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

[241] have done, I have acted solely according to what I believed to be the wishes of the President, General Scott, and yourself.

I am not disposed to be troublesome to you, but I wish this matter might be laid before the President. To be relieved of the command of a department and sent to command a fort, without a word of comment, is something unusual at least, and I am so poor a soldier as not to understand it otherwise than in the light of a reproof.

At least, I desire a personal interview with you and with the President before I accept further service. This will be handed to you by my friend and aide-de-camp, R. S. Fay, Jr., who knows its contents, and is able to represent me fully to you.

Very truly yours,

Benj. F. Butler, Brigadier-General Commanding.

After I got to Fortress Monroe I waited from the 22d of May till the 4th day of June, when, the order not arriving making North Carolina a part of my department, I wrote General Scott as follows:--

headquarters Department of Virginia, Fortress Monroe, Va., June 4, 1861.
Lieutenant-General Scott, Washington, D. C.:

General:--I beg leave further to call the attention of the lieutenant-general to the fact that from some oversight, probably in the adjutant-general's office, the orders creating the Department of Virginia, North and South Carolina, which I understood were issued when I was in Washington, have not been published; at least, I have not seen them. May I ask the attention of Lieutenant-General Scott to this omission, which might prove embarrassing?

I have the honor to be most respectfully your obedient servant,

Benj. F. Butler, Major-General Commanding.

Later on in the 18th I called upon the President. I did not call upon Seward, because he had given an order for the release of Ross Winans. The President did me the honor to offer me the commission with his own hand. I said to him :--

“Mr. President, I doubt whether I ought to accept this commission; the withdrawal of myself and troops from Baltimore is a ”