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

. . . The army of Butler is insignificant in numbers, and that fact makes our situation the more humiliating. He has possession of New Orleans with troops not equalling in number an ordinary city mob. He has Baton Rouge, and, until Fuller's exploit,¹ used the Opelousas railroad to transport small parties to various places in the interior, who intimidated our people, and perpetrated the most appalling incendiarisms and brutality. Our people were demoralized, and no wonder, when our forts and strong places had been the scenes of the disgraceful conduct of officers who had charge of their defence, of which 1 have given you some details in a previous letter.

Lovell, who was in command of that department, suggested, on the 7th of June, that Department No. 1 of Louisiana should be abandoned. Lee responded on the 16th of June that he deemed the department of too much importance to be abandoned. “He regrets his inability to send you reinforcements. He knows of no troops that can be spared at any point, unless General Beauregard can send you some from his command.”

I, myself, had made repeated applications for reinforcements that I might move upon the enemy, but the situation of the Army of the Potomac around Washington prevented anything being sent.

The light draught gunboats that were required in February as absolutely necessary in a department where everybody went by water, were never sent. I wanted twelve; I had captured two and bought one, the Estrella, and that was put in the hands of Farragut so that he could have a light draught boat for his own operations up the river.

The operations of the fleet of Farragut, and of the eighteen mortar boats of Porter at the siege of Vicksburg, where the utter inefficiency of Porter's invention of the use of mortar boats in military operations was again fully demonstrated, are matters of which I have hereinbefore spoken.

As Weitzel's Union report, and as Duncan's rebel report show, they left Forts Jackson and St. Philip substantially as defensible as before the week's bombardment, and their effect before Vicksburg and its batteries was another demonstrative illustration. The guns of the fleet, it was known, would be quite harmless, because the high cliffs on which Vicksburg is situated rendered it substantially Violation of a flag of truce.