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

“Where have you been, Chaplain Hudson, absent for nearly four months?”

“In New York and Massachusetts.”

“What have you been doing there?”

“I left under orders.”

“Whose orders?”

“From Major-General Gillmore.”

“Produce them.”

He produced an order which was, substantially, in these words:--“Chaplain Hudson will go north on business for the commanding general.”

I said: “The general had no right to order you out of my department. On what business did you go on the 28th of May?”

“I went to New York to superintend the printing of a book which Van Nostrand & Co. are printing for General Gillmore.”

“What book?”

“A history of the siege of Charleston.”

“That is private business,” said I, “a private enterprise. Do you mean to say that you, a minister of the religion of Jesus Christ, having charge of all the souls of your regiment, left them, in the face of the enemy, to go off on a private enterprise in this way, remaining away four months, while you are drawing pay from the United States?”

He did not reply to that.

I then said: “You heard of General Gillmore being relieved from command here you then had no further business with him. Why did you not come back then?”

“ General,” said he, “I am a bereaved man; I have been watching by the bedside of my dying child.”

“No lies to me, Parson Hudson,” said I; “your child died on the third day of June; you left on the 28th of May; you have not watched much since. Why did you not come back before the 20th of September? Did you not get my order of the 25th of July?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why did you not return, in obedience to that order?”

“I saw my colonel, and he advised me that I need not come back.”