Reviews for When the Devil Came down to Dixie: Ben Butler in New Orleans

The average rating for When the Devil Came down to Dixie: Ben Butler in New Orleans based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-11-22 00:00:00 Masaaki Ando The motto for Louisiana politics is "We don't tolerate corruption, we demand it." Although Ben Butler spent only eight months in New Orleans as military governor during the Civil War and his term was neither demanded nor tolerated, he stands head and shoulders above any in the political history of the state for his ability to make corruption an art. He arrived in New Orleans with a military budget of $75 and left the U.S. Treasury more than $1 million, which turned out to be much less than it should have been. He also arrived with a net worth of $150,000. By 1868 it was at least $3 million. When he died in 1893, it reached more than $7 million. Those eight months in New Orleans paid incredible dividends that, through legal and political manipulation, Butler was able to keep despite the overwhelming circumstantial evidence of graft that never stuck to him. Chester Hearn's remarkable, short biography of Butler portrays a man largely forgotten today who played a prominent role in some of the great political dramas of his time. With a remarkable gift of mining gems out of source material, Hearn describes how Butler "could not have imagined how many enemies he would accumulate during his lifetime, but there is little evidence to suggest he ever cared." Abraham Lincoln observed "General Butler is cross-eyed; I guess he don't see things the way other people do." A soldier, upon seeing Butler for the first time, may have been the most accurate in summing up the man writing, "on the whole, he seemed less like a major general than like a politician coaxing for votes." And that, ultimately, is what makes this book so valuable. Through Butler's story, we learn what it meant to be a political, rather than a military, general or officer in the Civil War. Butler was a gifted, successful, politically active lawyer from Lowell, Massachusetts. At the 1860 Democratic Convention, he voted for Jefferson Davis, later president of the so-called Confederate states, on fifty ballots before supporting John Breckinridge. When the Civil War began, he recruited thousands of troops for the Union and was rewarded with the rank of major general to lead forces stationed along the Virginia coastline. Though he saw no action, his actions to declare escaped slaves as property of the Union forces caused a minor dilemma. Although this could have caused a crisis in the northern Border States, "[t]he Republican Party quickly endorsed it, though it came from a Democrat, and the term contraband caught the public imagination and became an overnight appellation for runaway slaves." When naval captain David Dixon Porter proposed a plan to take New Orleans, a city of 160,000 that was more than four times larger than any other in the South and controlled much of its commerce, David Farragut was chosen to lead the expedition while Butler was put in charge of the army occupation force. Butler spent all of his time through the conquest of the city at the administrative headquarters on the Ship Island, a tiny beachhead of the Biloxi Gulf Coast while Farragut and Porter led the invading force up the Mississippi River. In a sign of thing to come, when Porter overcame the forts guarding New Orleans on the Mississippi, "Butler, despite the facts, always insisted that the victory was his and his alone" despite being ensconced on a small, mosquito-infested island. Butler arrived in the city on May 1, 1863 to a city that held great wealth but little organized resistance. Under the rules of engagement of that time, he confiscated a number of the best residences in town for himself and his staff. He allowed the resentful mayor and council to continue to administer the city, but they preferred to resist through inaction and obfuscation. Among his first orders was to clean the notoriously dirty city of garbage and to provide for the poor and sick of the city. When they did nothing, Butler delegated the authority to do so among his staff leading Porter, one of his strongest critics, to later remark that "the city was never so clean, healthy, and orderly as under his régime." But this was of little consequence to the people of New Orleans...or, despite this success, to Butler. Many people of the city, especially women, showed their open disgust for the federal troops: dumping filled chamber pots on passing soldiers, spitting in their faces, leaving streetcars when they entered, cursing them in passing, and showing their backsides as they stood on balconies, leading Butler to observe, "Those women evidently know which end of them looks the best." He responded with General Order No. 28 noting "officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans…it is ordered hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt…she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation." As Hearn writes, "Word of the order hit the streets of New Orleans like a giant keg of gunpowder." It exploded in the city, throughout the South and around the world. Charles Sumner wrote Butler that French newspapers now refused to mention his name and "The name of Marlboro was once used in France to frighten children'more than a century ago. You have taken his place." In New Orleans "the ladies of the bordellos took [Butler's portraits] to their rooms and pasted them to the bottom of their tinkle-pots." While this created fodder for the press, indignation in town, and led to a number of arrests and temporary banishments to Ship Island, it hid a number of other, more important issues. Butler would have been at home in today's media of bloviating distraction. He executed a loud-mouthed protestor who dared to wear a piece of desecrated flag in his lapel (although to Butler's credit, he looked out for the widow and her children for the rest of his life). He engaged in open conflict with the consuls from France, Great Britain, Prussia and Greece, which led to incredible diplomatic headaches for Secretary of State Seward and Lincoln. But most importantly, he created cover for his brother to loot and cheat his way to illicit fortunes. Andrew Butler, known as the "Colonel" even though he never received a commission, ran a number of scams which included shipping cotton, sugar and other supplies to the North and flour and other needed supplies in the South, mostly with the use of federal ships and resources. He would pay the government the cost of the supplies and add incredible markups which he pocketed, leading Hearn to conclude "Andrew's multiple monopolistic business ventures probably did more to retard the revival of the city's stores than brother Ben's proclamations." They took advantage of the Confiscation Acts to plunder the belongings of Confederate soldiers and their families, which led to the nickname "Spoons" Butler, given to him for allegedly taking the silver spoons from widows. Even an inspector sent by Washington concluded, "He is such a smart man, that it would in any case, be difficult to discover what he wished to conceal." Lincoln finally decided that Butler was more trouble than he was worth and recalled Butler on December 24, 1863. But that was hardly the end of him. Because of his political power, he was eventually given command outside of Petersburg, Virginia. In another footnote in history, Butler was the first create black divisions of soldiers, which were later sanctioned by the Emancipation Proclamation. But his bumbling military acts led Grant to conclude that Butler could always snatch stalemate or worse out of the jaws of victory. After the Civil War, Butler was elected to Congress, became a Radical Republican, and took charge of the House politicking in the ill-fated attempt to impeach Andrew Johnson. As a Congressman, Butler became of the top spokesmen for the Grant administration, leading Hearn to conclude that "Historians who write of corruption in Grant's administration need look no further than Butler, who took good care of his friends…" A newspaper editor declared that the failure of Reconstruction "is due almost entirely to Butler." Later in his political career, Butler became a Democrat again and was elected governor of Massachusetts. Sometimes the best stories can often be found in some of the most despicable people. Butler only spent eight months of his life in New Orleans; it was the source of his wealth and place in history. In a state that has given us colorful characters like Jean Lafitte, Andrew Jackson (in the Battle of New Orleans), Huey and Earl Long, Edwin Edwards, David Duke, and more recently, David Vitter, Hearn's brilliant biography proves that Ben Butler occupies a place of distinction none of them could claim.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-08-27 00:00:00 William Keene An entertaining read, but is lacking the oomph that would make it five-stars. Kudos for footnotes though.