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HERIDAN'S weary troopers appreciated the three-days' rest given them at Haxall's phrase, but it expresses the character of the flotilla. Nearly every class of vessel, from the latest improved ironclad down to the slow-going canal boat, ascended the James to Bermuda Hundred, from which base Butler moved his troops in his attack on the rebel fortifications at Drewry's Bluff.

While we were recuperating in camp, the army of the James was operating against Richmond. A courier came in from Gen. Kautz's cavalry, then smashing things out beyond Petersburg, bringing encouraging news. Butler had sailed up the river with a fleet of mixed vessels—that may not be a strictly nautical Landing. An opportunity was afforded the recruits who had never been on a raid before to doctor their saddle boils, and rub horse liniment on the contusions they had sustained while being banged around on the march from the Wilderness to the James.

We did not know, at the time, what Butler was trying to accomplish, except the general statement that Grant had ordered him to co-operate with the Army of the Potomac in the advance on Richmond. The intricate details of the plan were altogether too perplexing for worn-out troopers to puzzle their brains with. An outline of what had taken place on the south bank of the river was given out, and as I remember it, the day that we started on our return to Grant's army, it was generally understood that Butler had been driven back from Drewry's Bluff into his breastworks at Bermuda Hundred, although we did not hear that he had been “bottled up” till several weeks later.

I did not know at that time that Butler had been declared an outlaw by Jeff Davis, but I suppose the commanding general of the army of the James was aware of the fact. Whether the same had any influence on Butler's retreat down the river when worsted by Beauregard, I am not prepared to assert. It would be a serious breach of discipline for one of the few surviving privates of the great rebellion to intimate that the Bay State's favorite major-general turned his back on Richmond, and sought the security of breastworks, with gunboat supports, to escape falling into the hands of the Confederates. And yet I have since discovered that had Butler been captured, he would have been hanged by the neck until he was dead, dead, dead.

Butler, as is well known, had given the Confederacy no end of trouble at New Orleans, when in command down there. He had caused the rebels to understand that the assassination of Union soldiers must be atoned for by the punishment of the assassins.

In “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” by Jeff Davis, an account is published of what the rebel president declared to have been the “murder” of William B. Mumford, a “non-combative” citizen of New Orleans, by Butler's order. Gen. Lee had written to Gen. Halleck about it, as instructed by Davis, and Halleck refused to receive the letters, because, as he expressed it, they were of an insulting character. Davis continues:

“It appeared that the silence of the Government of the United States, and its maintenance of Butler in high office under its authority, afforded evidence too conclusive that it sanctioned his conduct, and was determined that he should remain unpunished for these crimes. I therefore pronounced and declared the said Butler a felon, deserving capital punishment, and ordered that he be no longer considered and treated as a public enemy of the Confederate States, but as an outlaw and common enemy of mankind; and that, in the event of his capture, the officer in command should cause him to be immediately executed by hanging.”

According to Gen. G. T. Beauregard, who commanded the rebels at Drewry's Bluff, Gen. Butler's salvation from summary execution was due to the failure of the Confederate Gen. Whiting, to carry out the instructions given him by Beauregard, for the latter, in an article in “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,” says: