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

While my military duties were a favorite source of instruction, they took a considerable portion of that time which was my resource for recreation. But I took substantially no other. I never went to a horse race, although I was exceedingly fond of horses; I never went to Saratoga or Newport until after the late war; and I never spent three consecutive days in any year at any summer resort. I did take, however, a few short trips on board small vessels at sea.

I learned the “school of the soldier,” soon was promoted to be an officer of the lower grade, and then steadily went up, never attempting to pass a grade without fully filling the position in due order of promotion, until having served in every lower grade, I was elected colonel of the regiment to which I had belonged since 1840.

Our citizen soldiery, known by the name of the “Massachusetts volunteer militia,” were organized and armed by the State and in part supported by it. Sometimes in companies, and sometimes in regiments or larger bodies, the soldiers were called together for encampment five days each year. We were allowed, within certain rules, to uniform ourselves as we pleased. All else but our rations was furnished by the State. We were armed with arms issued by the United States, and in all things we observed, as far as we could, the tactics and regulations of the army of the United States.

Most of us were men quite young, who entered the service for the love of military learning. There was enthusiastic rivalry and emulation between tho several organizations, as well as between the several soldiers that composed the companies. I have seen a company of Massachusetts volunteers, before the war, perform all the duties of the school of the soldier, and of the school of the battalion, as well as I have ever seen them done by any body of men outside of West Point.

Of course we were not as good as regulars in the opinion of the United States officers; that was impossible. Their military movements were mechanical; ours were voluntary. We went through our drill because we loved to do it; they went through theirs because they were made to do it. Every right-minded officer since the war appreciates the difference.

When the Know-Nothing Governor Gardner took his seat in 1855, there was a company in my regiment known as the “Jackson Musketeers.” It was composed of young men either born of Irish parents