Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of General Benjamin F. Butler, 1818-1893 (review)

book reviews181 perous economy. He also pictured the Whigs as the true democrats, and attributed antidemocratic motives to every Jacksonian action. Colton was essentially a latter day Federalist who wanted to see the republic governed by wise, virtuous, propertied men aloof from the masses. At the same time, he preached the harmony of all social classes and the need for equality of opportunity. Colton was, in Professor Cave's view, "nearly obsessed" with a fear of social turmoil, whether it was brought on byradical reformers orJacksonian politicians. This summarization of Colton's thought makes little effort to go beyond Colton's words. One wonders if his views were common among Whigs, or if he was merely echoing others. An analysis of Colton's views in light of those of other conservatives such as Greeley, James Watson Webb, Philip Hone, Theodore Dwight, Orestes Brownson, William Sullivan , Chancellor Kent and Charles King would have greatly strengthened this treatise. It can, however, serve as a beginning point for those interested in nineteenth-century conservatism, or as a short cut for those who do not want to read Colton in the original. John D. Morris Kent State University Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of General Benjamin F. Butler, 18181893 . By Howard P. Nash, Jr. (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1969. Pp. 335. $10.00.) A book such as this puts a reviewer in a quandary. One is tempted to borrow the terse summary style of the writers of those reviews of the late shows which appear in the TV sections of our daily papers, say "Nothing new here. Save your $10," and let it go at that. There is no evidence that Mr. Nash reads this journal, so such brevity might escape his notice altogether. But for the record—. In his introduction, the author states that in writing the book he has come to like his subject as a person and that he feels previous biographers have not been fair to Butler. This book can be regarded therefore as an attempt to set the record straight. The more flamboyant aspects of Butler's life—his rise to prominence as the defender of the mill girls of Lynn; his apparently outrageous actions as the captor of Civil War New Orleans; his less-than-brilliant military performance in the eastern theater of the war; his management of the impeachment campaign against President Andrew Johnson; his lifelong attempts to achieve the governorship of Massachusetts—all are fairly well-known, and this volume adds nothing new. In fact, it is short of a good deal of information already available in other recent works on Butler , for the author has employed no manuscript sources other than Butler 's own. Even these, he admits, were used only for comparison checking with the printed versions in the Private and Official Correspondence of 182CIVIL war history Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Civil War, compiled and edited by Butler's grand-daughter, Jesse Ames Marshall. It has always seemed to me that anyone who wanted to brighten Butler 's image—and, indeed, to draw a more accurate picture of this very complex man who three times changed political parties—would do well to look into his correspondence with his daughter Blanche. These letters reveal him to be a man of warmth and humor, a loving father, and a person of considerable literary cultivation. A figure, in short, very difficult to match with the man who coldly separated Mrs. Philip Phillips from her children and sentenced her to desolate Ship Island. Unfortunately, Mr. Nash barely mentions Blanche Butler and makes no attempt to sort out Butler's complexities. Convinced that Butler has been maligned, he settles for an attack on James Ford Rhodes, the nineteenth -century historian who was, in Mr. Nash's view, solely responsible for the sorryview of Butler thathas been so longheld. There's little question that in some circles today the name of Benjamin F. Butler is still a dirty word; but the members of these circles probably haven't read Rhodes—nor, as is the case with the author himself, H. L. Tréfousse's first-rate The South Called Him Beast. Anyone who has...