image of Butler carefully researching the law code to find out who he could poke in the eye with relative impunity, and then taking great satisfaction from the eyepokes. XD

(As far as the corruption on the side, it's never been firmly established that Butler had anything to do with it. This is not to say that he did not have anything to do with it, as he was quite good at finding loopholes. The obvious fact that his own brother was firmly enmeshed in the corruption business makes it rather likely that Butler's hands were clean only in a strict-letter-of-the-law sense, rather than the spirit-of-the-law...)

ETA: I've related this anecdote before, but it bears repeating in this connection... When Farragut's force collected off New Orleans preparatory to the April 1862 attack, they were suffering from a bit of a coal shortage (this was not unusual for the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, at the very tail end of a long supply line to the North). Butler heard of it and offered Farragut a bunch of coal that Butler had used as ballast in his troop transports instead of the more-usual stone or sand. Butler had figured that the price of coal would go up during the duration of the New Orleans expedition, and had done a bit of speculative investment on the assumption that he could resell the coal upon return to Northern ports at a bit of a profit. He of course rationalized this as a way of defraying part of the cost of the expedition on the part of the government, but I don't doubt he would have taken a (perfectly legal) agent's fee along the way.

However, Butler appeared ready to part with it in the interests of furthering the success of the expedition (no doubt he had a way in mind to recoup his losses). Farragut, bemused by this, asked if the direct transfer from Army to Navy wasn't against regulations, to which Butler responded that he never read the regulations and moreover would never do so, so he'd never know if it was against regulations or not. (And that's the part of this funny story I've always found most difficult to swallow. I'd bet good money that Butler actually had the regulations committed to memory and knew exactly what he could get away with...)

 

[Hunter]

No worries about being personal. Here is Moyar's quote from page. 29 " Eventually whispers would be heard that Lincoln kept Butler in the military to prevent him from running for president".
Leftyhunter

Those whispers were likely from Butler himself. Butler could have easily resigned his commission to seek the office, but he knew Lincoln would beat his tail.

 

[leftyhunter]

Those whispers were likely from Butler himself. Butler could have easily resigned his commission to seek the office, but he knew Lincoln would beat his tail.

No law against playing mind games in politics.
Leftyhunter

 

[Hunter]

No law against playing mind games in politics.
Leftyhunter

Politic = mind games, right?

 

[Drew]

Banks didn't come up with the idea of refusing to return fugitive slaves because they were "contraband of war," didn't point out that the fugitive slave clause wouldn't apply to a foreign nation, which the confederacy had claimed to be, and didn't publish the "Women's Order." That probably had a lot to do with it.

Banks wasn't under the same political pressure as Butler with respect to fugitive slaves. Banks didn't offer his troops to "put them down," should they rebel. Butler did so.

Did you read the whole thread carefully? Butler's conundrum with respect to his Massachusetts constituents has already been explained here. I've quoted Willie Rose and so have others. Read up before you vote, man.

On the Butler Family in New Orleans, we could start a whole new thread and call it, "Civil War Boy Scouts." You start it and I'll play.

 

[cash]

Banks wasn't under the same political pressure as Butler with respect to fugitive slaves. Banks didn't offer his troops to "put them down," should they rebel. Butler did so.

Did you read the whole thread carefully? Butler's conundrum with respect to his Massachusetts constituents has already been explained here. I've quoted Willie Rose and so have others. Read up before you vote, man.

On the Butler Family in New Orleans, we could start a whole new thread and call it, "Civil War Boy Scouts." You start it and I'll play.

I've read up. You need to revisit the thread. I was talking about why Banks was more popular than Butler in New Orleans. What others speculate as to why Butler did what he did is irrelevant to that.