January 4th, the next day but one, Grant asks for the removal of Butler. He says: "I am constrained to request the removal of Major-General Butler from the command of the department of Virginia and North Carolina. I do this with reluctance, but the good of the service requires it. In my absence General Butler necessarily commands, and there is a lack of confidence felt in his military ability, making him an unsafe commander for a large army. His administration of the affairs of his department is also objectionable."
Stanton had just left the capital on a visit to Sherman, at Savannah, and this letter at first received no answer; but Grant was very much in earnest, and on the sixth he telegraphed direct to the President: "I wrote a letter to the Secretary of War, which was mailed yesterday, asking to have General Butler removed from command. Learning that the Secretary left Washington yesterday, I telegraph you asking that prompt action be taken in this matter."
That was practically the end of Butler's military service.
He never received another command.
There is no country in the world, other than ours, where an officer guilty of such conduct, whether it came from incapacity or cowardice, would not have been promptly cashiered and probably shot. This would have been true, as in the case of Admiral Keppel, if his fault had been merely a failure to attack. But Butler's fault was an express disobedience of orders. The order which he disobeyed was unknown to the subordinate on whose advice he claimed to have relied. General Grant expressly ordered him that in case of failure to attack the fort by assault, he should remain and entrench his troops on the peninsula, and cooperate with the fleet for the reduction of the place. When Grant learned the circumstances he declared that, in leaving after he had landed, Butler had violated his express orders.
It is a source of just pride that a New England commander, and one of Massachusetts descent, General Terry, was successful in the new attempt. Grant's instructions to him said: "I have served with Admiral Porter, and know that you can rely on his judgment and his nerve to undertake what he proposes . . . . The first object to be attained is to get a firm position on the spit of land on which Fort Fisher is built, from which you can operate against the fort. You want to look to the practicability of receiving your supplies, and to defending yourself against superior forces sent against you by any of the avenues left open to the enemy. If such a position can be obtained, the siege of Fort Fisher will not be abandoned until its reduction can be accomplished, or another plan of campaign is ordered from these headquarters."
The fort which had enabled 397 vessels to pass the blockade was taken by a great New England Captain, and largely by New England troops. Butler made one contribution, and only one, to that victory. That contribution was his absence. It was a curious coincidence which would have brought a blush of shame upon any forehead but his, that when he was testifying before an investigating committee of Congress, who were inquiring into the cause of his great and shameful failure to take the fort, and just after he had testified that Fort Fisher was impregnable and that it was impossible for any Union force to take it, a dispatch was received in the Committee Room announcing its fall.
General Grant says in his "Memoirs":
"I had no idea of General Butler accompanying the expedition until the evening before it got off from Bermuda Hundred, and then did not dream but that General Weitzel had received all the instructions, and would be in command. I rather formed the idea that General Butler was actuated by a desire to witness the effect of the explosion of the powder-boat. The expedition was detained several days at Hampton Roads, waiting the loading of the powder-boat. The importance of getting the Wilmington expedition off without any delay, with or without the powder- boat, had been urged upon General Butler. The powder-boat was exploded on the morning of the 24th, before the return of General Butler from Beaufort; but it would seem, from the notice taken of it in the Southern newspapers, that he enemy were never enlightened as to the object of the explosion until they were informed by the Northern press."*
[Footnote]
* "Personal Memoirs, U. S. Grant," p. 604 appendix.
[End of Footnote]
"General Butler, in direct violation of the instructions given, ordered the reembarkation of the troops and the return of the expedition."*