government. He advised a declaration of non-intercourse with England.

"England told us what to do when we took Mason and Slidell, and she thought there was a likelihood to be a war. She stopped exportation of those articles which she thought we wanted, and which she had allowed to be exported before. Let us do the same thing. Let us proclaim non-intercourse, so that no ounce of food from the United States shall ever by any accident get into an Englishman's mouth until this rebellion ceases. I say again, let us proclaim non-intercourse, so that no ounce of food shall by any accident get into an Englishman's mouth until these piracies are stopped. That we have a right to do; and when we ever do do it, my word for it, they will find out where these vessels are going to, and they will write to the Emperor of China."

CHAPTER XXXV

SUMMARY

THE speciality of General Butler is this: He is a great achiever. He is the victorious kind of man. He is that combination of qualities and powers which is most potent in bringing things to pass. Upon reviewing his life, we find that he has been signally successful in the undertakings which have seriously tasked his powers.

A good example of his ready adaptation of means to ends, has just been related to me by one of his legal friends. A wealthy corporation in New England refused to pay for a bridge, on the ground that the contractor had been a few days behind the stipu lated time in completing it. General Butler was retained on behalf of the contractor. Aware that he really had no case, though the delay in finishing the bridge was abundantly excusable, he brought the cause to the bar of public opinion. In other words, he told the story to every man and group of men whom chance threw in his way. He caused endless paragraphs upon the subject to be inserted in the newspapers. The bridge was justly commended as a most admirable piece of work, and remarks were appended upon

the soullessness of a corporation, which could avail itself of the letter of a contract to deprive a fellow-citizen of the reward of his labors. In a word, he enlisted the feelings and the judgment of the whole community on the side of the contractor, and thus shamed the corporation into a compromise. You may call this, if you please, an illegitimate mode of proceeding for a learned advocate. It remains true, nevertheless, that the plan adopted answered the end proposed, and that the end proposed was justice.

It may be profitable to inquire what is the secret of General Butler's success.

Brains. That is a great part of the secret. This man has understood the matter. He has been able to grasp the situation at all times, and to know what the situation required at all times. From the hour when he shook hands with Jefferson Davis, in December, 1860, to the present moment, he has never been groping in the dark, or feeling his way to a policy. And his opinion, generally scouted at the moment, has always been justified by the progress of events. He was right in getting Massachusetts ready to march. He took the right road to Washington. He was right in regarding Fortress Monroe as the base against Richmond. The flash of inspiration which pronounced the negroes contraband of war, was right. Each step in the progress of his mind upon the negro question was right at the time and in the circumstances. That single suggestion of a board to decide upon the fitness of officers, was worth all he has received from the government. His order, making officers pay for the pillage committed by their men, was another masterly stroke. Better still, perhaps, it would be to make the whole regiment responsible-privates as well as officers. At New Orleans, he was magnificently right, both in theory and in practice. Every day brought forth some new proof of the fertility of his mind-of his genius for governing. That policy of isolating, crip pling, and destroying the malignants, and of raising in the scale of being the laboring multitude, white, black, or yellow, is the only policy which can ever make the country A NATION, homogeneous, united, powerful and free. No man has, no man can, point out another path to permanent reconstruction. To dethrone the false king, Minority, and to crown in his stead the true king, Majority—that was the scheme attempted in Louisiana. But one thing is wanting to its complete success-the total abolition of slavery, which con

stitutes the power of the ruling faction, and keeps in heathenist bondage every poor man in the South, whatever his color.

General Butler, on the other hand, is no dreamer or theorizer. Dreamers and theorizers are good and helpful; but he is not one of them. His forte is to devise expedients to meet a new state of things, or to effect a special purpose. He is singularly happy in framing a measure, on the spur of the moment, which precisely answers the end proposed, and works good in many directions not specially contemplated. His plan for feeding the poor of New Orleans, for example, besides effecting the main purpose of saving thousands from starvation, brought home to the authors of their ruin a part of the ill-consequences of their conduct, and chimed in with his general policy of suppressing one class and raising another.

Brains are the great secret. He is endowed with a large, healthy, active, instructed, experienced brain-Heaven's best gift, and the medium through which all other good gifts are given.

war.

Courage, will, firmness, nerve-call it what you will-General Butler has it. He has not been called to face the leaden rain and iron hail of battle; but he has exhibited on every occasion the courage which the occasion required. He has shown a singular insensibility to the phantoms which play so important a part in He has shown the courage to go forward and meet the imaginary danger, as well as the real. He has the courage of opinion so rare in a republic where public men all want the favor of the many. He dares accept the remote consequences of a policy. He dares to take the responsibility. He dares to incur obloquy. He dares to tell the truth, and all the truth. I venture to declare, that in the many thousand pages of his writings as an officer of the government, there is not one intentional misstatement or unfair suppression. Falsehood is the natural resort of timidity. A brave man does not lie, and need not.

Honesty. With opportunities of irregular gain, such as no other man has had since the days of Warren Hastings, his hands are spotless. He could have made a safe half million by a wink; and, if he had done so, he would have come home with a peculiar and marked reputation for integrity; because then he would have had an interest to create such a reputation, and could not have indulged the noble carelessness with regard to his good name which

is the privilege of a man strong in conscious rectitude. The fact that so able a man is accused of corruption, is itself a kind of proof of his honesty.

Humor. The happy word is part of the art of governing. There is apt to be a fund of humor in good victorious men, which enables them to get the laugh of mankind on their side. Would Lord Palmerston ever have been premier of England without his jokes, or Mr. Lincoln president of the United States unless he had first overspread acres of prairie mass-meetings with a grin? The point, humor and vivacity of General Butler's utterances have been an element of his success in the service of his country.

Faith. "After our return to the North," says one of the general's staff, "an ex-mayor of Chicago was introduced to the general at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York. It was just at a time when our cause looked very gloomy. The mayor was evidently much depressed by the indications of national misfortune, and in a tone of great despondency asked the general

666 Do you believe we shall ever get through this war successfully?' "Yes, sir,' the general answered, very decidedly.

"Well, but how?' asked the mayor.

"God knows, I don't; but I know He does, so I am satisfied,' the general replied.* I have often heard him reply thus to anxious questioners.

"We ought to march through,' he once said; 'but we shan't; I'm afraid we shall only tumble through. No matter; we shall get through somehow.'"

He gov

Humanity. The papers relating to our general's military career teem with evidence that he is a kind, considerate man. erned his soldiers strictly, but always so as to promote their best interests. He was lenient and forgiving toward offenses of inadvertence, or such as betrayed only a weakness or infirmity of nature. He was generous to the poor. He was solicitous to bestow honor where it was due. He was ingenious in devising ways of procuring promotion to deserving officers. He sympathized with the anxiety of parents for their sons in the army, and assuaged many a bleeding heart by the kind thoughtfulness with which ill news was broken to them.

Courtesy. The etiquette of his position was most punctiliously

* Altantic Monthly, July, 1868.

observed; not more so toward admirals and general officers than boy lieutenants and private soldiers. To the enemies of his country he could be a roaring lion or a growling bear. The men of his command and the loyal citizens of his department enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that their general was a gentleman. No littleness toward other commanders; only gratitude and admiration for the Farraguts, the Grants, the Rosecranses, the Meades, and all the other heroes of the war. Consideration, too, for the many able and well-intentioned men who have been less successful.

Patriotism. No man should be praised for loving his country, any more than for loving his mother. If the country is lost, we are all lost. If the country is disgraced, we all hang our heads in shame. To love one's country is a part of our natural and proper self-love. But if there is one man who has gone along more entirely than he with his country in this great struggle to preserve its life; if there is one man who has taken the great cause more deeply to heart, or striven with a purer aim to do his part in the mighty and holy work, he must, indeed, be the very model of a pure and burning patriot. Let none of us, however, claim for himself or for another any pre-eminence in patriotism. In this alone we are all agreed, that if it takes as long to restore the country as it took the Spaniards to expel the Moors from Spain (800 years), the work is to be done. If the treasury is bankrupt. no matter, it is to be done. If we have to make twenty truces, still it is to be done. If we pause, it will be only to renew the strife as soon as we have taken breath.

Brains without courage may be a delusion and a snare. Το have courage without brains is to be a human bull-dog. Brains and valor without experience in human affairs, without knowledge of the world and mankind, will often lead a man far astray. Brains, valor and experience united, still require the honest heart, the lofty aim. And even all these are ineffective in times like these, unless there is also an enormous capacity for labor. But when a man presents himself to view who possesses a fertile genius, courage, knowledge, experience, patriotism and honesty, with a soundness of bodily constitution that gives him the complete use of all his powers, a country must be rich indeed in able men, if it can afford, at a time of public danger, to dispense with his services.