A skirmish at Great Bethel, June 10, was unimportant in its results except that it caused the loss of twenty-five Union soldiers, Major Theodore Winthrop among the number, and was a defeat for the Northern army. This was quickly followed by the disastrous battle of Bull Run, which fairly aroused the North to action.
On August 18, General Butler resigned the command of the department of Virginia to General Wool, and accepted a command under him. The first duty entrusted to General Butler was an expedition sent to reduce the forts at Hatteras Inlet, in which with a small force he was successful.
Early in September, he was authorized by the war department to raise and equip six regiments of volunteers from New England for the war. This task was easy for the energetic general.
Early in the year 1862, the capture of New Orleans was undertaken, and General Butler was placed in command of the department of the Gulf, and fifteen thousand troops entrusted to him. After innumerable delays, the general with a part of his force arrived, March 20, 1862, at Ship Island, near the delta of the Mississippi River, at which rendezvous the rest of the troops had already been assembled. From this post the reduction of New Orleans was executed.
On the morning of April 24, the fleet under command of Captain Farragut succeeded in passing the forts, and a week later the transport Mississippi with General Butler and his troops was alongside the levee at New Orleans.
On December 16, 1862, General Butler formally surrendered the command of the department of the Gulf to General Banks. What General Butler did at New Orleans during the months he was in command in that city is a matter of history, and has been ably chronicled by James Parton. He there displayed those wonderful qualities of command which made him the most hated, as well as the most respected, Northern man who ever visited the South. He did more to subject the Southern people to the inevitable consequence of the war than a division of a hundred thousand soldiers. He even conquered that dread scourge, yellow fever, and demonstrated that lawlessness even in New Orleans could be suppressed.
The new channel for the James River, known as the Dutch Gap, planned by General Butler, and ridiculed by the press, but approved by the officers of the United States Engineer Corps, remains to this day the thoroughfare used by commerce.
The fame of General Butler's career at New Orleans, and his presence, quieted the fierce riots in New York City, occasioned by the drafts.
General Butler resigned his commission at the close of the war, and resumed the practice of his profession. He is now, and has been for many years, the senior major-general of all living men who have held that rank in the service of the United States.
IN CONGRESS
In 1867, Mr. Butler was elected to the fortieth Congress from the fifth congressional district of Massachusetts, and in 1869 from the sixth district. He was re-elected in 1871, 1873, and in 1877. He was a recognized power in the House of Representatives, and with the administration. In 1882, he was elected Governor of Massachusetts, and gracefully retired in December, 1883, to the disappointment of more than one hundred and fifty thousand Massachusetts voters.
Mr. Butler is a man of vast intellectual abilityin every sense of the word a great man. He possesses a remarkable memory, great executive abilities, good judgment, immense energy, and withal a tender heart. He has always been a champion of fair play and equal rights.
As an orator he has great power to sway his hearers, for his words are wise. Had the Democratic party listened to Mr. Butler at the Charleston convention, its power would have continued; had the South listened to him, it would not have seceded. Mr. Butler is a man who arouses popular enthusiasm, and who has a great personal following of devoted friends and admirers.
Books have already been written about himmore will follow in the years to come. He is the personification of the old ante bellum Democratic party of the Northern Statesa party that believed in the aggrandizement of the country, at home and abroad; which placed the rights of an American citizen before the gains of commerce; which fostered that commerce until it whitened the seas; and which provided for the reception of millions, who were sure to come to these shores, by acquiring large areas of territory.
This hastily prepared sketch gives but a meagre outline of this remarkable man, whose history is yet by no means completed.
THE BOUNDARY LINES OF OLD GROTON.II
By THE HON. SAMUEL ABBOTT GREEN, M.DThe report of the Comitty of the Honble Court vpon the petition of Concord Chelmsford Lancaster & Stow for a grant of part of Nashobe lands
Persuant to the directions giuen by this Honble Court bareng Date the 30th of May 1711 The Comity Reports as foloweth that is to say &ce
That on the second day of October 1711 the sd comitty went vpon the premises with an Artis and veved [viewed] and servaied the Land mentioned in the Peticion and find that the most southerly line of the plantation of Nashobe is bounded partly on Concord & partly on Stow and this line contains by Estimation vpon the servey a bought three miles & 50 polle The Westerly line Runs partly on Stowe & partly on land claimed by Groton and containes four miles and 20 poll extending to a place called Brown hill. The North line Runs a long curtain lands claimed by Groton and contains three miles, the Easterle line Runs partly on Chelmsford, and partly on a farm cald Powersis farm in Concord; this line contains a bought fouer miles and twenty fiue pole
The lands a boue mentioned wer shewed to vs for Nashobe Plantation and there were ancient marks in the seuerall lines fairly marked, And sd comite find vpon the servey that Groton hath Run into Nashobe (as it was showed to vs) so as to take out nere one half sd plantation and the bigest part of the medows, it appears to vs to Agree well with the report of Mr John Flint & Mr Joseph Wheeler who were a Commetty imployed by the County Court in midlesexs to Run the bounds of said plantation (June ye 20th 82) The plat will demonstrate how the plantation lyeth & how Groton coms in vpon it: as aleso the quaintete which is a bought 7840 acres
And said Comite are of the opinion that ther may [be] a township in that place it lying so remote from most of the neighboreng Towns, provided this Court shall se reson to continew the bounds as we do judg thay have been made at the first laieng out And that ther be sum addition from Concord & Chelmsford which we are redy to think will be complyed with by sd Towns And sd Comite do find a bought 15 famelys setled in sd plantation of Nashobe (5) in Groton claimed and ten in the remainder and 3 famelys which are allredy setled on the powerses farm: were convenient to joyn w sd plantation and are a bought Eaight mille to any meting-house (Also, ther are a bought Eaight famelys in Chelmsford which are allredy setled neer Nashobe line & six or seven miles from thir own meeting house
JONATHAN TYNG
THOMAS HOW
JOHN STEARNS
In the Houes of Representatives
Novm 2: 1711. Read
Octo. 23, 1713.
In Council
Read and accepted; And the Indians native Proprietors of the sd Plantacon. Being removed by death Except two or Three families only remaining Its Declared and Directed That the said Lands of Nashoba be preserved for a Township.