Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, Executive Department, Council Chamber,
BosToN, Apr. 25, '61
Gen. B. F. BUTLER
GENERAL: I have received through Major Ames a despatch
transmitted from Perryville, detailing the proceedings at Annapolis from the
time of your arrival off that port until the hour when Major Ames left you to
return to Philadelphia. I wish to repeat the assurance of my entire
satisfaction with the action you have taken with a single exception. If I
rightly understood the telegraphic despatch, I think that your action in tendering
to Governor Hicks the assistance of our Massachusetts troops to suppress a
threatened servile insurrection among the hostile people of Maryland was
unnecessary. I hope that the fuller despatches, which are on their way from
you, may show the reasons why I should modify my opinion concerning that
particular instance; but in general I think that the matter of servile
insurrection among the community in arms against the Federal Union is no longer
to be regarded by our troops in a political, but solely in a military point of
view, and is to be contemplated as one of the inherent weaknesses of the enemy,
from the disastrous operations of which we are under no obligation of a
military character to guard them, in order that they may be enabled to improve
the security which our arms would afford, so as to prosecute with more energy
their traitorous attacks upon a federal government and capitol. The mode in
which such outbreaks are to be considered should depend entirely upon the
loyalty or disloyalty of the community in which they occur; and, in the
vicinity of Annapolis, I can on this occasion perceive no reason of military
policy why a force summoned to the defence of the federal government, at this
moment of all others, should be offered to be diverted from its immediate duty
to help rebels who stand with arms in their hands, obstructing its progress
toward the city of Washington. I entertain no doubt that whenever we shall have
an opportunity to interchange our views personally on this subject we shall
arrive at entire concordance of opinion.
Yours faithfully,
John A. ANDREw
SOURCE: Jessie Ames Marshall, Editor, Private and
Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the
Civil War, Volume 1: April 1860 – June 1862, p. 37-8
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