To secure the surrender of arms still secreted, the following stringent general order was issued:

"NEW ORLEANS, August 16, 1862.

Ordered, That after Tuesday, 19th inst., there be paid for information leading to the discovery of weapons not held under a written permit from the United States authorities, but retained and concealed by the keepers thereof, the sums following:

For each serviceable gun, musket or rifle.

$10

"Said arms to be confiscated, and the keeper so concealing them to be punished by imprisonment.

"The crime being an overt act of rebellion against the authority of the United States, whether by a citizen or an alien, works a forfeiture of the property of the offender, and, therefore, every slave giving information that shall discover the concealed arms of his or her master, shall be held to be emancipated.

"II. As the United States authorities have disarmed the inhabitants of the parish of Orleans, and as some fearful citizens seem to think it necessary that they should have arms to protect themselves from violence, it is ordered,

"That hereafter, the offenses of robbery by violence or aggravated assault that ought to be replied by the use of deadly weapons, burglaries, rapes and murders, whether committed by blacks or whites, will be, on conviction, punished by death."

Union men, known and tried, were permitted to keep their arms. To one or two old soldiers of the war of 1812, the privilege was accorded of retaining the weapons once honorably borne in the service of their country. Many weapons were, doubtless, still secreted; but, for all purposes of co-operation with an attacking force, New Orleans was disarmed. The whole number of surrendered weapons was about six thousand.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CONFISCATION ACT.

THE act of Congress confiscating the property of rebellious citizens was approved July 17th.

Before the passage of the act, General Butler had taken the liberty to "sequester" the estates of those two notorious traitors, General Twiggs and John Slidell, both of whom possessed large property in New Orleans. These estates he held for the adjudication of the government, and, in the mean time, selected the spacious mansion of General Twiggs for his own residence and that of a portion of his staff. Among the papers found in this house were certain letters which tended to show that Twiggs had sought the command in Texas with a view to the betrayal of his trust, a crime only once paralleled in the history of the country. Twiggs fled from New Orleans on the approach of the fleet, conscious that such turpitude as his could not fail to meet its just retribution. He died soon after, but not before he had heard that the flag of his betrayed country floated over his residence as the head-quarters of the army of occupation.

Three swords, presented to him for his gallantry in Mexico, one by Congress, one by the state of Georgia, his native state, one by Augusta, his native city, were left behind in the custody of a young lady, and fell into the hands of General Butler. The young lady claimed them as her own. She said that General Twiggs had given them to her on new-year's day, with a box of family silver, alleging as a reason for this strange gift the recent death of a beloved niece to whom he had previously bequeathed them. Three facts were elicited which induced the general to set aside her claim. One was, that Twiggs had brought the articles to the young lady's residence, not on new-year's day, but at the moment of his flight from the city. Another was, that she had never mentioned so extraordinary a present to any member of her family-as appeared on the separate examination of each. Another was, that General Twiggs had left with the articles the document following: "I

leave my swords to Miss Rowena Florence, and box of silver. New Orleans, April 25, 1862. D. E. TWIGGS :" which was hastily written in the carriage at the door.

General Butler ventured to disbelieve Miss Rowena Florence, and sent the swords to the president of the United States. He suggested that the one presented by congress should be given to some officer distinguished in the war; that the one given by the state of Georgia, should be deposited at the military academy at West Point, with a suitable inscription, as a warning to the cadets; and that the third should be placed in the patent office as a memento of the folly of such an "invention " as secession. In forwarding the swords to congress, the president remarked, that if either of them were presented to an officer of the army, "General Butler is entitled to the first consideration.”

The sword voted by Kentucky to General Zachary Taylor, was rescued by General Butler from disloyal hands in New Orleans. He sent it to the son of the late president-Brigadier-General Joseph Taylor of the Union army.

The confiscation act, it will be remembered, divided rebels into two classes. The property of one class was to be confiscated at once, or as soon as it fell into the possession of the United States; the property of the other class was to be confiscated after sixty days' warning. The first class consisted of all military and naval officers commanding rebels in arms; the president, vice president, judges, members of congress, cabinet ministers, foreign emissaries, and other agents of the Confederate States; the governors and judges of seceded states; in short, all who hold office under the Confederate government, or under the government of a seceded state, as well as citizens of loyal states who gave aid and comfort to the rebellion. The second class included the great mass of the privates in the Confederate army and navy, and all unofficial abettors of the rebellion. The property of these last was to be declared confiscated sixty days after the date of the president's proclamation warning them to lay down their arms and return to their allegiance. As this proclamation was issued on the 25th of July, the days of grace expired on the 23d of September.

With this explanation, the reader will understand the object of the following general order, and will be able to imagine its effect upon the secessionists of New Orleans:

"NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 13, 1862.

"As in the course of ten days it may become necessary to distinguish the disloyal from the loyal citizens and honest neutral foreigners residing in this department:

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“It is ordered, That each neutral foreigner, resident in this department, shall present himself, with the evidence of his nationality, to the nearest provost-marshal for registration of himself and his family.

"This registration shall include the following particulars:

"The country of birth.

"The length of time the person has resided within the United States. "The names of his family.

"The present place of residence, by street, number or other description. "The occupation.

"The date of protection or certificate of nationality, which shall be indorsed by the passport-clerk, 'registered,' with date of register.

"All false or simulated claims of foreign allegiance, by native or naturalized citizens, will be severely punished.”

This premonition of coming retribution called attention anew to the clause of the confiscation act which declared all conveyances of property made after the expiration of the sixty days to be void. Instantly there began such a universal transferring of property as no city had ever before seen. Property was given away; property was sold for next to nothing; all the known expedients for getting rid of property were employed; until it seemed probable that by the 23d of September, not a rebel in New Orleans would be found to possess anything whatever, and the entire wealth of the city would be held by that portion of the people who had taken the oath of allegiance, or by parties at a great distance, and inaccessible, or by minors and women. General Butler determined to use his autocratic authority to put a stop to these fictitious transfers. The following general order accomplished this purpose.

"NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 1862.

"I. All transfers of property, or rights of property, real, mixed, personal or incorporeal, except necessary food, medicine and clothing, either by way of sale, gift, pledge, payment, lease or loan, by an inhabitant of this department, who has not returned to his or her allegiance to the United States (having once been a citizen thereof), are forbidden and void, and the person transferring and the person receiving shall be punished by fine or imprisonment, or both.

"II. All registers of the transfer of certificates of stock or shares in any

incorporated or joint-stock company or association, in which any inhabitant of this department, who has not returned to his or her allegiance to the United States (having once been a citizen thereof), has any interest, are forbidden, and the clerk or other officer making or recording the transfer will be held equally guilty with the transferrer."

And more. Some wise men of New Orleans, foreseeing the evil, had long ago reduced themselves to fictitious beggary. The decisions of Mr. Reverdy Johnson, sustained by the government, had given rise to the impression that papers made out in the forms of law, would be permitted to nullify an act of Congress, as well as set at naught the decrees of General Butler. Many men of wealth had acted upon this impression, "making over" valuable estates to others, for considerations that were ridiculously small. General Butler seized and "sequestered" some property thus transferred, holding it for the government to decide upon the legality of such proceedings. One noted case of this kind he selected as a test, and submitted it to the secretary of state. The dispatch in which the particulars were detailed, shall be presented here, for the light it throws upon the state of things in New Orleans and the peculiar difficulties of General Butler's position. It is fair to guess that this dispatch had something to do with General Butler's recall from the Department of the Gulf,—a measure which was not suggested by the president.

GENERAL BUTLER TO MR. SEWARD.

"HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, "NEW ORLEANS, September 19, 1862.

"Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State:

"SIR:-I have the honor to report to you the following facts:

"C. McDonald Fago, a British subject, resident many years in New Orleans, is about to make claim to the property of Wright & Allen in New Orleans, which has been taken possession of by the United States authorities here under the following state of facts:

'Wright & Allen are cotton-brokers, who claim to have property outside of New Orleans of two millions of dollars. They are most rabid rebels, and were of those who published a card advising the planters not to send forward their crop of cotton for the purpose of inducing foreign intervention. “Soon after we came to New Orleans, they mortgaged their real estate here, consisting of a house, for $60,000, to planters in the state of Arkansas, and then sold the equity, together with their furniture, for $5,000 to Mr. Fago; paying about four thousand five hundred dollars per annum interest