Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-09-04
General HawIcy's Response 10 General
RutIcr's Worcester speech.

General HawIcy's Response TO General
Buffers Worcester speech.
| To the Editor of the Spy:
SIR:-Of course, the Massachusetts papers
have published quite full reports of General But
er's speech, which contains quarter of a col
umn devoted to myself, renewing his Springfield
attack. submit that it is fair to give me space
TO reply, which will do with all possible brev-
ity.
One. He SAYS never denied that was "dis-
placed for ineffciency" in the field, by him, Gen.
| Butler,
| (o) 1t was originally telegraphed me from
| Springfield that Butler said he had dismissed
| Hawley for cowardice and incOmpeteucy and he
has never been seen in the field since" To this,
(doubting that even Butler could have said so
muchl, | responded: "If Butler said was dis
missed or removed from any command, or was
ever rebuked for my conduct as an officer, beg
some friend to read this dispatch, in which say
that the charge is an Infamous ialsehood and
the man who uttered it liar and blackguard,"
etc. | Intentionally made the denial as broad as
possible, TO cover every imaginable modification
of his words | thought if | said he was a liar
he was lawyer enougbt see that | denied the
truth of his statement
o. When the corrected report showed that
he said he had "dispaced Hawley for nCtficiency
and incompetency, and he tHawleyl was never
seen on the field aiterward," said in n card in
the Courant the next morning, August %, over
my own name, 81 let the dispatch stand" And
in the same article added, "When he [Butlcrl
says he displaced me for fneffciency and in
competency the truth is not in him." This ar
ticle he held in his hand and read from at WOr-
cester, vet he dared to say l had not denied ais
libel
(c) He says at Worcester, "The reporter of
the New York Herald interviewed Hawley and
n endeavOred to get from him de-
NAL of that charge. But Hawley would make
no such denial" Now the Herald report con-
tains this sentence:
"He stated to our correspondent that he never had
been rebuked for his conduct in battle, and was
never relieved from command with any reflection
on his behavior in any respect. He was at utter
loss to imagine what possible pretext Butler could
have had for saying that he had displaced him for
inefficiency and incompetency Gen. Hawley stated
that Gen. Buffers statements stood unexplained,
he tHawleyl deliberately represented that Butler
he was guilty of telling lie made out of whole
CLOTH
Does Gen. Butler understand that language?
TtcO. He says did not publish his reply TO
the Courant reporter who handed him my ele-
gram at his hotel in Springfield.
In the very copy of the CoIrant he read from,
it is reported that the dispatch was handed TO
him, and that
Butler took the dispatch and reading 1t slowly
through he turned pale from emotion and nervously
folding the dispatch he handed 1t back saying:
"The man who would denounce me and call me
liar and a BLACKBOARD is beneath my notice and l
wish to have no communication with him."
That is substantially as Butler himself re-
ports it, Yet he continues Communications"
in his own style.
Three. In his Worcester speech he drops the
word "incompetency," and asserts that he dis
placed me for "ineflciency."
-Four. He also drops the words "and was not
seen in the field afterward;" the record showing
that he was displaced and sent home for in
efficiency and incompetency, and sent to Lowell,
Jan. Z, 1865, at a most critical period when
every good soldier" was needed, while |
served in honorable commands nearly ten
months afterward, and went home with breyet
He says he never got brevet, but took the
highest rank at the first bound. Lucky for
him. Let him take Gen. Grants order sending
him home as brevet sinister.
Five. He says he has received letter from
the chairman of the committee on nominations
at the reunion of the army of the James, and he
read from it at Worcester without naming the
officer) words to this effect: off it had been
known that Hawley was an enemy of mine
(Butler's) he never could have been elected
president Now Butler says | have been
abusing him for years. If so, had nobody
heard of it but himself But have in my
hands a letter from Gen. Alonzo Alden of Troy,
N. Y, closing with these Words
al had the honor of being the chairman of said
nominating committee, but have made no such
statement as reported, nor have written any letter
on the subject OF the reunion, anything pertain
ing to it to any man."
.Sic In his Worcester speech, az carefully res
ported for me, l find these words.
al know better than anybody else why General
Hawley was displaced from his command and
placed on staff duty, and P tell him all about it
when he denies that he was displaced in the army
of the James, then under my command That's
the story"
| am glad TO have him fix upon the transac-
ton which was my displacement for inefficency.
! when | rplipVn1
mand in the army of the James, and sent to
North Carolina, and placed on staff duty. Here
are the facts. About December 80, 1864, Butler
came back from Fort Fisher About January
2, 1865, Terry took charge of the new eXpedi-
ton, and Butler assigned me to the very impor-
tant position Terry was leaving. Immediately
afterward Butler was sent home, and never APP.
peared there again. January 18th Fort Fisher
was captured. Finding that my old brigade and
my old friends were not coming back a week
Or two afterward / begged to Join them, and
was ordered to do so. General Terry, not Gen.
eral Butler nor General Ord, made me, not a
staff officer merely, but chief of staff. AT the
time when Butler says he degraded me he had
been more than two weeks out of the field
in disgracel Is not this frightfully reckless
lying?
| have studied General Butler for years, and
know him well. | am told he said he would
punish me. He thought he could start lie
by telegraph several days ahead of my contra
taken. All his Springfield attacks were care
fully prepared. He must have reasoned thus:
''If | say that Hawley was discredited and de-
graded as an officer he may deny it, but people
will say there must have been some little foun-
dation for it, some pretext, or Butler would have
been too shrewd to make the charge" That is
quite natural say to my friends, upon my
honor, that Buffers charge in any of its several
variations, is a shameless, totally unfounded
falsehOod, without shade of imaginable basis.
LII. Il ID IL,
scrupulous, dangerous demagogue this country
has seen since Aaron Burr and it is to me a
patriotic duty and high pleasure to oppose him.
There is satisfaction in the reflection that man
with such hole in his head where the moral
faculties ought to be cannot have good judy
ment or real shrewdness. He may make good
deal of trouble, but he will kill himself He
might succeed in Paris, as Robespierre and
Rochefort succeeded, but he is a monstrosity in
New England JOSEPH K. HAwLEY.