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are likely to be better informed upon this than I am. I have no wish to do anything but that which will show the men of Louisiana how great a good they were tempted to throw away when they were led to raise their hands against the constitution and laws of the United States.

"If this example of mercy is lost upon those in the same situation, swift justice can overtake others in like manner offending." The men were reprieved, and consigned to Ship Island "during the pleasure of the president of the United States." This was on the fourth of June. Mumford was to die on the seventh.

The scaffold was erected in front of the Mint, near the scene of his crime. To the last minute General Butler was earnestly implored to spare him. The venerable Dr. Mercer, a man of eighty honorable years, once the familiar friend and frequent host of Henry Clay, a gentleman of boundless generosity and benevolence, the patron of all that redeemed New Orleans, came to head-quarters an hour before the execution, to ask for Mumford's life.

"Give me this man's life, General," said he, while the tears rolled down his aged cheeks. "It is but a scratch of your pen.'

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"True," replied the general. "But a scratch of my pen could burn New Orleans. I could as soon do the one act as the other. I think one would be as wrong as the other.”

In truth, the reprieve of the six had rendered the saving of Mumford impossible. That act of mercy, like all the rest of General Butler's acts in New Orleans, was utterly misinterpreted by the people, who attributed it to weakness and cowardice. It was, and is, the conviction of the best informed officers and Union citizens then in New Orleans, that upon the question of hanging or sparing Mumford depended the final suppression or the continued turbulence of the mob of the city. Mumford hanged, the mob was subdued. Mumford spared, the mob remained to be quelled by final grape and canister. There was absolutely needed for the peaceful government of the city, a certainty that General Butler dared hang a rebel.

Mumford met his doom with the composure with which bad men usually die. He said that "the offense for which he was condemned was committed under excitement, and he did not consider he was suffering justly. He conjured all who heard him to act justly to all men; to rear their children properly; and when they met death

they would meet it firmly. He was prepared to die; and as he had never wronged any one, he hoped to receive mercy."

"The unconscious is the alone complete," says the German poet. It is only good people who, on the approach of death, are dismayed and ashamed at reviewing their lives-comparing what might have been with what has been.

An immense concourse beheld the execution. The turbulent spirits of New Orleans drew the proper inferences from the scene. Every one concerned in the administration of justice in the city felt a certain confidence, before unfelt, in their ability to rule the city without violence. Every soldier felt safer; and the friends of the Union had an assurance that, at length, they were really on the stronger side. Order reigned in Warsaw.

The name of Mumford, if we may believe Confederate newspapers, was immediately added to the "roll" of martyrs to the cause of liberty. The fugitive governor of Louisiana, from some safe retreat up the river, fulminated a proclamation about this time, in which he commented upon the death of Mumford in the style of eloquence familiar to the readers of De Bow's Review-a curious mixture of Patrick Henry and Bedlam.

"The loss of New Orleans," said he, "and the opening of the Mississippi, which will soon follow, have greatly increased our danger, and deprived us of many resources for defense. With less means, we have more to do than before. Every weapon we have, and all that our skillful mechanics can make, will be needed. Let every citizen be an armed sentinel, to give warning of any approach of the insolent foe. Let all our river banks swarm with armed patriots, to teach the hated invader that the rifle will be his only welcome on his errands of plunder and destruction. Wherever he dares to raise the hated emblem of tyranny, tear it down, and rend it in tatters.

"The noble heroism of the patriot Mumford, has placed his name high on the list of our martyred sons. When the federal navy reached New Orleans, a squad of marines was sent on shore, who hoisted their flag on the Mint. The city was not occupied by the United States troops, nor had they reached there. The place was not in their possession. William B. Mumford pulled down the detested symbol with his own hands, and for that was condemned to be hung by General Butler after his arrival. Brought in full

view of the scaffold, his murderers hoped to appall his heroic soul, by the exhibition of the implements of ignominious death. With the evidence of their determination to consummate their brutal purpose before his eyes, they offered him life on the condition that he would abjure his country, and swear allegiance to her foe. He spurned the offer. Scorning to stain his soul with such foul dishonor, he met his fate courageously, and has transmitted to his countrymen a fresh example of what men will do and dare when under the inspiration of fervid patriotism. I shall not forget the outrage of his murder, nor shall it pass unatoned.

"I am not introducing any new regulations for the conduct of our citizens, but am only placing before them those that every nation at war recognizes as necessary and proper to be enforced. It is needless, therefore, to say that they will not be relaxed. On the contrary, I am but awaiting the assistance and presence of the general appointed to the department, to inaugurate the most effectual method for their enforcement. It is well to repeat them:

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Trading with the enemy is prohibited under all circumstances. Traveling to and from New Orleans and other places occupied by the enemy is forbidden. All passengers will be arrested.

"Citizens going to those places, and returning with the enemy's usual passport, will be arrested.

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Conscripts or militia-men, having in possession such passports, and seeking to shun duty, under the pretext of a parole, shall be treated as public enemies. No such papers will be held as sufficient excuse for inaction by any citizen.

"The utmost vigilance must be used by officers and citizens in the detection of spies and salaried informers, and their apprehension promptly effected.

"Tories must suffer the fate that every betrayer of his country deserves.

"Confederate notes shall be received and used as the currency of the country.

"River steamboats must, in no case, be permitted to be captured. Burn them when they can not be saved.

"Provisions may be conveyed to New Orleans only in charge of officers, and under the precautionary regulations governing communication between belligerents.

"The loss of New Orleans, bitter humiliation as it was to Louisi

anians, has not created despondency, nor shaken our abiding faith in our success. Not to the eye of the enthusiastic patriot alone, who might be expected to color events with his hopes, but to the more impassioned gaze of the statesman that success was certain from the beginning. It is only the timid, the unreflecting, and the property owner, who thinks more of his possessions than his country, that will succumb to the depressing influences of disaster. The great heart of the people has swelled with more intense aspirations. for the cause the more it seemed to totter. Their confidence is well founded. The possession by the enemy of our seaboard and main water-courses ought to have been foreseen by us. His overwhelming naval force necessarily accomplished the same results attained by the British with the same force in their war of subjuga. tion. The final result will be the same," etc., etc.

CHAPTER XX.

GENERAL BUTLER AND THE FOREIGN CONSULS.

“WHATEVER else may be said of business in New Orleans," remarked the humorous Delta, 66 one thing is certain, consuls are lower."

Consuls were very high indeed during the first few weeks of the occupation of the city. Their position in New Orleans had been one of first-rate importance during the rebellion; for it was chiefly through the foreign capitalists of the city that the Confederacy had been supplied with arms and munitions of war, and it had been the congenial office of the consuls to afford them aid and pro tection in that lucrative business. They forgot that they were only consuls. They forgot the United States. Often communicating directly with the cabinet ministers of their countries, always flattered and made much of by the supporters of the rebellion, expecting with the most perfect confidence the triumph of secession, representing powers every one of which desired or counted upon

its success, they assumed the tone of embassadors; they courted the power which they assumed would finally rule in New Orleans, and held in contempt or aversion the one to which they were accredited.

These gentlemen gave General Butler more trouble, caused him more hard work, than any other class in New Orleans. They opposed every measure of his which could be supposed to bear upon any man of foreign origin. Mr. Seward was overrun with their protests, complaints and petitions. If the secretary of the treasury approved the commander of the Department of the Gulf as the cheapest of generals, the secretary of state found him much the most troublesome. The correspondence relating to this single subject would fill two or three volumes as large as this.

A collision between the foreign consuls and General Butler almost necessarily involved a difference between General Butler and Mr. Seward. The two men are moral antipodes. Mr. Seward has too little, General Butler has enough, of the spirit of warfare. Mr. Seward, by the constitution of his mind and the habits of thirty years, is a conciliator, one who shrinks from the final ordeal, who is reluctant to face the last consequences, skillful to postpone, explain away, and "make things pleasant." General Butler, on the contrary, rejoices in a clear issue, goes straight to the point, uses language that bears but one meaning, and "takes the responsibility" as naturally as he takes his breakfast. Mr. Seward so dreaded the approach of the war, that he was more than willing to make concessions which would pass the final, the inevitable conflict over to the next generation. General Butler picked up the glove with a feeling akin to exultation, and adopted war as the business of the country and his own, desiring no pause till the controversy was settled absolutely and for ever. Mr. Seward regarded the southern oligarchy as erring fellow-citizens, who could be won back to their allegiance. General Butler regarded them as traitors, utterly incapable of conversion, who could be rendered harmless only by being made powerless. Mr. Seward, as the head of the foreign department, felt that all his duties were subordinate to the one cardinal, central object of his policy, the maintenance of peace with foreign nations while the rebellion showed front. General Butler, always breasting the foremost wave of the rebellion, could not be very sensitive to the gentle murmurs of Mr.

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