Grant fails Butler at Ft Fisher

General Butler

First Sergeant
Joined
Nov 16, 2017
Let the debate rage on Grant not giving Butler enough men to take Ft Fisher...yet giving General Terry a lot more men.
Of course Butler remained saddled with field commanders that loathed Butlet and disliked the peers...guess they all wanted top billing...who knew?
Grant replaces Butler with Terry and Lincoln send him home for good.
Cute CDV

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I have been picking up Butler items for years and this one comes from Albany New York in the early 1980's

General Terry was put in overall command for the assault on Ft Fisher after Butler failed. Of course Terry got more men from Grant and better support.

So here we have Butler trudging back to Lowell Mass (his home) to wait for a new assignment that would never come...So Butler is "Terry-fied" as he goes home with his Contraband close behind.

Interesting is right
 
I like the notion that Grant set up Butler rather than the other way around.

I guess if you stay here long enough you'll learn that McClellan and Butler were the Union's foremost military geniuses, while someone should write a book about Grant entitled "Stumbling to Victory."

LOL...well maybe, but I can say with certainty that neither Butler nor Little Mac were the real saviors of the Union. Grant taking over battle tested troops, with battle tested senior officers surely worked in Grants favor...the question is would Grant have done as well if he had taken command in 1862...somehow I doubt it
 
Choose =Sickels or Butler? Both political appointments both arrogant. Butler is best remember as the Beast of New Orleans while Sickels gave a leg for the Union and to honor himself he would use his fame and political positions to help establish Gettysburg National Cemetery ,One most notable achievements for Butler was his relations with the freeing of slaves in Louisiana military district a little quicker than the Administration plan .{did he free them or just changed from slave to indentured labor force for the army.?Military achievement ,it only aided their political ambitions and it was nice to be called General by the hometown folks and sounded nice .
 
Choose =Sickels or Butler? Both political appointments both arrogant. Butler is best remember as the Beast of New Orleans while Sickels gave a leg for the Union and to honor himself he would use his fame and political positions to help establish Gettysburg National Cemetery ,One most notable achievements for Butler was his relations with the freeing of slaves in Louisiana military district a little quicker than the Administration plan .{did he free them or just changed from slave to indentured labor force for the army.?Military achievement ,it only aided their political ambitions and it was nice to be called General by the hometown folks and sounded nice .
Well add to the Butler column the Soliders Homes spread throughout the US which would become the VA
Add the contraband rule
Making guns of cash and owning the yacht America ( oh wait may not be pluses)
Add the victory with the Navy in NC (hatteras).
Saving Maryland saving the USS Constitution
Feeding the Reb Army ( oh wait)
Putting up with Gilmore and Baldy (oh wait)
Not burning Baton Rouge as planned
Cleaning the disease filled canals of NO and brought yellow jack to a halt.
Sickles killed the son of FScott Key and Stanton got him off as being insane temporarily
So I guess Butler wins the small warrior award
 
Butler was not supposed to go to Fort Fisher himself. He was supposed to let one of his subordinates co-ordinate the assault with David Porter. Its possible that the US force was not large enough to conquer the fort, but Warren was moving south on the Weldon RR, and Sherman was in Savannah by then. If the US would have simply held its position on the peninsula above the fort, Grant would have had to beef up the force sent there.
Grant did want to get rid of Butler, but he also wanted a commander in the charge of the army part of operation that was going to do it Porter's way. Porter's way was a co-ordinated operation with simultaneous pressure on the fort. It was costly in terms of human life, but the fall of Fort Fisher was imperative.
So Terry co-operating with Porter was much like Granger co-operating with Farragut at Mobile Bay. In both cases it was a naval plan and the army was told to cooperate.
 
LOL...well maybe, but I can say with certainty that neither Butler nor Little Mac were the real saviors of the Union. Grant taking over battle tested troops, with battle tested senior officers surely worked in Grants favor...the question is would Grant have done as well if he had taken command in 1862...somehow I doubt it

He left an army with battle-tested officers and battle-tested troops, remember? Or do you think his war began in 1864? Or that it was only in Virginia?

He came east to command an army led by generals new to him.
 

LOL...well maybe, but I can say with certainty that neither Butler nor Little Mac were the real saviors of the Union.

Of course not.

Grant taking over battle tested troops, with battle tested senior officers surely worked in Grants favor...

The troops and the officers he led in the west in 1862 were mostly raw and untested, and he did pretty well with them.

the question is would Grant have done as well if he had taken command in 1862...somehow I doubt it

I have no idea why
 
He left an army with battle-tested officers and battle-tested troops, remember? Or do you think his war began in 1864? Or that it was only in Virginia?

He came east to command an army led by generals new to him.
Actually, Grant came east to command every single general in the Union army. He commanded all of the troops west of the Alleghenies, not just the army group consisting of two corps of the Army of the Potomac & the Armies of the Cumberland, Tennessee & James at Chattanooga before he was promoted to overall command. It is only Virginia-centric myopia that ignores Grant's management of a continental war at the same time he was also busy defeating Lee.
 
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Butler was not supposed to go to Fort Fisher himself. He was supposed to let one of his subordinates co-ordinate the assault with David Porter. Its possible that the US force was not large enough to conquer the fort, but Warren was moving south on the Weldon RR, and Sherman was in Savannah by then. If the US would have simply held its position on the peninsula above the fort, Grant would have had to beef up the force sent there.
Grant did want to get rid of Butler, but he also wanted a commander in the charge of the army part of operation that was going to do it Porter's way. Porter's way was a co-ordinated operation with simultaneous pressure on the fort. It was costly in terms of human life, but the fall of Fort Fisher was imperative.
So Terry co-operating with Porter was much like Granger co-operating with Farragut at Mobile Bay. In both cases it was a naval plan and the army was told to cooperate.
Of course Grant & Porter went back a long way. He had every reason to rely on Porter's judgement & leadership.
 
I am a bit surprised that Butler's battle plan that depended on his hobby horse of a bomb ship has not been mentioned. Given Butler's misguided dependance on that as the key element of his battle plan, it would not have mattered how many troops were put under his command. When his great fireworks show was over, Butler had no plan 'B.' I don't see where shifting the blame for that fiasco onto Grant has any basis in fact.
 
Actually, Grant came east to command every single general in the Union army. He commanded all of the troops west of the Alleghenies, not just the army group consisting of two corps of the Army of the Potomac & the Armies of the Cumberland, Tennessee & James at Chattanooga before he was promoted to overall command. It is only Virginia-centric myopia that ignores Grant's management of a continental war at the same time he was also busy defeating Lee.

No. He ranked them all, but he did not exercise the office of General-in-Chief. How could he when he was embroiled in his own operations? The radicals had supported Grant as their man to oust Halleck, but Lincoln outmaneouvred them by assigning Grant to the field, effectively nullifying this movement. The Lincoln loyalist Halleck-Sherman team continued to command the war, with Grant becoming increasingly irrelevant and side-lined as his star waned in Washington. Grant's attempts to negotiate with Halleck for more and more reinforcements showed who had the upper hand in the relationship.
 
He left an army with battle-tested officers and battle-tested troops, remember? Or do you think his war began in 1864? Or that it was only in Virginia?

He came east to command an army led by generals new to him.
Context is important but in your example , your time frame you are right
 
Butler was not supposed to go to Fort Fisher himself. He was supposed to let one of his subordinates co-ordinate the assault with David Porter. Its possible that the US force was not large enough to conquer the fort, but Warren was moving south on the Weldon RR, and Sherman was in Savannah by then. If the US would have simply held its position on the peninsula above the fort, Grant would have had to beef up the force sent there.
Grant did want to get rid of Butler, but he also wanted a commander in the charge of the army part of operation that was going to do it Porter's way. Porter's way was a co-ordinated operation with simultaneous pressure on the fort. It was costly in terms of human life, but the fall of Fort Fisher was imperative.
So Terry co-operating with Porter was much like Granger co-operating with Farragut at Mobile Bay. In both cases it was a naval plan and the army was told to cooperate.
Butler and Farragut did pretty well in NO. But the war was ending and the nation knew Butler had not taken Pburg eith Gilmore and Smith so he had to be active here. Grant knew that Butler understood the co cepts of war but lacked the skills to lead men to deaths and take a fortified position when field commanders would fail him. Those field commanders were there BY Grant. So Ft Fisher was doo.ed to fail on so many levels. Grant must have viewed that loss of life second to only cold harbor
 
No. He ranked them all, but he did not exercise the office of General-in-Chief. How could he when he was embroiled in his own operations? The radicals had supported Grant as their man to oust Halleck, but Lincoln outmaneouvred them by assigning Grant to the field, effectively nullifying this movement. The Lincoln loyalist Halleck-Sherman team continued to command the war, with Grant becoming increasingly irrelevant and side-lined as his star waned in Washington. Grant's attempts to negotiate with Halleck for more and more reinforcements showed who had the upper hand in the relationship.

Repeating this nonsense, already shredded elsewhere, does not make it any more true.

But Sherman as part of the Lincoln team? LOL! This gets worse all the time.
 
Let the debate rage on Grant not giving Butler enough men to take Ft Fisher...yet giving General Terry a lot more men.
Of course Butler remained saddled with field commanders that loathed Butlet and disliked the peers...guess they all wanted top billing...who knew?
Grant replaces Butler with Terry and Lincoln send him home for good.
Cute CDV

View attachment 358152

View attachment 358153

Since you have special knowledge of Butler, I wondered which one of the biographies you think is the best? I want to buy it to read in conjunction with reading Butlers Book, which I got for Christmas but haven't started yet.
 
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