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

[no. 14. see page 619.]

General:--I have the honor to enclose official copies of the correspondence between General Pickett, commanding Confederate forces, District of North Carolina, and General Peck, commanding United States forces in said district, relative to the execution of certain prisoners belonging to the Second North Carolina Regiment. Many of these men were conscripted by the rebels. All of them were citizens of the United States, who owed their allegiance to our government; if misguided, they forfeited their allegiance, repented, and returned to it again. They have only done their duty, and, in my judgment, are to be protected in so doing. I do not recognize any right in the rebels to execute a United States soldier because either by force or fraud, or by voluntary enlistment even, he has been once brought into their ranks and has escaped therefrom. I suppose all the rights they can claim as belligerents is to execute one of the deserters from their army while he holds simply the character of a deserter during the time he has renounced his allegiance, and before he has again claimed that protection and it has been accorded to him. Therefore by no law of nations, and by no belligerent rights, have the rebels any power over him other than to treat him as a prisoner of war if captured.

I would suggest that the Confederate authorities be called upon to say whether they adopt this act, and that upon their answer such action may be taken as will sustain the dignity of the government, and give a promise to afford protection to its citizens.

I have the honor to be, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

[Inclosure no 1.]

General:--I have the honor to enclose a slip cut from the Richmond Examiner of Feb. 8, 1864. It is styled “The advance on New Berne,” and appears to have been extracted from the Petersburg Register, a paper published in the city where your headquarters are located.

Your attention is particularly invited to that paragraph which states “that Colonel Shaw was shot dead by a negro soldier from the other side of the river which he was spanning with a pontoon bridge, and that the negro was watched and followed, taken, and hanged after the action at Thomasville.”

The Petersburg Register gives the following additional particulars of the advance on New Berne :--

Our army, according to the report of passengers arriving from Weldon, has fallen back to a point sixteen miles west of New Berne. The reason