The Butler Expedition of 1861-1862: The Profitable Side of War (1965)

THE BUTLER EXPEDITION OF 1861-1862: The Profitable Side of War Ludwett H. Johnson In the fall of 1861 the Lincoln administration created the Department of New England especially for Major General Benjamin F. Butler in an attempt to satisfy the ambitions of an officer who was militarily incompetent but politically powerful How Butler's desire for command might be gratified without doing serious injury to Union arms—that was the question. He had blustered and gasconaded at Annapolis and Baltimore and had lost the first "battle" of the war (Big Bethel) while commanding at Fortress Monroe. But when eased out of the last position, he had won what passed for a victory, in those naïve early days of the war, by taking two little sand forts at Cape Harteras. This trivial success plus his verbal ferocity, an outstanding trait of political generals, had made him very popular with the uncritical masses in the North and lent great weight to his request for authority to raise troops in New England Butler's original object was to pacify the Eastern Shore of Virginia, which, since it was not defended, promised another easy triumph and a helpless civilian population to tyrannize. From a military point of view this was a harmless enterprise , a fact that doubtless made Lincoln more willing to acquiesce. As it turned out, circumstances dictated that Butler and his men follow the navy up the Mississippi River and occupy the surrendered city of New Orleans—another cheap and spectacular victory.1 The methods used in the Department of New England in the winter of 1861-1862 to raise, supply, and transport troops, offered Ben Butler and his associates their first chance at large-scale peculation. As a "pilot project" of sorts, it anticipated the kind of entrepreneurial operation for which the general was later to become notorious. First it is necessary to delineate, however inadequately, the extent to which Butler gathered to his headquarters his friends, relatives, !Robert S. Holzman, Stormy Bm Butler (New York, 1954), chap, iii-iv; Hans L. Trefousse, Ben Butler: The South Catted Him Beast (New York, 1957), chaps, vi-viii; LLS. War Dept, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, 1880-1901), Ser. ILL L 815-817 (dted hereafter as OA). Butler assumed command Oct 5, 1861. 229 230Cl VIL W AR HIS TO R Y and political cronies. His brother, Andrew J. Butler, was made commissary of subsistence and put in charge of buying provisions for the expedition. His personal physician, Gilman Kimball, was made departmental medical director. An unemployed brother-in-law, Henry Read, was relieved of an unwelcome idleness when his nephew was made sutler to the expedition. Uncle Henry thereupon entered upon the profitable business of buying and shipping supplies to his nephew on Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Richard S. Fay, Jr., treasurer of the Middlesex Mills, of which Butler was a director and the largest stockowner, was made an aide-de-camp. The most important person in getting up the expedition was Butler's quartermaster, Captain Paul R George. This gentleman had for a generation been associated with such Democratic luminaries as William L. Marcy and Franklin Pierce and was said to know every important man in Washington . In 1835 he attached himself to Caleb Cushing, who had just entered the House of Representatives from Massachusetts. He was Cushing's quartermaster when the latter went to Mexico as a brigadier general of volunteers. In 1861 Cushing expected a similar commission , but Governor John A. Andrew chose Butler instead. George then attached himself to the rising star of the new general, who described George as one of his "warmest personal friends.'' Finally, although this does not exhaust the list there was Fisher Ames HiIdreth , Mrs. Butler's brother, who lurked around headquarters and was the fixer or go-between in many a shady deal* The corrupt practices of Butler and his entourage in the Department of New England involved the purchasing of clothes, equipment, and food, and the procurement of transportation. Usually Butler did not allow himself to be implicated personally in these transactions; probably...