The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, No. VI. June, 1884 | Page 3

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 ability--in 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 him--more will follow in the
years to come. He is the personification of the old ante bellum
Democratic party of the Northern States--a 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.D.
The report of the Comitty of the Hon'ble Court vpon the petition of
Concord Chelmsford Lancaster & Stow for a grant of part of Nashobe
lands
Persuant to the directions giuen by this Hon'ble Court bareng Date the
30'th of May 1711 The Comity Reports as foloweth that is to say &ce
That on the second day of October 1711 the s'd 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