General Butler characterized this incursion as "6 one of the most daring and successful exploits of the war, equal in dash, spirit, and cool courage, to anything attempted on either side. Major Strong and his officers and men deserve great credit. It may have been a little too daring, perhaps rash, but that has not been an epidemic fault with our officers."

No man who went with this expedition was surprised at the promotion of Major Strong to the rank of brigadier-general: still less at his splendid heroism in Charleston harbor. He was expressly formed to lead a forlorn hope upon an enterprise that was only one remove from the impossible. Like Winthrop, and so many other gallant spirits, he had given his life to his country long before the moment when the gift was accepted.

Conquest of Lafourche.

When the enemy had ceased to threaten New Orleans and its outposts, General Butler deemed it prudent to extend the area of conquest by reannexing the Lafourche district to the United States. A brigade of infantry, with the requisite artillery, and a body of cavalry, under an able and enterprising officer, Captain Perkins, was placed under the command of General Weitzel for this purpose. General Weitzel penetrated this wealthy and populous region in the last week of October. A series of rapid marches, one spirited action, and a number of minor combats, placed him in complete and permanent possession of the country in four days.

It was here that the negro question presented itself so appallingly to the mind of the commander of the invading force. "What shall I do about the negroes?" he wrote to head-quarters October 29th. "You can form no idea of the vicinity of my camp, nor can you form an idea of the appearance of my brigade as it marched down the bayou. My train was larger than an army train for 25,000 men. Every soldier had a negro marching in the flanks, carrying his knapsack. Plantation carts, filled with negro women and children, with their effects; and of course compelled to pillage for their subsistence, as I have no rations to issue to them. I have a great many more negroes in my camp now than I have whites. These negroes are a perfect nuisance."

And the next morning a party of General Weitzel's troops cap

tured four hundred wagon loads of negroes, which the enemy were attempting to carry with them in their retreat. There were in the whole district about 6,000 slaves, all of whom were in a ferment, and for the moment useless; especially in the neighborhood whence almost the whole white population had fled.

For several days it could be truly said of Lafourche that chaos had come again. But General Butler's abandoned plantation system was soon in operation, and restored the community to a tolerable degree of order and safety. The standing cane was gathered; the sugar-mills were set going; the negroes were merrily working at ten dollars a month; and the United States was reaping some of the advantage of their labor. A considerable number of the neges, freed by the confiscation act, found the way into their regiments of "Native Guards," a procedure that was not pleasing in the sight of General Weitzel.

By the conquest of Lafourche, an immense amount of property liable to confiscation fell into the hands of the commanding general. The people who remained on the plantations, made haste to endeav or to save their property by making fictitious transfers. Some of the officers of the invading force, finding large quantities of sugar lying about loose, which the owners were only too glad to sell at any price, caught the fever of speculation, and bought sugar to the extent of their means. General Butler visited the principal camp of occupation, and soon learned what was going on. Feeling that the whole army was in danger of demoralization if this speculation in sugar, and in commodities more portable, was allowed to continue, he determined to apply a sweeping remedy. He devised a scheme, which not only stopped this irregular speculation, but poured the whole of the proceeds of the forfeited property into the public treasury. He sequestered the entire district, and all that it contained, subject to the final adjudication of a commission of officers. The following general order unfolds his scheme. As none of General Butler's acts in Louisiana has caused, or is causing, so much outcry as this, the reader should read this order with particular attention. The order was executed to the letter:

"NEW ORLEANS, November 9, 1862. "The commanding general being informed, and believing, that the district west of the Mississippi river, lately taken possession of by the United

States troops, is most largely occupied by persons disloyal to the United States, and whose property has become liable to confiscation under the acts of congress and the proclamation of the president, and that sales and transfers of said property are being made for the purpose of depriving the government of the same, has determined, in order to secure the rights of all persons as well as those of the government, and for the purpose of enabling the crops now growing to be taken care of and secured, and the unemployed laborers to be set at work, and provision made for payment of their labor "To order, as follows:

"I. That all the property within the district to be known as the 'District of Lafourche' be and hereby is sequestered, and all sales or transfers are forbidden, and will be held invalid.

"II. The district of Lafourche will comprise all the territory in the state of Louisiana lying west of the Mississippi river, except the parishes of Plaquemines and Jefferson.

"III. That Major Joseph M. Bell, provost judge, president, LieutenantColonel J. B. Kinsman, A. D. C., Captain Fuller (75th N. Y. Vols.), provost-marshal of the district, be a commission to take possession of the property in said district, to make an accurate inventory of the same, and gather up and collect all such personal property, and turn over to the proper officers, upon their receipts, such of said property as may be required for the use of the United States army; to collect together all the other personal property, and bring the same to New Orleans and cause it to be sold at public auction to the highest bidders, and after deducting the necessary expenses of care, collection, and transportation, to hold the proceeds thereof subject to the just claims of loyal citizens and those neutral foreigners who in good faith shall appear to be the owners of the same.

"IV. Every loyal citizen or neutral foreigner who shall be found in actual possession and ownership of any property in said district, not having acquired the same by any title since the 18th day of September last, may have his property returned or delivered to him without sale, upon establishing his condition to the judgment of the commission.

"V. All sales made by any person not a loyal citizen or foreign neutral, since the 18th day of September, shall be held void; and all sales whatever made with the intent to deprive the government of its rights of confiscation, will be held void, at what time soever made.

"VI. The commission is authorized to employ in working the plantation of any person who has remained quietly at his home, whether he be loyal or disloyal, the negroes who may be found in said district, or who have, or may hereafter claim the protection of the United States, upon the terms set forth in a memorandum of a contract heretofore offered to the planters of the parishes of Plaquemines and St. Bernard, or white labor may be employed at the election of the commission.

"VII. The commissioners will cause to be purchased such supplies as may be necessary, and convey them to such convenient dépôts as to supply the planters in the making of the crop; which supplies will be charged against the crop manufactured, and shall constitute a lien thereon.

"VIII. The commissioners are authorized to work for the account of the United States such plantations as are deserted by their owners, or are held by disloyal owners, as may seem to them expedient, for the purpose of saving the crops.

"IX. Any persons who have not been actually in arms against the United States since the occupation of New Orleans by its forces, and who shall remain peaceably upon their plantations, affording no aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States, and who shall return to their allegiance, and who shall, by all reasonable methods, aid the United States when called upon, may be empowered by the commission to work their own plantations, to make their own crop, and to retain possession of their own property, except such as is necessary for the military uses of the United States. And to all such persons the commission are authorized to furnish means of transportation for their crops and supplies, at just and equitable prices.

"X. The commissioners are empowered and authorized to hear, determine, and definitely report upon all questions of the loyalty, disloyalty, or neutrality of the various claimants of property within said district; and farther, to report such persons as in their judgment ought to be recommended by the commanding general to the president for amnesty and pardon, so that they may have their property returned; to the end that all persons that are loyal may suffer as little injury as possible, and that all persons who have been heretofore disloyal, may have opportunity now to prove their loyalty and to return to their allegiance, and save their property from confiscation, if such shall be the determination of the government of the United States."

For six weeks the commissioners were employed in applying the confiscation act to the property in Lafourche, in establishing the loose negroes upon the abandoned lands, and in restoring to Union men their temporarily sequestered estates.

The chief labor of the ommission devolved upon Colonel Kinsman, as his associates had already their hands full of occupation. When the people came crowding about him professing loyalty to the Union, he reminded them that he had had the pleasure of visiting Lafourche in the month of May, when he had been informed that the inhabitants of Lafourche were united as one man against. the United States. He gave them to understand that the taking of the oath of allegiance, at the last moment, by men who had given

a thousand proofs of their complicity with treason, was not enough to secure their property from confiscation. The strict observance of this rule added, in the course of time, about a million dollars to the revenue of the United States, and deprived a large number of rebels of the means of doing harm. Colonel Kinsman had a most difficult duty to perform; one that tasked equally his sagacity and his firmness; and one that he shrank from undertaking. He acquitted himself well. He executed the order and the law with care and fidelity, and won the approval of all disinterested persons who had the means of judging his conduct. Some of the military speculators in sugar grumbled at the rigor of decisions which deprived them of anticipated gain, and all the victims of the confiscation act abhorred the officer who executed it. But the friends of the Union observed with admiration his tact and patience in investigating, and the impartial justice of his awards. A corrupt man in his situation could have made a fortune with absolute security against detection. He forbore even to buy a hogshead of confiscated sugar, which he would have liked to send as a present to his New England home, lest he should give a pretext for the tongue of slander.

Every dollar's worth of confiscated property was sold at New Orleans at public auction, of which previous notice was publicly given. No man had the slightest advantage over another in purchasing, and the entire proceeds of the sales were paid into the public treasury.

Every secessionist in Louisiana will tell you to-day, that this pure and faithful officer retired from Lafourche a millionaire. They will also assure you that the rest of the proceeds of the confiscated property were divided between General Butler and his brother. They really believe that the general sent at least two millions away for investment during the eight months of his administration.

I was myself informed by a gentleman fresh from New Orleans, who had spent several weeks in the society of that city, that General Butler had invested immense sums in New York lots. So he had been told in New Orleans; all secessionists in New Orleans believed it. "Corner lots," he particularly mentioned as objects of the general's ambition. As the two millions may not all have been expended, gentlemen having desirable corner lots to dispose of may, perhaps, find a purchaser somewhere in Lowell.

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