THE FALL OF GENERAL BUTLER.
[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
New York, January 14,1865. THE event foreshadowed in my letter of December 31 has taken place. General Butler has been relieved of command, and ordered to report to the War Department at Lowell, Massachusetts, his place of residence. The order is of the same nature as that by which General M'Clellan was relieved soon after the battle of Antietam. He was ordered to report at Trenton, New Jersey, which was his place of residence. The step indicated a great con- fidence on the part of the Government of a very sure position,- not of a very sure tenure of office, for that under our conagitutiou is. a matter of course for four years to come, but of a sure hold upon the confidence of the people. Six months ago General Butler would have been relieved only in the very last extremity. The people trust him so implicitly, they so admire his sagacity and decision, they believe him so heartily in earnest in the cause both of the Re- public and of freedom, that an administration which felt the sup- port of any one man to be material to its stability or its effective working might well have shrunk from casting down such a buttress. But sometimes a step taken with apprehension, or even with dread, proves to be of no particular moment. The anticipated shock is not felt. So it is in this case. The news caused no sensation except a slight surprise, the usual curiosity as to why and where- fore, and the " too-bad " protest, very moderately urged, of the General's personal friends and admirers. This, however, indicates only the confidence of the people that the President and his Lieutenant-General will do only that which is best for the country, and the feeling that to this object all private interests and feelings and all personal ambition must, give way without a murmur. General Butler has lost none of the confidence or the admiration which his previous career won from his fellow-citizens. Whether he was in fault at Wilmington or not, they do not in general profess to have an opinion. They leave that question to the military tribunals. But it was not by military success that General Butler attained his eminence, and his loss of military prestige does him very little harm with the people. The forces which he wielded, which he has always wielded, were moral forces. His very use of material force, when he has used it, has had rather a moral than a strictly military effect. Before the war broke out, when in fact secession was little more than threatened, when the leaders of the projected insurrection were counting upon such a support in the Free States as would make the Government entirely powerless, and in fact seat them in Washington, and when some, nay, many, Northern men were justifying this expectation, General Butler at once and for ever turned his back upon his old political associates, declared that for him country was above party, and holding no parley with treason in any shape, would have seized and hanged out of hand the very men with whom a few months before he had been sitting in coun- cil. He saw first of all our public men that the secessionists meant either success peacefully or war to the utmost, and while we were all dallying and uncertain demanded prompt and vigorous measures. He saw that when the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, the advanced detach- ment of his command—he-a mere civilian general—was fired upon by the mob in Baltimore, the same mob would take measures to cut him off from the capital, and how they would do it, and while every one else was wondering what would come next he had devised and carried out a plan which saved both Washington and Maryland. It was he who, while other generals, with the approbation of the Government and the people, were re- turning to slaveholders outside of our lines slaves who had fled within them, and whom they had the face to come and ask for (our memory of the absurdity now makes us laugh), saw the folly and the wrong of such action, and who, by pro- nouncing the slave as being able to give aid and comfort to the enemy contraband of war,' presented an argument against his return to the bondage from which he had escaped which the most ingenious pro-slavery quibbler could not set aside. Since that time, taking the ground that the rebellion had freed us from the " filthy bargain " to which we were compelled in the constitution, and which, while it held, he was for fulfilling to the letter, he has not wavered in his devotion to the cause of universal freedom. Europe, remembering him chiefly by the petty incident of the New Orleans " woman order," may have forgotten all this. But we have not,—we never can forget it. Such a man may be sent into retirement, he cannot be consigned to obscurity.
It is directly asserted, and it is quite possible, that the Wil- mington affair is only the occasion, and not the cause of General Butler's removal. But from what I know of General Grant, who shoulders the whole responsibility of this step, I am inclined to think we are to find the all•suffticient reasons for it in the fatal delay caused by the experiment, i. e., the gunpowder-boat, and in the fact that General Butler went with the expedition, although he was not ordered or expected to do so, which incidents of the affair the Lieutenant-General mentions with pointed though reserved disapproval in the correspondence upon the subject which is given to the public this morning. Geueral Grant is intolerant of all fussing and " pottering," and he demands above all things prompt- ness and directness of action, and while within certain prescribed limits he gives his subordinates a large discretion as to the manner in which they will make the movements which he directs, he suffers no passage of those limits unless the event shows it to have been absolutely necessary to the attainment of the end indicated.
His confidence in Sherman is unquestioning, and him he only tells what he wishes to be done, and in a general way how but I believe that be would relieve Sherman himself if he had caused a delay like that in this Wilmington expedition for the sake of a pet experiment, and had gone himself when he was not ordered to go and the event had not justified his action. As to General Butler, in any case ' now comes the supreme test of his character. Will he, though disgraced, still be heartily loyal to the Republic and to freedom? If ay, he may be yet more eminent in his retirement than he was when in command. I believe that he will be true. But there are men, though few, and some of them Massachusetts men, too, who say that they believe him capable, should an opportunity offer, of re-appearing as a revolutionary leader for the overthrow of the Government which has dashed the hopes of his personal ambition. His farewell order to his troops is called by the Tribune "courageous, truthful, dignified, and modest." Perhaps it is all these. But it is also certainly strained and artificial, and only falls short of magniloquence. The paragraph addressed to the negro troops is particularly inappro- priate. It should have been as simple as possible, but, on the contrary, it mounts into metaphor. Think of telling poor Cuffee that he has " unlocked the gates of prejudice with his bayonet !" I notice this order because General Butler's usual style is simple, strong, and to the purpose, and because I have some hopes that my readers may remember what I now say about it in a reference which I propose to make to it hereafter.
Rumours of peace embassies and negotiations now occupy to a certain degree the public attention here, and judging by the past they will receive much more consideration than is due to them in Europe. Mr. Blair, an old gentleman of respectability and long ex- perience as a politician, thinks that he can do or say something in Richmond which will bring about a cessation of hostilities. Briefly, if he can induce the insurgents to lay down their arms he can do this something, but if not, then this physician also is " in wain." It is possible that pressed as the Confederate States find themselves with- out, and with an outspoken faction within which threatens the de- position of Mr. Davis and the setting up of General Lee as military dictator in his stead (which the articles from the Richmond papers that will reach you by this steamer will show you is the present con- dition of affairs within the Confederate lines), the people and many of the leading men of those States, except South Carolina, might be willing to return to what they call the " political partnership " on being treated with as the representatives of independent sove- reignties. There are indications of the existence of this feeling, and the representatives of Mr. Davis's Government denounce those who show it without measure, although according to their own theory, which, monstrous and ridiculous as it is, they cannot dis • puts, Georgia, or North Carolina, or Tennessee, has as perfect a right to leave the Confederacy as it had to leave the Union. But this point of distinct sovereignty is just the one which will not be conceded, directly or by implication. As to the leading men in Mr. Davis's Government and the " fire-eating " slaveholders, do not expect ever to see them yield. They have the true Satanic spirit, and will rule in hell rather than serve in heaven. Peace will not come until these men are no longer able to make war.
A YANKEE.
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