Major Butler

“ Butler was there too. He tried to see the poetry of warfare in this also, but in the depth of his soul he was sorry for the major. To stop him, however, was quite impossible; and Butler, feeling that the fumes were mounting to his own head, quietly left the room and went home.
The moon lit up the white houses and the stones on the road. It was so light that every pebble, every straw, every little heap of dust was visible. As he approached the house he met Marya Dmitrievna with a shawl over her head and neck. ”

“ The tide, Mistress Dimock, sets sadly against us."
"Never let your heart fail you," exclaimed the landlady; "it isn't in the nature of things for the luck to be for ever on the shady side. Besides, take the good and bad together, you have not been so hardly dealt by, Captain Butler."
"Major Butler, madam, of the second Carolina continental reg'lar infantry," interrupted Robinson, who had stood by all this time unnoticed, "Major Butler; the captain has been promoted, by occasion of the wiping out of a few friends from the upper side of the adjutant's roll, in the scrimmage of Fort Moultrie. ”

“ It is abundantly evident, however, from the history of the times and from contemporaneous documents published in the Records, that neither the working arrangements by which Butler commanded an army from his headquarters at Fortress Monroe or in the field while the major part of it, under the command of Smith, was co-operating with the Army of the Potomac, nor his relations with either his superiors or subordinates, were at all satisfactory. In the nature of the case, they could not be. Butler was a lawyer and politician accustomed to browbeat where he could not persuade. ”

“ If your people are brave sodgers or honest men, you will not have much occasion to be afeard for yourself; but, by my right hand! if so much as one hair of Major Arthur Butler's head be hurt by Colonel Innis, or by any other man among your pillaging and brandishing bullies, I myself will drive a bullet through from one of your ears to the other. ”

“ Major Ruffin’s (Commissary’s Bureau) statement of the alarming prospects ahead, unless provisions be obtained outside of the Confederacy (for cotton) , was induced by reports from New Orleans. A man was in the office to-day exhibiting Butler’s passport, and making assurances that all the Yankee generals are for sale—for cotton. Butler will make a fortune—and so will some of our great men. Butler says the reason he don’t send troops into the interior is that he is afraid we will burn the cotton.
It is reported that a fleet of the enemy’s gun-boats are in the James River. ”

“ If the men on our side think so little of us as you do, it would be no wonder if we all desert to King George; but Major Arthur Butler, I am sure, will tell you that we old bodies can sometimes make ourselves very useful—gainsay it who will."
"You seem to be rather hard, Galbraith," said Butler, "on my good friend Mistress Dimock. I am sure, madam, the sergeant has only been unlucky in making himself understood ”

“ Butler, he rightly conjectured, was the principal object of the late ambuscade; that, for some unknown purpose, the possession of this officer became important to those who had procured the attack upon him, and that James Curry had merely hired this gang of desperadoes to secure the prize. Under these circumstances, he concluded that the Major would be so strictly guarded as to forbid all hope of escape, and that any attempt by him to effect it would only be punished by certain death. ”

“ Maybe, indeed, you 'd have found out it was lies from beginning to end.”
“I'm not so sure of that,” muttered Tony; “there are plausible fellows of that sort that take in men of the world every day!” And Tony sat back in his chair and puffed his cigar in silence, doubtless recalling one such adept in his own experience.
“Faix, I'm proud to hear your honor say that!” cried Rory. “I 'm as glad as a pound-note to know that even a gentleman might have been 'taken in' by the Major.” ”

“ Butler was at this moment, he concluded, in the hands of those who had engaged the ruffians to set upon him at Grindall's ford, and it was not improbable that he would be summarily dealt with: there was no time, therefore, to be lost. The sergeant's plan, in this new juncture, was, to compel the young ensign to address a letter to the British commandant, to inform that officer of his present imprisonment, and to add to this information the determination of his captors to put him to death, in the event of any outrage being inflicted upon Butler. ”

“ Butler's face paled in the waning fire-light. Presently he said, in his slow, even tones: "I shall take care that your good wishes reach the King's ears. Pray, sir, honour me with your name and quality, though I may perhaps guess both."
"No need to guess," cut in the big fellow, cheerfully. "I'm Jack Mount; I burned the Gaspee, I helped dump his Majesty's tea into Boston harbour, and I should be pleased to do as much for the King himself. Tell him so, Captain Butler; 158 tell my Lord Dunmore he can have a ducking, too, at his lordship's polite convenience." ”

“ Porter represented to him that he had sent to Beaufort for more ammunition. He could fire much faster than he had been doing, and would keep the enemy from showing himself until our men were within twenty yards of the fort, and he begged that Butler would leave some brave fellows like those who had snatched the flag from the parapet and taken the horse from the fort.
Butler was unchangeable. He got all his troops aboard, except Curtis's brigade, and started back. In doing this, Butler made a fearful mistake. ”

“ BEAST BUTLER Beast Butler had come up James River on transports, with an army of about 40,000 men, landing some at City Point, and marched on Petersburg, while the main body landed at Bermuda Hundred, higher up the river. This move was no doubt intended as a diversion to draw troops from General Lee, who was confronting Grant in the Wilderness, but was checkmated by drawing troops from other 194points, threshing old Butler, and sending some of these men on to join General Lee, as we shall presently see. ”

“ General Butler turned pale, looked at the men, seemed undecided what to do, surrounded by an angry crowd of at least ten thousand men, who although unarmed, he well knew were more than a match for him and his guards and that they would not stand any show for their lives if a single shot was fired. ”

“ I bow reverently to the brave, modest, patriotic soldier, who, without thought of personal gain, gave youth, health, limb, life to save the country which he loved. I am willing to abide by his opinion, and to yield to him every place of honor and of office. But to you, General Butler, whose military career is made up of the blunder and slaughter of Big Bethel; of the powder explosion at Fort Fisher; of the engineering at Dutch Gap; of the "bottling-up" at Bermuda Hundred; of the trading with the rebels through the lines in North Carolina; of the scandals of New Orleans ”

“ He was graduated from Transylvania University, Lexington, in 1812. Butler studied law for a short time, but the War of 1812 called him and he enlisted. At the River Raisin he was wounded and captured and carried through Canada to Fort Niagara, but he was later exchanged. Butler was with General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and his gallantry attracted the attention of the general, who placed him upon his staff. In 1817 Butler returned to the law, married, and settled in the little river town of Carrollton, Kentucky, on the Ohio, his home henceforth. ”

“ It was the man whom the lieutenant had despatched, a few days previous, with an errand to the post at Ninety-Six, and who was now returning with this detachment of militia. The soldier was evidently at fault, for in a moment afterwards Butler could perceive, from his expression of face, that whatever might have been his first suspicion, it was quieted by another glance. The disguise was so far effectual. But another cause of alarm arose, that for an instant brought Butler into greater jeopardy. ”

“ I then asked him why Butler could not move out from his lines and push across the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad to the rear and on the south side of Richmond. He replied that it was impracticable, because the enemy had substantially the same line across the neck of land that General Butler had. He then took out his pencil and drew a sketch of the locality, remarking that the position was like a bottle and that Butler′s line of intrenchments across the neck represented the cork; that the enemy had built an equally strong line immediately in front of him across the neck ”

“ No one had ever heard Richard Butler say "God bless you" before, and no one ever heard him say it again. But when he said it that day to the dark-haired, white faced, war-worn soldier on the cot in the hospital near Rouen, the words came straight from a big, and brave, and tender heart.
He laid Pen's hand slowly back on the counterpane, and then he parted his white moustache, as he had done that night at the hotel in New York, and bent over and kissed the boy's forehead. It may have been the rapture of the kiss that did it; God knows ”

“ Captain St. Jermyn, of his Majesty's army, and lately an aide-de-camp of Lord Rawdon."
Butler bowed coldly, as he replied:
"To meet a gentleman, as your rank and name both import, is a privilege that has not been allowed me of late. Without knowing wherefore, I have been waylaid and outraged by bravoes and ruffians. ”

“ Butler had reached Swift Creek, there to be met by General Johnson, and repulsed as far as Walthall Junction on the railroad. The following day there was a hotly contested battle at close quarters, continued on the next, when our men, although greatly outnumbered by Butler's forces, drove these back to their base on the James River. All this time my excited visions were of battle and soldiers, culminating at last by the presence of one soldier, leaning wearily on his sabre in my own room. ”

“ He is now pastor of St. Mark’s Church, New York. For the past three or four years, Mr. Butler has taken an active part in the politics of the Empire State, and was sent as a delegate to the National Republican Convention that nominated General Grant for his second term, and in which assembly he exercised considerable influence with the colored delegates from the South.
Mr. Butler is a man of good education, well read, of retentive memory, able in debate, quick to take advantage of an opponent, an eloquent, extemporaneous speaker, and popular with the masses. ”

“ The children followed him, Esk bestowing a wink upon me, Peter grinning and toeing in like a Devon duck, and that wild-cat thing, Silver Heels—
"You need not wait, Captain Butler," said Sir William, politely.
Mr. Butler retired, leaving the door swinging. Out in the dark hallway I fancied I could still see his shallow eyes shining. I may have been mistaken. But all men know now that Walter Butler hath eyes that see as well by dark as by the light of the sun; and none know it so well as the people of New York Province and of Tryon County.
"Michael," said Sir William, "go to the slate." ”

“ But they seldom have fair play; as a general rule they meet with foul play, and foul play from those who live by selling them stones made into a great variety of shapes and sizes so as to form a tolerable imitation of bread.
Some are lucky enough to meet with few obstacles, some are plucky enough to over-ride them, but in the greater number of cases, if people are saved at all they are saved so as by fire.
While Ernest was with me Ellen was looking out for a shop on the south side of the Thames near the “Elephant and Castle,” which was then almost a new and a very rising neighbourhood. ”

“ And why do the rebels cry out every time Butler's Rangers take the field? We in Canada know Captain Walter Butler and his father, Colonel John Butler. Why, Mr. Renault, there is no more perfectly accomplished officer and gentleman than Walter Butler. I know him; I have danced with him at Quebec and at Niagara. How can even a rebel so slander him with these monstrous tales of massacre and torture and scalps taken from women and children at Cherry Valley? ”

“ Everybody wears blue ribbon here, but I don't, because I don't want to get tipsy anyhow.
General Butler is the big boss of the Home. He comes every fall, and walks around. They always have an arch for him. ”

“ Butler was attacked from all sides, but being a powerful man he used his oak club with effect and knocked a man down at each blow that he struck, and each man that felt the weight of his weapon was out of the fight for that day at least. ”

“ As he stood on the dais, one hand grasping his gown behind his back and the other marking his points, I felt that, perhaps for the first time, I was listening to pure and unstudied eloquence, suffused with just as much scorn against base wrongdoing as makes speech pungent without making it abusive. It should be recorded to Butler's credit that he was thoroughly feared. A Head-master who is not feared should be at once dismissed from his post. ”

“ Exclaim'd, "Ye hounds of hell! Oh, revenged I will be!"
We had not been long broken when General Butler found
Himself so badly wounded, was forced to quit the ground;
"My God!" says he, "what shall we do? we're wounded every man;
Go charge them, valiant heroes, and beat them if you can."
He leaned his back against a tree, and there resigned his breath,
And like a valiant soldier sunk in the arms of death ”