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

Reverting to the subject of arming the negroes, I said to him that I thought it might be possible to start with a sufficient army of white troops, and, avoiding a march which might deplete their ranks by death and sickness, to take them in ships and land them somewhere on the Southern coast. These troops could then come up through the Confederacy, gathering up negroes, who could be armed at first with arms that they could handle, so as to defend themselves and aid the rest of the army in case of rebel charges upon it. In this way we could establish ourselves down there with an army that would be a terror to the whole South.

He asked me what I would arm them with. I told him John Brown had intended, if he got loose in the mountains of Virginia, to arm his negroes with spears and revolvers; and there was a great deal in that. Negroes would know how to use those arms, and the Southern troops would not know how to meet their use of them, and they could be easily transported in large numbers and would require no great expense or trouble in supplying ammunition.

“That is a new idea, General,” said he.

“No, Mr. President,” I answered, “it is a very old one. The fathers of these negroes, and some of the negroes themselves, fought their battles in Africa with no other weapon, save a club. Although we have substituted the bayonet for the spear, yet as long as the soldier can shoot he is not inclined to use the bayonet. In fact, bayonets are of no use; they are only for show. But probably the time has not come for dropping them.”

I ventured to call the attention of the President to the fact that several months had now elapsed since I was relieved from the command of a few troops in the Department of the Gulf, and had up to that time eminent success; but nothing worthy of mention had been done since, although some fifty thousand troops, more or less, had been sent down there.

Our conversation then turned upon another subject which had been frequently a source of discussion between us, and that was the effect of his clemency in not having deserters speedily and universally punished by death. I called his attention to the fact that the great bounties then being offered were such a temptation for a man to desert in order to get home and enlist in another corps where he