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

[500] afforded that part of Louisiana, that has been in the part already in the possession of the United States. If that is refused, whatever may ensue is upon them, and not upon you or upon the United States. You will have done all that is required of a brave, humane man, to avert from these deluded people the horrible consequences of their insane war upon the government. . . .

Consider this case. General Bragg is at liberty to ravage the houses of our brethren of Kentucky because the Union army of Louisiana is protecting his wife and his home against his negroes. Without that protection he would have to come back to take care of his wife, his home, and his negroes. It is understood that Mrs. Bragg is one of the terrified women of whom you speak in your report.

This subject is not for the first time under the consideration of the commanding general. When in command of the Department of Annapolis, in May, 1861, he was asked to protect a community against the consequences of a servile insurrection. He replied, that when that community laid down its arms and called upon him for protection, he would give it, because from that moment between them and him war would cease. The same principle initiated there will govern his and your actions now; and you will afford such protection as soon as the community through its organized rulers shall ask it.

. . . In the meantime, these colored regiments of free men, raised by the authority of the President, and approved by him as the commander-in-chief of the army, must be commanded by the officers of the Army of the United States, like any other regiments.

About thirty days after, when I was relieved from command in New Orleans, I left General Weitzel in full command of the richest portion of Louisiana, having the crops gathered, housed, and taken charge of for the benefit of whomever it might concern, by the commission relating to confiscated property, the action of which I have before set forth.

Afterwards I procured the appointment of Weitzel as major-general under my command in the Department of Virginia, in 1864, and he had the singular felicity of marching from my old headquarters his Twenty-Fifth Corps, composed wholly of colored troops, into Richmond when Lee evacuated it, and of holding it in their possession, the black above the white, to receive the first visit of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, to the captured rebel capital. His flag was raised by a negro.