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

[824] sent for Porter, handed him the letter, and asked him if he wrote it. Porter at first began to deny it but the evidence was too strong and he admitted the writing but attempted to excuse it. Grant said to him that the contents of that letter were such that thereafterwards Porter's relations with him as President should be simply official, and they continued to be official, merely, through Grant's term of office, and Robeson was no longer annoyed with in Porter.

I put this letter¹ of Porter's in the appendix as a literary curiosity. It is a photographic illustration of every bad trait in Porter's character, and I think the letter could not have been written by any man in the world but Porter. But of that the reader can judge for himself, bearing in mind the intimate relations existing between Porter and Grant at the time it was written.

Decorative Motif.