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

[891] me until I was relieved at New Orleans. I have had occasion to speak of him before, and now have only to add that he was a very able man, and good soldier, sometimes serving as judge advocate general.

When I took command of the Department of New England, I had as assistant adjutant-general and chief of ordnance, Maj. George C. Strong. I have said of him all I could say of any man, during the progress of this work. While I was at home unemployed in 1863, Major Strong's love of battle and hope of glory impelled him not to wait until I could have another appointment, and having been promoted he was sent to Charleston to report to General Gillmore. He was put in command of a brigade and ordered to assault Fort Wagner, where he lost his life by a wound that caused him a lingering and painful illness. Upon my recommendation the President appointed him a major-general, and his commission reached him on his dying bed.

Col. George A. Kensel was my chief of artillery and inspector-general. He was a Kentuckian, having been appointed to West Point by General Breckinridge, but was loyal to the cause. He was one of the young artillery officers who, when I went to Fortress Monroe in 1861, had accepted an appointment made through the kindness of a friend as quartermaster instead of lieutenant of artillery, which was his lineal rank.

Disgusted with his employment in substantially civil affairs, while his comrades were in the field, he applied to me for an appointment on my staff. He went with me to New Orleans, was detailed as chief of ordnance, and served with me through that campaign. He accompanied me to the Army of the James, and served there through the war. A braver or more loyal officer was not in the army. I can give no better illustration of his courage than by a short anecdote. In the movement on Drury's Bluff, which I have hereinbefore described, I had occasion to send an order in writing in great haste by a route which lay between the lines of the two armies where fighting was going on between the Tenth Corps and the enemy. Kensel was sitting beside me as I wrote the order and gave it to one of my staff, saying: “You must ride between the two lines, because that distance will be scarcely a mile. If you go the other road you will be stopped by Proctor's Creek, and have ”