Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

Again, I found that the poor of Norfolk were cared for in this way: Every commissioned officer could give a certificate to any one, that he or she was an indigent citizen, and when this certificate was taken to the commissary's office, rations might be drawn upon it. The result of this was that there were a great many poor young women in Norfolk drawing rations from the government, the number being in proportion to the number of commissioned officers. I broke up that practice. I established a commission to examine and decide who really needed assistance, and thereafterwards rations were issued to those only who were deserving, numbering something like five thousand white people daily,--for the negroes took care of themselves,--and the expense of this assistance to the needy of Norfolk, under the regulations adopted under my administration, averaged for each ration eight or nine cents a day.

From the sources mentioned I was enabled to collect, as I have already stated, something over half a million dollars, over a quarter of a million of which I turned over to my successor. Some of the advantages of having this money at my disposal will be appreciated when I say that in July, 1864, the treasury being very empty so that we could not get money with which to pay our sick and wounded soldiers in the hospital so that they could go home, I loaned $49,000 to the paymaster to pay them so that they might go, and he paid the money back to me when he got his money from the treasury. In the November following, the quartermaster's department was short of money; the laborers struck for their pay and wages, because they could not live if they were not paid with regularity. I then loaned the quartermaster $53,000 to pay them up and keep the quartermaster's department going until funds could be received from Washington. This civil fund was a handy thing to have in the house.

General Grant said that he learned after I was removed that there had been other arbitrary arrests. That was true, because my arrests were all arbitrary and they were always entered on the guard book as “by order of General Butler.” It was not for the good of the service or for the good of the country that the reasons should be set out. His staff officer found some such cases and reported that the persons ought to be discharged because no charges had been made against them. That was true also, and yet it was for the good of