Lincoln's Scapegoat General: A Life of Benjamin F. Butler, 1818-1893 (review)

BOOKREVIEWS77 in many of the fiercest battles of the West, including Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro, and Atlanta; he saved the Army of Tennessee from destruction after the disaster of Missionary Ridge; he skillfully extricated his meager forces from Savannah as Sherman closed in upon the city; and in North Carolina he waged a stubborn delaying action against Sherman that enabled Joseph E. Johnston to concentrate his troops for a last futile engagement at Bentonville. The lack of substantial quantities of Hardee's personal letters and papers has forced Hughes to rely principally upon official records, which he has employed with diligence and good judgment. His treatment of the more controversial aspects of Hardee's military career—such as his role in the removal of Bragg as commander of the Army of Tennessee after Missionary Ridge, and the accusations of failure brought against Hardee by General Hood after the Atlanta campaign—are sympathetic to Hardee, yet judicious and restrained. An abundance of official records has enabled Mr. Hughes to produce an excellent portrait of Hardee the general, but the shortage of personal papers has somewhat constricted the portrait of Hardee the man. Mr. Hughes is not to be blamed for this lack of personal sources; he has effectively used what he was able to locate. A grave weakness of the book is its lack of even a single map to support the accounts of Hardee's military operations. Altogether, however, this work ought to prove both interesting and informative to students of the Civil War and of military affairs generally. Charles P. Roland Tulane University Lincoln's Scapegoat General: A Life of Benjamin F. Butler, 18181893 . By Richard S. West, Jr. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965. Pp. xvi, 462. $7.50.) Benjamin F. Butler has long been one of the most maligned Civil War generals. Called a tyrannical beast and despoiler of southern women, he has been accused of crimes ranging from stealing silver spoons to carrying away kegs of gold from New Orleans. That he debauched his native Massachusetts as well as conquered areas in the South has long been accepted as fact. At best he has been dismissed as a political general, incompetent in war and unscrupulous in peace. As a symbol of all that seemed nefarious during Grant's administration, it was probably no mere accident that for sixty years after his death, this most colorful politiciangeneral never found a biographer. This lack has since been corrected. In three biographies published within the last twelve years, the general's actions have been re-examined. Professor West is the third writer to have reached the conclusion that the old picture was grossly overdrawn, and that there is much to be said in the general's favor. In this readable, well-written book, the author has presented his hero as a hard-working lawyer from the wrong side of the 78CIVIL WAR HISTORY tracks who became a scapegoat for sins he did not commit. As West sees it, Butler deserves high praise for coming to the relief of beleaguered Washington in 1861, for calling slaves "contraband of war," and for efficiently governing New Orleans after the conquest of the city. Admiring his subject for a life-long championship of the rights of labor, despite bitter opposition from New England Brahmins, the author has portrayed the general as a liberal reformer, and of all three modern treatments , the present volume is probably the most laudatory. It is not surprising that Professor West, the biographer of Admiral David D. Porter and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, should have emphasized the military aspects of Butler's career. The details of his operations in various theaters of war, especially the amphibious expeditions , are ail here, and the lover of military lore will find the appropriate chapters rewarding. The author has devoted considerable space to Butler 's early life and legal successes, and since this volume is based largely on the Butler Papers in the Library of Congress, the general's private affairs have received a great deal of attention. Butler's family was important to him; he adored his wife and children, and West has done well in emphasizing this aspect of his subject...