CHARLESTON, S. C., Steamer
S.R. SPAULDING, Sunday, April 22, 1860
DEAR SARAH: We came here after a very pleasant passage of
from Wednesday at night (6 o'clock) till Friday at 10 P.M. We lay on the
quarantine ground till morning, when about 8 o’clock we came up to the city and
skirted along its whole length with flags flying, guns firing, and drums
beating all in the finest style. Fisher and Clemence were very seasick but are
all right now. George was also very sick. For myself, I ate five times a day,
slept soundly, smoked incessantly, and drank sparingly. Charleston is much the
same apparently that it has been for a half century. Do you remember that the
first time I ever spent any considerable hours with you was at the American
House, Boston, just previous to your voyage to Charleston? It has occurred to
my thoughts more than once. I felt sad at parting from you, but I thought then
I should see you again, although you thought not so. You will see by the
enclosed prospectus (which I pray you preserve) that I have visited the school
at Georgetown. I am more in favor than ever of sending Blanche1
there; you will agree with me when you visit for yourself, as we will do next
Winter.
How are all at home? I long to be with you at home again
with an inexpressible longing. We shall start probably a week from today and be
home in four days. Love to all.
Yours,
BENJ.
_______________
* “I have not read the life of Butler, although I am
awaiting it with some curiosity. I read, however, in one of the reviews, of his
tribute to his wife. ‘My wife,’ he says, ‘with a devotion quite unparalleled,
gave me her support by accompanying me, at my earnest wish, through the War of
the Rebellion, and made for me a home wherever I was stationed in command.
Returning home with me after I retired to civil and political life, Mrs. Butler
remained the same good adviser, educating and guiding her children during their
young lives with such skill and success that neither of them ever did an act
which caused me serious sorrow or gave the least anxiety on their behalf. . . .
“I had the great honor and pleasure of knowing Mrs. Butler,
and this allusion of her husband brings her to mind. I have often thought if I
were in the book-writing business that I should sketch a few lives which have
come within the range of my own; lives based upon a perfect marriage. That of
General Butler should have the first place. His marriage was one of singular
felicity. Mrs. Butler was a woman of extraordinary ability, in intellectual
force the equal of the General, and that means a great deal; for in mental
force Butler is one of the first men of the age. She had more self-command than
the General, had a singular grace and dignity, a consciousness of power and
genius which attracted you with a sentiment of respect and admiration. She was
an exquisite reader, and only surpassed in my knowledge by Fanny Kemble.
Shakespeare she knew by heart, and, Mr. Donelly will be pleased to learn, had
anticipated him in the acceptance of the Baconian theory. She even believed
that the music and the imagination of Shakespeare could be found in Bacon, and
I remember her reading, one summer evening at her Washington home, many parallel
passages in support of this theory.
“It is not, however, the intellectual side of Mrs. Butler
that comes back to me now, thinking of her as I read her husband's tribute to
her memory, but her high, serene womanliness. Her power over the General was unbounded.
‘I have never,’ he once said to The Spectator, ‘done anything of any
import without taking counsel of my wife, and I have never made a mistake
except when I failed to follow her advice. This is high praise. I am proud to
write it, as due to a noble and gracious memory. Her influence was always for
gentleness, peace, mercy; and how much this must have meant at the side of that
proud, turbulent nature. . . .
JoHN RUSSELL YoUNG (The Spectator)
1 His daughter, aged 13, who was at the
Georgetown Convent, D.C.
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. 1-2;
