"Well, General, are you going to shut up the churches?"
"No, Sir, I am more likely to shut up the ministers," he replied.
To the casual observer this would appear but a brilliant repartee, while,
in fact, it was significant as indicative of a sagacious policy. Closing
the churches would have given warrant to the charge of interference with
the observances of religion. So careful was the General to avoid anything
of this nature, that, in every instance where a clergyman was removed from
his church, the very next Sunday found his pulpit occupied by a loyal
minister.
As a great many excellent Churchmen have misunderstood the cause of the
arrest of clergymen in New Orleans, I think I must add a word of
explanation. The ministers so arrested were of the Episcopal denomination,
in which the rector is required to read a liturgy prescribed by the
General Convention. In this liturgy occurs "a prayer for the President of
the United States," and its omission in their reading of the service was
clearly an overt act of disloyalty, in that it was by unmistakable
implication a declaration that they did not recognize the authority of the
President of the United States; and it is a fact not generally known, that
this omission in the service was supplied by the minister's regularly
announcing, "A few moments will now be spent in silent prayer." Who can
doubt the character and burden of this voiceless petition, when it is
understood that it was the successor to an audible appeal--which General
Butler suppressed--to Heaven for Jefferson Davis and the success of his
cause?
* * * * *
Another of the General's strongest characteristics is his firm faith, his
ardent hopefulness. Never have I known him despondent as to the final
result of this war. He believes it to be a struggle for principle and
right, and therefore his confidence in the ultimate success of our arms
never falters. Frequently disheartened myself at our apparent ill-fortune,
I have listened to his cheerful predictions and expressions of unflagging
trust, and have come away strengthened and confident.
After our return to the North, an ex-mayor of Chicago was introduced to
the General at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York. It was just at a time
when our cause looked very gloomy. The Mayor was evidently much depressed
by the indications of national misfortune, and in a tone of great
despondency asked the General,--
"Do you believe we shall ever get through this war successfully?"
"Yes, Sir," the General answered, very decidedly.
"Well, but how?" asked the Mayor.
"God knows, I don't; but I know He does, so I am satisfied," the General
replied.
And in this reply was contained an admirable expression of that earnest
faith in the inevitable triumph of good over evil which forms so prominent
a part of his nature.
* * * * *
In this short sketch I have either entirely avoided or merely hinted at
the traits which have given General Butler a world-wide distinction. His
wonderful energy, his sagacity, his courage, his great executive and
administrative ability, and, more than all, the marvellous comprehension,
which, at the firing of the first gun at Fort Sumter, enabled him to grasp
the subject of this Rebellion in all its magnitude and bearings, and in
the means and measures for its suppression, are attributes made familiar
to the world as "household words" by his unprecedented administration in
New Orleans.
The story of the years of experience crowded into those eight short months
of our sojourn in that city is worthy the pen of our country's ablest
historian, and would fill volumes.
To relate all the instances of General Butler's kindness and generosity,
his forbearance and magnanimity, while in New Orleans, would require more
than all the space between the covers of the "Atlantic."
I have undertaken the grateful task of recording some of the more
prominent scenes, where he displayed the kindly, genial traits so utterly
inconsistent with the indiscriminate charges of cruelty, injustice, and
wrong, preferred by his enemies,--traits that have inexpressibly endeared
their possessor to every officer and soldier in his late army. Said an
officer, but just returned from New Orleans, to me a few days since,--"I
have heard of the infatuation of the Army of the Potomac to its earlier
leader, but I do not believe their devotion is near so deep and earnest as
that of the faithful men who followed General Butler from New England and
the Northwest, through the campaign of New Orleans."
Not one of us who have been closely associated with him but watches with
intense interest for the opportunity to arrive when he shall prove himself
to be (as every one of us believes him to be) among the foremost of those
predestined to lead our country through its baptism of blood and fire to a
higher and grander destiny and glory than the most ardent dared even to
hope for before the war.
Happy then shall I be, if in these few pages I have conveyed to the
indulgent readers of this article some idea of the inner life and
character of OUR GENERAL.
* * * * *