The Washington herald., 1915-01-04
HISTORY BUILDERS.
A Visit to Gen. Buffers Headquarters.
written Expressly for The Washington Herald.l
BY DIR. f. j. EDWARDS


written Expressly for The Washington HealdJ
BY DIR. E. J. EDWARDS!
Some time in March, 1871. 1 spent an
afternoon with Gen. Ben Butler in the
apartment which was retained by him the
! year round in one OF the large New York
| hotels. He had been elected a member OF
Congress as a sort of independent, and
he chuckIed gIeefully when he described
! to me the satisfaction he felt in taking
his seat in Congress without being shac-
killed. to any party. The general became
reminiscent and related many Of his early
experiences in the civil war, especially
some of his experiences in the last six
months OF the war.
l ventured to say that the impression
long prevailed that when he was station
ed with his army at Bermuda Hundred,
on the James River. he did not get along
very well with Gen. Grant. whose head
quarters were at City Point, some miles
distant from Buffers.
Grant and / were on the best OF
terms" said Gen. Butler. although
stories of disagreement with him were
told, like a good many others in civil war
days, about me solely for the purpose of
making trouble for me IL possible. There
comes to my mind a little incident which
happened just before Grant began his
movement against Petersburg. A party
came down from Washington, all of them
men of influence and some of them in i'm
portant official stations in the govern
ment. They were brought down on a
revenue cutter. which at the time was
much the best vessel of that description
which was owned by the government.
They visited Gen. Grant at his head
quarters and just as the call was ending
Grant advised them to come over and see
me. He spoke to them in the warmest
terms of me. So the party came to my
headquarters and I did the best / could
to entertain them. I gave them as nice
little luncheon as was within my power
and then 1 took them to the top of the
tower which 1 had built for observation.
The tower was so high that they could
see from the top OF it the churches of
Richmond in the distance and. IL the
weather was clear, they could also make
out the spires OF Petersburg.
"As they were going away, I went down
to the pier to look at the revenue cutter.
noticed the name wawayanda- knew
that some Of our monitors and revenue
cutters had been given old Indian names
and 1 suspected that this name was Of
Indian origin, but I never heard anything
like it in Massachusetts, where there are
many Indian names. I asked somebody
about it and was told that 1t was the
name Of tribe of Indians who lived near
what Is now Syracuse, N. Y, and that
the revenue cutter had been christened
by Gov. Chase, Secretary of the Treas
ury, with that name because he always
liked 1t. He thought II a peculiarly ap-
propriate name, on account of its ripping
sound, for a revenue cutter or, in fact,
any boat -.....-.. .. ..-.
THE party visited Gen. Grant again
and spoke to him with pleasure of the
visit made to me, and Grant told them
that he knew they were in for a good
time when they concluded to visit my
headquarters"
lCopyright. 1915. by E. J. EdwardS An rights re-
served.
Tomorrow DR.. Edwards will tell Of "a
New Version Of the Origin Of Thanksgiv-
ing Day."