Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

When I turned my attention to the perfecting of my fortifications above New Orleans at Chalmette, on the upper side of the city, I met an unexpected obstacle. When that line was established, upon consultation with General Phelps I came to the conclusion that all the wood and timber must be cut down for a considerable distance in front of our line, from the river to the lake. I directed General Phelps to employ negroes, and cut down the timber and wood so as to clear that line.

He had a great number of escaped slaves in and about his camp. Sometime before that, he had asked me to permit him to organize them into military companies and drill them and furnish arms and equipments for them. I had told him it was impossible, because it was against the direct order of the President, who had just disbanded some negro troops organized by Hunter, and because the arms and equipments sent me were especially reserved for white troops only. He replied that he was not fit for slave-driving or slave-catching, and declined to obey my orders.

Now I loved General Phelps very much. He was a crank upon the slavery question solely; otherwise he was as good a soldier and commander as ever mounted a horse. I reasoned with him in every way. I showed him that Congress had just passed an act that forbade military companies to employ negroes, and now that we were at liberty to employ them, I wished he would go forward. I begged him to do so, but he answered very decisively that he would not. Before this he had sent me a very long, eloquent, able, and well-put argument in favor of our negroes as troops, requesting that I forward it to the President, which I did. If I had not been of his opinion before, I should have been fully convinced by that argument. He wound up this communication by saying that his commission was in the hands of the President.

I wrote to Phelps that whatever might be my own opinions, I could not, where there was no sufficient emergency, act against the orders I had received from my superior. As I gave the order for him to use the negroes in the way I directed, the matter was upon my conscience, not on his; he was the mere hand that executed it. I said, moreover, that I saw nothing of slave-catching or slave-driving in executing this command, especially as at Washington our own soldiers had cut away the timber in