fectual stop to the operations of Confederate agents, who were illicitly obtaining supplies for their cause. New Or leans found that "Butler was no sham, but a most thor ough proconsular reality." Execution of He arrested Mumford, the person who had hauled down the national flag at the Mint, brought him before a military commission, convicted and executed him. On this the Confederate President issued the following proclamation (December 23d, 1862): felon by Davis. "I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of AmerButler proclaimed a ica, in their name, do pronounce and declare the said Benjamin F. Butler a felon deserving capital punishment. I do order that he be no longer considered or treated simply as a public enemy of the Confederate States of America, but as an outlaw and common enemy of mankind; and that, in the event of his capture, the officer in command of the capturing force do cause him to be immediately executed by hanging; and I do further order that no commissioned officer of the United States taken captive shall be released on parole before exchange until the said Butler shall have met with due punishment for his crimes. All commissioned officers in the command of the said Benjamin F. Butler are declared not entitled to be considered as soldiers engaged in honorable warfare, but as robbers and criminals deserving death, and that they and each of them be, whenever captured, reserved for execution." Some women of New Orleans, relying on the immunity National officers in- of their sex, gratified their animosity by insulted by women. sulting national officers in public places. One of them ventured so far as to spit in the face of an officer who was quietly walking in the street. Hereupon was issued "GENERAL ORDER No. 28.-As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subjected to repeated inThe woman order. sults from the women (calling themselves lad ies) of any and female New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter, when shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and CHAP. LII.] THE FRENCH CONSUL. 345 held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation." Butler suspends the ties. Finding that it was impossible to co-ordinate the national authority, of which he was the repremunicipal authori- sentative, with the municipal authorities, who openly sustained the Confederate cause, he suspended them. A French war ship, supposed to be the precursor of a French fleet, having come into the riv er, and the Common Council having presumed to offer the hospitalities of the port, Butler, considering the disCase of the French position which the French government had manifested to intermeddle in American affairs, ordered the Council to revise its action, and gave it to understand that the United States authorities were the only ones in New Orleans capable of dealing with foreign nations. war ship. His dealings with the numerous and insubordinate Accusations against foreign population of New Orleans brought the French cousul. him into collision with the foreign consuls. "Count Mejan" (the French consul), Butler declared," has connived at the delivery of clothing for the Confederate army since the occupation of New Orleans by the Federal forces; he has taken away nearly half a million of specie to aid the Confederates. His flag has been made to cov er all manner of illegal and hostile transactions, and the booty arising therefrom." The feeling of personal hatred to Butler grew daily more and more intense. He was accused Counter-accusations against Butler. of improper tampering with the banks, speculating in sequestrated property, and, through the agency of his brother, carrying on illegal but profitable transac tions in sugar and cotton-in short, prostituting his office for personal gain. In South Carolina a reward of $10,000 had been offered for his assassination. Throughout the Confederacy he received an ignominious surname, and was known as " Butler the Beast." The government felt Investigation of his constrained to send a commissioner to New transactions. Orleans to investigate his transactions. Its conclusion was that he had evidently acted" under a misapprehension, to be referred to the patriotic zeal which governs him, to the circumstances encircling his command at the time, so well calculated to excite suspicion, and to an earnest desire to punish, to the extent of his supposed power, all who had contributed, or were contributing, to the aid of a rebellion the most unjustifiable and wicked that insane or bad men were ever engaged in." The French government recalled its consul; the American recalled Butler, General Banks arriving in New Orleans (December 14th) to take his place. In a farewell address to the peo The French consul and Butler removed from New Orleans. address. ple of that city, General Butler said: "Commanding the Army of the Gulf, I found you capButler's farewell tured, but not surrendered; conquered, but not orderly; relieved from the pressure of an army, but incapable of taking care of yourselves. I restored order, punished crime, opened commerce, brought provisions to your starving people, reformed your curren cy, and gave you protection such as you had not enjoyed for many years. Whoever has quietly remained about his business, affording neither aid nor comfort to the enemies of the United States, has never been interfered with by the soldiers of the United States. He states what he had done for the people. He defends his conduct to their wom en, "Some of your women flouted at the presence of those who came to protect them. By a simple order, I called upon every soldier of this army to treat the women of New Orleans as gentlemen should deal with the sex, with such effect that I now call upon the just-minded ladies of just-minded ladies. New Orleans to say whether they ever en and appeals to their CHAP. LII.] BUTLER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 347 joyed so complete protection and calm quiet for themselves and their families as since the advent of the United States troops. The principles of his administration. "I hold that rebellion is treason, and that rebellion persisted in is death, and any punishment short of that due to a traitor gives so much clear gain to him from the clemency of the government. Upon this thesis have I administered the authority of the United States. I might have regaled you with the amenities of British civilization, and yet been within the supposed rules of civilized warfare. Your property could have been turned over to indiscriminate "loot," like the palace of the Emperor of China; works of art which adorned your buildings might have been sent away like the paintings of the Vatican; your sons might have been blown from the mouths of cannon like the Sepoys of Delhi, and yet all this would have been within the rules of civilized warfare as prac He has abstained from authorized barbarities, ticed by the most polished and the most hypocritical nations of Europe. But I have not so conducted. On the contrary, the worst punishment inflicted, except for criminal acts, punishable by every law, has been banishment, with labor, to a barren island where I encamped my own soldiers before marching here." and has fed the "I have levied upon the wealthy rebels and paid out nearly half a million of dollars to feed 40,000 starving poor. of the starving poor of all nations assembled here, made so by this war. I saw that this rebellion was a war of the aristocrats against the middling men—of the rich against the poor-a war of the landowner against the laborer; that it was a struggle for the retention of power in the hands of the few against the many, and I found no conclusion to it save in the subjugation of the few and disenthralment of the many. I therefore felt no hesitation in taking the substance of the wealthy, who had caused the war, to feed the innocent poor who suf fered by it; and I shall now leave you with the proud consciousness that I carry with me the blessings of the humble and loyal under the roof of the cottage and in the cabin of the slave, and so am quite content to incur the sneers of the salon or the curses of the rich. He has shown that erned by kindness, "I found you trembling at the terror of servile insurrection; all danger of this I have prevented slaves may be gov- by so treating the slave that he had no cause to rebel. I found the dungeon, the chain, and the lash your only means of enforcing obedi ence on your servants. I leave them peaceful, laborious, controlled by the laws of kindness and justice. and that pestilence the city. "I have demonstrated that the pestilence can be kept from your borders; I have added a million may be kept out of of dollars to your wealth in the form of new land from the batture of the Mississippi. I have cleansed and improved your streets, canals, and public squares, and opened new avenues to unoccupied land. I have given you freedom of election greater than you ever enjoyed before. I have caused justice to be administered so impartially He has administered impartial justice. that your own advocates have unanimously complimented the judges of my appointment. "You have seen, therefore, the benefits of the laws and He appeals to the justice of the government against which you have rebelled. Why, then, will you not all return to your allegiance to that government, not with lip service, but with that of the heart? people, "There is but one thing that at this hour stands between you and the government, and that is slavery. The institution, cursed of God, which has taken its last refuge here, in His providence will be rooted out as the tares from the wheat, although the wheat be torn up with it. "I came among you by teachings, by habit of mind, by |