Butler tries to move a mountain

[General Butler]

Original photo of Butler men creating Dutch Gap.
While desperate to get around Rebel obstacles in the James Butler thought it a grand idea to simply go around said obstacles by having his troops, mostly black troops, dig the Dutch Gap.
Like other Butler plans (like white arm bands to be worn by his troops at Big Bethel so the split corp wouldn't fire on eachother) it was a good idea but fatally flawed in production.
Nice active photo though.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Never came across these before, thank you! Most " Dutch Gap " images feature officers standing by work that managed to be completed by the poor guys with shovels. Only recently read that on top of constant shelling, disease killed quite a few workers.

What's tough is finding more on who worked the canal, beyond the USCT. At the time, Lee declared captured USCT escaped enslaved ' who are not identified as property of citizens of the Confederacy ' ( hard to read without gagging ) with having responsibility to the southern government and used them for Richmond fortifications- in retaliation Butler seems to have used Confederate prisoners to work the canal. There's a huge ' thing ' and a back and forth between the generals. It sounds very, very Butler.

 

[General Butler]

Never came across these before, thank you! Most " Dutch Gap " images feature officers standing by work that managed to be completed by the poor guys with shovels. Only recently read that on top of constant shelling, disease killed quite a few workers.

What's tough is finding more on who worked the canal, beyond the USCT. At the time, Lee declared captured USCT escaped enslaved ' who are not identified as property of citizens of the Confederacy ' ( hard to read without gagging ) with having responsibility to the southern government and used them for Richmond fortifications- in retaliation Butler seems to have used Confederate prisoners to work the canal. There's a huge ' thing ' and a back and forth between the generals. It sounds very, very Butler.

True but Butler really didnt understand the black mind and though they fought well, trained well even led well when called upon, he did see them as physical workers accustomed to the warmer climates. In point of fact when Butler was trying to push the US into taking over the Panama Canal project being dropped by the French he stated quite clearly that freed slaves would be a great asset in Panama as it would get them out of the US and they would be used to both labor and heat.
Now we would call that racist today and rightly so, but back then I think it was simply raging ignorance and racist. Remember that Butler was very close to the Irish factory workers and the factory owners (owning the Bunting Company and soon the Union Cartridge Co) and though freedom and the ending of overt slavery was one of his eventual goals, I am of the opinion that Butler would have been satisfied if the freedmen would stay in the south.
It is a good pix with a lot of activity from both blacks and whites

 

[Louisiana Jayhawker]

It is apparent that Lincoln and Grant consented to this. Note Grant had a similar plan at Vicksburg that also turned out a failure also.

 

[General Butler]

It is apparent that Lincoln and Grant consented to this. Note Grant had a similar plan at Vicksburg that also turned out a failure also.

So true, but Butlers plan got them out.of the US