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

[1111] enemy's works, nor in the two cases where I was myself assailed, were the works, in an engineering point of view, one eighth as strong as that work was. Both times when I was assaulted by the enemy, the intrenchments behind which my men fought were constructed in one night, and in each case after the men had had two or three days of very hard work. I have been repulsed in every attempt I have made to carry an enemy's work, although I have had as good troops as any in the United States. army, and their record shows it. The troops that I had under my command in the first two assaults have been with General Sheridan in the whole of his last campaign — the first division of the Nineteenth Army Corps--and they fought as well under me as they have under him. The third time that I assailed a position was on the Williamsburg road. I had two of the best brigades of the Eighteenth Army Corps. It was a weakly defended line, and not a very strong one. Still I lost a great many men, and was repulsed. In the two instances where the enemy assaulted my position they were repulsed with heavy loss.

After that experience, with the information I had obtained from reading and study — for before this war I was an instructor at the Military Academy for three years under Professor Mahan, on these very subjects — remembering well the remark of the lieutenant-general commanding, that it was his intention I should command that expedition, because another officer selected by the War Department had once shown timidity, and in face of the fact that I had been appointed a major-general only twenty days before, and needed confirmation ; notwithstanding all that, I went back to General Butler, and told him I considered it would be murder to order an attack on that work with that force. I understood Colonel Comstock to agree with me perfectly, although I did not ask him, and General Butler has since said that he did.

Upon my report, General Butler himself reconnoitred the work, ran up close with the Chamberlain, and took some time to look at it. He then said that he agreed with me, and directed the re-embarkation of the troops. The troops were re-embarked, and we came back to Fortress Monroe, to our camp. When we stopped at City Point going up, to permit Colonel Comstock to disembark, General Butler went ashore, as he told me, to see General Grant. Upon his return, I asked him whether the general was satisfied with what we had done. He said, yes, he was perfectly satisfied with it.

Question.--Who was that officer, selected by the War Department, to whom General Grant objected?

Answer.--General Gillmore.