VP Beast Butler?

[L Verge]

"Should we allow Rebels of whatever era decide what to make of Ben Butler? It seems they overlook so much, rationalizing everything as bad because they lost the war. (I read something like this somewhere)"

And, we could turn that "truism" around and suggest that the victors (i.e. Northerners) rationalize that their side did everything right and honorable because they won the war. Let's face facts that both sides did bad things and made bad judgments and that there were many generals who should never have even been placed on a battlefield, let alone command other men. Is it our duty to try and sanitize every bad situation that occurred during those four, horrible years?

I'm one who thinks that Herb's great-grandfather's diary reveals exactly what some of Butler's men thought of him. To me, that's called a primary source - something that historians are always shouting about finding to prove a point. Let's not erase Grandpa's thoughts 150 years after he was there and experiencing things first hand.

In a previous post, Bill mentioned Mark Grimsley and his book on The Hard Hand of War. As most of you know, the Surratt conference in March will be our 16th annual one. Our first was in 2000, and we have followed a theme each year, beginning with Conference I, which focused on reasons why Lincoln came to be assassinated. Mr. Grimsley was one of our speakers at that first conference and really helped to set the stage for black flag warfare leading to increased atrocities and increased hatreds. There were some shocked registrants as they listened to what black flag warfare entailed.