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

“ You have a right to go home, General, for a little rest, but study out another job for yourself.”

I may truthfully say, with pride and gratitude, that my road home was an ovation, but for a while my position was an extremely annoying one. Four months and a half before, the young lawyer had left Boston where he could go anywhere and everywhere and not be disturbed by anybody. The general now came back, and was not allowed to go anywhere or do anything without somebody interfering with him and insisting upon his being here or going there, with an enormous quantity of stuffing and feasting. It was so sudden a change from perfect freedom to a perfect slavery of kindness — from taking his constitutional walk in the morning any and everywhere, to not being able to go anywhere without a carriage, because he could not go through the streets for the multitude of hand shakings and greetings that he had to undergo — that it was hardly enjoyable.

It will serve, I hope, some future student of the art of carrying on war with volunteer troops,--and I am inclined to think that they are the only troops that we will use in large numbers in the future, on this side of the Atlantic at least,--if we examine some of the causes of the nation's failure at the battle of Bull Run, which had greater results and a more substantial effect on the country than any other in the war, except, perhaps, the battle of Gettysburg.

The battle ought not to have been fought at that time by any officer. It was a predestined and foredoomed defeat. It was fought under every condition, of difficulty and discouragement with which it was possible to surround a battle. It was urged on in a manner and under an influence disgraceful to the common sense of mankind. The New York Tribune set up a clamor day by day, which had no foundation save in the half-addled brain of its editor, a man who had not strength enough to stand a political defeat in after years without going idiotically insane. His cry of “On to Richmond” was repeated by other newspapers, and in this way a great pressure was brought to bear upon the Cabinet, to which they more or less reluctantly yielded.

Scott, too, was practically about to retire and give way to some younger general as commander of the Army of the Potomac, and