made by certain officers of Butler's staff with whom Smith dined and
spent the night at Fortress Monroe on his way home, that Butler
presented these reports in person to General Grant, without the
knowledge or concurrence of Meade or Burnside, and made them the basis
of a demand for Smith's immediate relief. Exactly what took place at
the interview must for reasons which will appear hereafter, always
remain a matter of conjecture. It however seems to be probable that had
General Smith deferred his leave of absence till he had seated himself
firmly in his new command, or had he been sent for and allowed to make
his own explanation, he would have been spared the humiliation, which
ended his military career, while the country would have continued to
receive the assistance of one of its greatest military minds.

General Smith, by his military writings, has not only refuted the
unjust criticisms of General Butler's Book, but he has modestly and
conclusively set forth his own military services during the various
campaigns in which he took part. He points out with pardonable pride
the friendship which sprang up during the Chattanooga campaign, between
himself and General Grant. He makes it clear that his failure to
capture Petersburg was due to a number of causes more or less potential
and altogether beyond his control. First among them was the physical
exhaustion of himself and his troops; second, an order which was sent
to him through the signal corps from General Butler, who was all day
June 15 at Point Lookout Signal Station, to stay his advance; and,
third, the failure of General Hancock, who was with the Second Corps
within supporting distance, to take up the movement and give the
finishing stroke to the day's work. To these should be added the
defective staff arrangements by which the various forces in the field
of operations were controlled, the inadequate strength of Smith's
command, which was inexcusable where such a vast force was within call,