Urbana Union

Maj. General B. F. Butler
The following is from the Philadelphia Bulletin:—About the nearest representative to
the ideal American whom we can name is
Maj. Gen. Benj. F. Butler. It is a tradition
that no man on earth so easily falls into a new
position or profession as an American and that
no one can so easily teach school, peddle no-
tions work a farm, run a mill, invent a pat-
ent, edit a newspaper, become a clergyman,
or make a political speech. In this peculiar
tact at managing novel things: Gen. Butler
is a perfect Alcibiades, with far more steadi-
ness and grit than the elegant Athenian, and
he seems to become more thoroughly appreci-
ated every day. No one had a shadow of an
idea how to deal with the negroes creeping
into our lines, until General Butler made his
famous "contraband" decision at Fortress
Monroe; while he managed his troops admi-
rably when Baltimore was rioting in April
1861, and the great need of the nation was
volunteers to save the capital.
Since he has been at New Orleans he has
proved his tact in a thousand ways, in the face
of dangers and difficulties which would have
deterred almost any military man. No one
knows better when to be severe than he, and
yet we have to hear the first complaint against
him on the score of injustice. He is never to
be caught asleep by the traitor, the most fasci-
nating female rebel or the most hypocritical
foreign diplomat. He does not temporize an
hour with a lying politician who refuses to
become loyal, a municipal legislature which
has not truth enough in it to keep it from rot-
tenness. Thugs and thieves he lays a heavy
but equitable hand upon, without fear and he
shows a benevolence towards the starving
poor of which the annals of war have few
parallels. Even his famous "woman order,"
which brought crocodile tears to the eyes of
John Bull, seems to have accomplished its pur-
pose without a single respectable female having
been insulted, while no one who has ever
encountered the foul language of a rebel fe-
male will acknowledge that any thing less
severe would have impressed those creatures
in a salutary manner.