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

He received me curtly enough; and, as I stood at “attention” after I made my salute, without asking me to be seated, he broke upon me with words of angry vituperation and accusation of all sorts of wrong-doing about going into Baltimore, and of the great. risk I had run. He said that I had thwarted his intention of taking it without shedding a drop of blood, and that I could be entrusted with nothing in the army again.

I waited, standing before him,--I hope not like a whipped cur,--until my patience, of which I have not too large a stock, was exhausted. I felt perfectly independent, because I had at that time come to the conclusion myself, and what was more, with the advice of my wife, to quit the army and quietly go home and attend to my profession and my family. I turned upon the old general and “gave him as good as he sent,” in language not violent but distinct.

I took his despatch which he had sent me at Baltimore from my pocket, and said:--

I have not answered this, because you did not know what you were writing about. You say my movement was a hazardous one. There was not the slightest hazard in it, and I knew it, for I had taken care to have actual information about what was going on in Baltimore, which, according to what you proposed, you did not have. Four days before, you let thirteen hundred men, including Sherman's regular battery and fifty regulars, sneak around Baltimore by Locust Point, instead of having them march through the city; and that was a concession, a yielding to the purposes of the secession mayor.

You say you did not know anything about the movement, and therefore could not have approved it. You told me that it was not necessary that you should know beforehand about what I did in my Department of Annapolis,--and I was acting within the limits of my department.

I had orders from you to go and get arms which had been sent from rebel Virginia to arm the rebels of Baltimore. How did you think I was to get them unless I went where they were? Your order itself told me the street and number in Baltimore where I should find munitions of war. I went and took them according to your order.