Butler at this point took up the cudgels for his subordinate and in a general order, dated June 30, 1864, discussed the incident at some length. Pierpont was alluded to as “a person who calls himself Governor,” and as one “pretending to be the head of the restored government of Virginia, which government is unrecognized by the Congress, laws, and Constitution of the United States.” The order further recited that as the loyal citizens of Norfolk had voted against the further trial of the experiment of municipal government “therefore it is ordered that all attempts to exercise civil office and power, under any supposed city election, within the city of Norfolk and its environs, must cease, and the persons pretending to be elected to civil offices at the late election, and those heretofore elected to municipal offices since the rebellion, must no longer attempt to exercise such functions; and upon any pretense or attempt so to do, the military commandant at Norfolk will see to it that persons so acting are stayed and quieted.”
A memorial to Mr. Lincoln enlisted his sympathy and secured for Pierpont the assistance of Attorney-General Bates, who on July 11 wrote the President a long official letter setting forth his sense of the serious military encroachment by General Butler upon civil law and the authority of Mr. Pierpont as Governor of Virginia. The Department Commander replied in a communication of forty pages in sharp criticism of the Alexandria government, which he characterized as a “useless, expensive, and inefficient thing, unrecognized by Congress, unknown to the Constitution of the United States, and of such character that there is no command in the Decalogue against worshiping it, being the likeness of nothing in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth.”
The Attorney-General, who was accused of a design to create a conflict between the civil and the military power, also came in for a share of rather violent criticism. In this altercation each party accused the other of being assisted by only secessionists and traitors.[[207]]
It was relative to this controversy that Mr. Lincoln, December 21, 1864, addressed to General Butler the following communication:
On the 9th of August last, I began to write you a letter, the enclosed being a copy of so much as I then wrote. So far as it goes it embraces the views I then entertained and still entertain.
A little relaxation of the complaints made to me on the subject, occurring about that time, the letter was not finished and sent. I now learn, correctly I suppose, that you have ordered an election, similar to the one mentioned, to take place on the eastern shore of Virginia. Let this be suspended at least until conference with me and obtaining my approval.
[Inclosure.]
Executive Mansion, Washington, August 9, 1864.
Major-General Butler:
Your paper of the —— about Norfolk matters, is received, as also was your other, on the same general subject, dated, I believe, some time in February last. This subject has caused considerable trouble, forcing me to give a good deal of time and reflection to it. I regret that crimination and recrimination are mingled in it. I surely need not to assure you that I have no doubt of your loyalty and devoted patriotism; and I must tell you that I have no less confidence in those of Governor Pierpont and the Attorney-General. The former—at first as the loyal governor of all Virginia, including that which is now West Virginia, in organizing and furnishing troops, and in all other proper matters—was as earnest, honest, and efficient to the extent of his means as any other loyal governor.