public notice of the conduct of the women. At first their exhibitions and affectations of spleen merely amused the objects of them; who were accustomed to relate them to their comrades as the jokes of the day. And, so far, no officers or soldiers had done or said anything in the way of retort. No man in New Orleans had been wronged, no woman had been treated with disrespect by the soldiers of the United States. These things were done while General Butler was feeding the poor of the city by thousands; while he was working night and day to start and restore the business of the city; while he was defending the people against the frauds of great capitalists; while he was maintaining such order in New Orleans as it had never known before; while he was maturing measures designed solely for the benefit of the city; while he was testifying in every way, by word and deed, his heartfelt desire to exert all the great powers intrusted to him for the good of New Orleans and Louisiana.

It can not be denied that both officers and men became, at length, very sensitive to these annoyances. Complaints to the general were frequent. Colonels of regiments requested to be informed what orders they should give their men on the subject, and the younger staff officers often asked the general to save them from indignities which they could neither resent nor endure. Why, indeed, should he permit his brave and virtuous New England soldiers to be insulted by these silly, vulgar creatures, spoiled by contact with slavery? And how long could he trust the forbearance of the troops? These questions he had already considered, but the extreme difficulty of acting in such an affair with dignity and effect, had given him pause. But when the report of the spitting was brought to him, he determined to put a stop to such outrages before they provoked retaliation.

It has been said, that the false construction put upon General Order No. 28, by the enemies of the United States, was due to the carelessness with which it was composed. Mr. Seward, in his conversation on the subject with the English chargé, "regretted that, in the haste of composition, a phraseology which could be mistaken or perverted had been used." The secretary of state was never more mistaken. The order was penned with the utmost care and deliberation, and all its probable consequences discussed. The problem was, how to put an end to the insulting behavior of the

women without being obliged to resort to arrests. So far, New Orleans had been kept down by the mere show and presence of force; it was highly desirable, for reasons of humanity as well as policy, that this should continue to be the case. If the order had said: Any woman who insults a Union soldier shall be arrested, committed to the calaboose and fined,-there would have been women who would have courted the distinction of arrest, to the great peril of the public tranquillity. If anything at all could have roused the populace to resist the troops, surely it would have been the arrest of a well-dressed women, for so popular an act as insulting a soldier of the United States.

It was with the intent to accomplish the object without disturbance, that General Butler worded the order as we find it. The order was framed upon the model of one which he had read long ago in an ancient London chronicle.

"GENERAL ORDER No. 28:

"HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMEnt of the Gulf, 'NEW ORLEANS, May 15, 1862.

"As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation."

"By command of

"GEO. C. STRONG, A. A. G., Chief of Staff."

MAJOR-GENERAL BUTLER.

That is, she shall be held liable, according to the law of New Orleans, to be arrested, detained over night in the calaboose, brought before a magistrate in the morning, and fined five dollars.

When the order had been written, and was about to be consigned to irrevocable print, a leading member of the staff (Major Strong) said to General Butler:

“After all, general, is it not possible that some of the troops may misunderstand the order? It would be a great scandal if only one man should act upon it in the wrong way."

"Let us, then," replied the general, "have one case of aggression on our side. I shall know how to deal with that case, so that

it will never be repeated. So far, all the aggression has been against us. Here we are, conquerors in a conquered city; we have respected every right, tried every means of conciliation, complied with every reasonable desire; and yet we can not walk the streets without being outraged and spit upon by green girls. I do not fear the troops; but if aggression must be, let it not be all against us."

General Butler was, of course, perfectly aware, as we are, that if he had expressly commanded his troops to outrage and ravish every woman who insulted them, those men of New England and the West would not have thought of obeying him. If one miscreant among them had attempted it, the public opinion of his regi ment would have crushed him. Every one who knows the men of that army feels how impossible it was that any of them should practically misinterpret an order of which the proper and innocent meaning was so palpable.

The order was published. Its success was immediate and perfect. Not that the women did not still continue, with the ingenuity of the sex, to manifest their repugnance to the troops. They did so. The piano still greeted the passing officer with rebel airs. The fair countenances of the ladies were still averted, and their skirts gently held aside. Still the balconies presented a view of the "back hair" of beauty. If the dear creatures did not leave the car when an officer entered it, they stirred not to give him room to sit down, and would not see his polite offer to hand their ticket to the driver. (No conductors in the street cars of New Orleans.) It was a fashion to affect sickness at the stomach on such occasions; which led the Delta to remark, that the ladies should remember that but for the presence of the Union forces some of the squeamish stomachs would have nothing in them. But the outrageous demonstrations ceased. No more insulting words were uttered; and all the affectations of disgust were such as could be easily and properly borne by officers and men. Gradually even these were discontinued.

I need not add, that in no instance was the order misunderstood on the part of the troops. No man in the whole world misunderstood it who was not glad of any pretext for reviling the sacred cause for which the United States has been called to contend. far from causing the women of New Orleans to be wronged or

So

molested, it was that which saved them from the only danger of molestation to which they were exposed. It threw around them the protection of law, not tore it away; and such was the completeness of its success, that not one arrest under Order No. 28 has ever been made.

General Butler was not long in discovering that the order was to be made the occasion of a prodigious hue and cry against his administration. The puppet mayor of New Orleans was the first to lift his little voice against it; which led to important consequences.

It had already become apparent to the general and to the officers aiding him, that two powers so hostile as the city government of New Orleans and the commander of the Department of the Gulf could not co-operate-could not long exist together. The mayor and common council had violated their compact with the general in every particular. They had agreed to clean the streets, and had not done it. They had engaged to enroll two hundred and fifty of the property-holders of the town to assist in keeping the peace, that General Butler might safely withdraw his troops. The two hundred and fifty proved to be men of the "Thug" species-the hangerson of the City Hall. The European Brigade was to be retained in service; the mayor disbanded it. Provisions had been sent out of the starving city to the hungry camp of General Lovell. Confederate notes, which had fallen to thirty cents, were redeemed by the city government at par, thus taxing the city one hundred cents to give thirty to the favorites of the mayor and council; for the redemption was not public and universal, but special and private. The tone and style of the city government, too, were a perpetual reiteration of the assertion, so dear to the deluded people of the city, that New Orleans had not been conquered-only overcome by "brute force." Nothing but the general's extreme desire to give the arrangement of May 4th so fair a trial that the whole world would hold him guiltless in dissolving it, prevented his seizing upon the government of the city on the ninth of May.

The following letter from General Butler to the mayor and council, will serve to show the state of feeling between them:

"HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT of the Gulf, NEW ORLEANS, May 16, 1862.

"To the Mayor and Gentlemen of the City Council of New Orleans: "In the report of your official action, published in the Bee of the 16th

instant, I find the following extracted resolutions, with the action of part of your body thereon, viz:

"The following preamble and resolution, offered by Mr. Stith, were read twice and adopted. The rules being suspended, were, on motion, sent to the assistant board.

"YEAS-Messrs. De Labarre, Forestall, Huckins, Rodin, and Stith-5. "Whereas, it has come to the knowledge of this council that, for the first time in the history of this city, a large fleet of the navy of France is about to visit New Orleans-of which fleet the Catinet, now in our port, is the pioneer--this council, bearing in grateful remembrance the many ties of amity and good feeling which unite the people of this city with those of France, to whose paternal protection New Orleans owes its foundation and early prosperity, and to whom it is especially grateful for the jealousy with which, in the cession of the state, it guaranteed all the rights of property, person, and religious freedom of its citizens

"Be it resolved, That the freedom and hospitalities of the city of New Orleans be tendered through the commander of the Catinet to the French naval fleet during its sojourn in our port; and that a committee of five of this council be appointed, with the mayor, to make such tender and such other arrangements as may be necessary to give effect to the same.

"Messrs. Stith and Forestall were appointed on the committee mentioned in the foregoing resolution.'

"This action is an insult, as well to the United States, as to the friendly and powerful nation toward whose officers it is directed. The offer of the freedom of a captured city by the captives would merit letters-patent for its novelty, were there not doubts of its usefulness as an invention. The tender of its hospitalities by a government to which police duties and sanitary regulations only are intrusted, is simply an invitation to the calaboose or the hospital. The United States authorities are the only ones here capable of dealing with amicable or unamicable nations, and will see to it that such acts of courtesy or assistance are extended to any armed vessel of the emperor of France as shall testify the national, traditional, and hereditary feelings of grateful remembrance with which the United States government and people appreciate the early aid of France, and her many acts of friendly regard, shown upon so many national and fitting occasions.

"The action of the city council in this behalf must be revised.

"Respectfully,

"B. F. BUTLER, Major-General Commanding."

Such being the temper of the parties, an explosion was to be expected upon the first occasion. Order No. 28 was the spark which blew up the city government.

On the day on which the order appeared in the newspapers, the