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

[291] act at once, I have had occasional doubt expressed, the doubters agreeing that they knew nothing on the subject. This has led me to examine the matter with considerable care, and I am confirmed in my opinion by the action of raw troops in several instances from my personal knowledge. But I think one of the very best illustrations I can give of the action of raw troops is in the case of a single Maine regiment, the First Maine Heavy Artillery, afterwards Eighteenth Maine. The regiment was raised and sent to Washington to guard the forts. It had never been in the field, nor heard a hostile shot. It was moved forward as fast as possible and joined Grant's army the night before the battle of Spottsylvania Court House. It went in eighteen hundred strong, and when it came out it was with a loss of four hundred and eighty-one killed and wounded, twelve of whom were officers, and five missing.

They were put into several battles, including Cold Harbor, down to the time of the crossing of the James, June 12. On the 18th of July, having about twelve hundred men fit for duty, it was ordered to make a charge in double rank, and came out losing six hundred and thirty-two killed and wounded, thirteen officers being killed and twelve others wounded. And I was told by an officer of that regiment that after that time they would not have assaulted a pig-pen.

The trouble comes when you put volunteers in camp, especially in the face of the enemy, and let them hear camp rumors, camp gossip, camp ghost and scarecrow stories about masked batteries and black horse cavalry. As if black horse cavalry were any more effective and terrible than white horse or sorrel horse cavalry! And yet, during our war, the black horsemen were always the ogre of our soldiers. Nor did the men ever stop to reflect that a masked battery did not do any harm as long as it remained masked, and that when it was unmasked and began to fire it was no worse to encounter than a battery of the same size that had never been masked. Men so instructed will not fight at all; they are full of all manner of surprises; they will run at nothing and be surprised at everything. And that was the condition of McDowell's army as far as the three months men were concerned, and none but the regulars had been in the service more than three months.

The other condition under which men will fight, is after they have been in the service long enough and got sufficiently disciplined to