for command in the field, and had with due deliberation reported that while “General Butler was a man of rare and great ability, he had not had either the training or experience to enable him to direct and control movements in battle.”  It was doubtless the verification of this report to Grant’s satisfaction that caused him finally to relieve that General from duty in the field, and in doing so to incur both his active and his covert hostility.

Meanwhile however valid and important, in either a military or a political sense, the considerations may have been which sent Butler out in command of an army with such men as Smith and Gilmore, both professional soldiers of the highest standing, as his subordinates, the arrangement was unfortunate from beginning to end, and from its very nature it was foredoomed to failure.  It is to be observed that while these admirable soldiers were constantly with their troops moving against or confronting the enemy, Butler was generally at Fortress Monroe, or at a more central point some distance in the rear, and when his orders were not ill-timed or inapplicable to the case in hand, they were not infrequently deemed impracticable, or at cross purposes with the convictions of the generals whose duty it was to carry them into effect.  The simple and incontrovertible fact is that General Butler’s presence with that army was from the start embarrassing if not absolutely unnecessary.  It interposed an intermediate commander between the generalissimo and two entire army corps, and however good the intentions of that commander or great his abilities, his principal influence was necessarily to derange and delay the orderly conduct and development of the campaign.  It was productive of no good whatever, and was besides in direct violation of the rule of experience which teaches that better results are to be expected with one poor commander in full authority than with two or more good ones liable to pull against each other.

The chief conclusion to be reached from these considerations, and from a study of the records, in connection with the writings and unpublished memoirs of General Smith, is that his conduct during the continuance, of the arrangement was not only natural and blameless, but that the failure of Butler’s army to play an important and decisive part, was due primarily, if not entirely, to Butler’s own misunderstanding or mismanagement of what was entrusted to him, or the inherent defects in the organization and staff arrangements of the Union forces operating in Virginia.  Under the conditions as they actually existed, effective co-operation and control, it has been shown, could not have been reasonably expected, and for this the verdict of the military critic and historian must be that the Lieutenant General who had ample power, if he chose to exercise it, was primarily responsible.  Under the incontrovertible facts of the case it is difficult to see how this conclusion can be avoided.