comparatively small fine from them and a com- | ernments, and were liable to two actions for inissioner of that same country refunds it because treason instead of one. of its impropriety.

promised his secession friends to hoist the rebel | fever, and nearly seven thousand deaths of all flag on his ship on the morning of the fourth. diseases. Slowly the disease continued to deThe general, I am told, avowed to a confidential crease, only for the want of victims, until on the member of his staff, his solemn and deliberate re- 6th of September (at which time these notes are solve, if the flag was officially displayed, to open transcribed), when it reached sixty-five deaths fire upon the ship with artillery. The hoisting by yellow fever, and ninety-five deaths of all diof the flag, he considered, would be more than seases. Looking back from this point, we find an insult to the United States; it would consti- that the whole number of deaths by yellow fever, tute the ship a rebel vessel, and, as such, she from its first appearance on the 28th May, were was to be fired upon, the very instant a Union seven thousand one hundred and eighty-ninegun could be brought to bear upon her. The re- deaths from all diseases nine thousand nine hunport proved to be false. dred and forty-one. But there are three hunStill more outrageous was the conduct of the dred and forty-four deaths the cause of which is Spanish man-of-war. It was in a Spanish vessel, not stated in the burial certificates. At least as we have seen, that the French consul shipped three-fourths of these may be set down to the his $405,000. Other Spanish vessels-of-war car-yellow fever column-which would add two hunried away passengers, treasure, plate, papers, dred and fifty more, and make the deaths by which were justly liable to seizure. "The deck yellow fever. seven thousand four hundred and of the Blasco de Garay," wrote General Butler thirty-nine. in October, "was literally crowded with passengers, selected with so little discrimination, that my detective officers found on board, as a passenger, an escaped convict of the penitentiary, who was in full Hight from a most brutal murder, with his booty robbed from his victim with him."tributed its share to the hecatombs of victims of On other Spanish ships several persons deeply implicated in the rebellion, guilty of hostile acts after the capture of the city, effected their escape to Havana, with large amounts of treasure. Hence the claim of General Butler to search departing vessels-of-war, and hence a ream of complaints and protests from Spanish officers.

THE QURANTINE IMBROGLIO.

It is not generally known at the North, that, in the worst years, the mortality from yellow fever in New Orleans exceeds that from any epidemic that has ever raged in a civilized community. It is worse than the modern cholera, worse than the small-pox before inoculation, worse than the ancient plague. A competent and entirely trustworthy writer gives the facts of the yellow fever season of 1853, the most fatal year ever known:

"Commencing on the 1st of August, with one hundred and six deaths by yellow fever, one hundred and forty-two by all diseases, the number increased daily, until for the first week, ending on the 7th, they amounted to nine hundred and nine deaths by yellow fever, one thousand one hundred and eighty-six of all diseases. The next week showed a continued increase: one thousand two hundred and eighty-eight yellow fever, one thousand five hundred and twenty-six of all diseases. This was believed to be the maximum. There had been nothing to equal it in the history of any previous epidemics; and no one believed it could be exceeded. But the next week gave a mournful refutation of these predictions and calculations; for that ever memorable week, the total deaths were one thousand five hundred and seventy-five, of yellow fever one thousand three hundred and forty-six. But the next week commenced more gloomily still. The deaths on the 22d of August were two hundred and eighty-three of all diseases, two hundred and thirty-nine of yellow fever. This proved to be the maximum mortality of the season. From this it began slowly to decrease. The month of August exhibited a grand total of five thousand one hundred and twenty-two deaths by yellow

"But do these figures include all the deaths? Alas! no. Hundreds have been buried of whom no note was taken, no record kept. Hundreds have died away from the city, in attempting to fly from it. Every steamer up the river con

the pestilence. Nor do these returns include those who have died in the suburbs, in the towns of Algiers and Jefferson City, in the villages of Gretna and Carrollton. But even these figures, deficient as they are, need no additions to swell them into proofs that the most destructive plague of modern times has just wreaked its vengeance upon New Orleans. Estimating the total deaths at eight thousand for three months, we have ten per cent. of the whole population of New Orleans. At this rate it will only require two years and four months to depopulate the city.

"But only the unacclimated are liable to the disease, and so we must exclude the old resident acclimated population, which, with slaves, and free colored persons, embrace at least two-thirds of the summer population of New Orleans. This would reduce the number liable to yellow fever below thirty thousand. Of that number onefourth have died in three months. There is scarcely any parallel to this mortality. great Plague of London, in 1665, destroyed one out of every thirteen and one-third of its popu lation. That of New Orleans, in 1853, destroyed one out of every ten of its total population, and one out of every four of those susceptible of the disease. This exceeds the mortality in Philadelphia, in 1798, when it was estimated that one out of every six died."*

The

These are terrible figures. The year 1853, was, however, an exceptional year. New Orleans has often escaped the yellow fever for years in succession. Its visitations were frequent enough to make it an ever present terror during the summer months, and to reduce the summer population of the city to a comparatively small number of unacclimated persons. The city had never escaped it in such circumstances as existed in 1862; had never escaped it when the fever raged in the neighboring ports of Havana and Nassau; had never escaped it when the city was filled with persons unaccustomed to the climate. The rebels were, therefore, justified in anticipating, with perfect confidence, that the season of 1862 would present the same scenes

* Harpers Magazine, November, 1853.

of horror and devastation as those of 1853. No language can overstate the terrors of such a visitation. "Funeral processions," says the writer just quoted, "crowded every street. No vehicles could be seen except doctors' cabs and coaches, passing to and from the cemeteries, and hearses, often solitary, taking their way toward those gloomy destinations. The hum of trade was hushed. The levee was a desert. The streets, wont to shine with fashion and beauty, were silent. The tombs-the home of the dead -were the only places where there was life, where crowds assembled, where the incessant rumbling of carriages, the trampling of feet, the murmur of voices, and all the signs of active, stirring life could be heard or seen.

|

"To realize the full horror and virulenc eof the pestilence, you must go into the crowded localities of the laboring classes, into those iniserable | shanties which are the disgrace of the city, where the poor immigrant class cluster together in filth, sleeping a half-dozen in one room, without ventilation, and having access to filthy, wet yards, which have never been filled up, and when it rains are converted into green puddles - fit abodes for frogs and sources of poisonous malaria. Here you will find scenes of woe, misery, and death, which will haunt your memory in all time to come. Here you will see the dead and the dying, the sick and the convalescent, in one and the same bed. Here you will see the living babe sucking death from the yellow breast of its dead mother. Here father, mother, and child die in one another's arms. Here you will find whole families swept off in a few hours, so that none are left to mourn or to procure the rites of burial. Offensive odors frequently drew neighbors to such awful spectacles. Corpses would thus proclaim their existence, and enforce the observances due them. What a terrible disease! Terrible in its insidious character, in its treachery, in the quiet serpent-like manner in which it gradually winds its folds around its victim, beguiles him by its deceptive wiles; cheats his judgment and senses, and then consigns him to grim death. Not like the plague, with its red spot, its maddening fever, its wild delirium and stupor-not like the cholera, in violent spasms and prostrating pains is the approach of the vomito. It assumes the guise of the most ordinary disease which flesh is Leir to-a cold, a slight chill, a headache, a slight fever, and, after a while, pains in the back. Surely there is nothing in these! 'I won't lay by for them,' says the misguided victim; the poor laborer can not afford to do so. Instead of going to bed, sending for a nurse and doctor, taking a mustard-bath and a cathartic, he remains at his post until it is too late. He has reached the crisis of the disease before he is aware of its existence. The chances are thus against him. The fever mounts up rapidly, and the poison pervades his whole system. He tosses and rolls on his bod, and raves in agony. Thus he continues for thirty-six hours. Then the fever breaks, gradually it passes off-joy and hope begin to dawn upon him. He is through now. Am I not better, Doctor?' 'You are doing well, but must be very quiet.' Doing well! How does the learned gentlemen know? Can he see into his stomach, and perceive there collecting the dark brown liquid which marks the dissolution that is going on? The fever sud

denly returns, but now the paroxysm is more brief. Again the patient is quiet, but not so hopeful as before. He is weak, prostrate, and bloodless, but he has no fever, his pulse is regular, sound, and healthy, and his skin moist. 'He will get well,' says the casual observer. The doctor shakes his head ominously. After a while, drops of blood are seen collecting about his lips. Blood comes from his gums-that is a bad sign, but such cases frequently occur. Soon he has a hiccough. That is worse than the bleeding at the gums: then follows the ejection of a dark brown liquid which he throws up in large quantities; and this in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand is the signal that the doctor's function is at an end, and the undertaker's is to commence. In a few hours the coffin will receive its tenant, and mother earth her customary tribute."

Dr. McCormick, who was in the city during those fearful weeks, has assured me that this picture is not overcharged.

It was such an evil as this that General Butler set himself to ward from the city which he had been called to govern and protect. His success was most remarkable. The yellow fever raged at Nassau, at Havana, and at other neighboring ports, but New Orleans escaped. Twenty thousand unacclimated persons, strangers, northerners, were in Louisiana, but not one of them had the fever. On the contrary, the men of his command enjoyed an extraordinary exemption from all mortal disease. They suffered little from the continuous heat, less from violent maladies.

There was, indeed, one moment of danger, and of great. alarm at head-quarters. Dr. McCormick, late in the season, when the danger was supposed to be nearly over, came into the General's office one morning, and reported that a case of yellow fever of the worst type had been landed in the city. It was even so. The rigor of the quarantine had been once relaxed, and this was the alarming result. The affair was kept as secret as possible. The house in which the man lay was cleared of all inmates save himself and one acclimated attendant. The block of which the house was part was walled around by sentinels. No living creature was permitted to enter or leave it. In five days the man died. Every article in his room was burnt or buried. His attendant was quarantined. The house, the block, the quarter of the city, was fumigated, cleansed, and whitewashed. Every precaution which the skill of the doctors could devise and the authority of the general enforce was employed. No one caught the disease. This single case, brought from Nassau, was all the yellow fever known in New Orleans during the season of 1862.

It is of the highest importance to the future of Louisiana that the means employed by General Butler to preserve the health of the city should be known. Sanitary science, as the reader is aware, was a familiar subject with him before he began his military career. His researches led him to adopt the theory that the yellow fever is indigenous in no region where there is frost every winter. There is frost every winter in every part of the United States. He, therefore, concluded that the yellow fever is not a disease native to our soil, but is always brought

the capture. The railroads were set running as ar as the Union lines extended.

"Will it pay to run it ?" the general would ask. "Yes."

"Then go ahead."

from a tropical port. The gulf coasts generate,
it is true, the malaria which serves as a medium
for the most calamitous spread of the disease
but the deadly poison which issues in the yellow
fever is brought from abroad. The magazine is
ready, but the foreign spark is indispensable.
He relied chiefly, therefore, upon a quarantine;
and this he enforced with such rigorous impar-
tiality, that the state department was inundated
with complaints, reclamations, and protests, and
the ear of the public was assailed with charges
of favoritism and corruption. But he never re-
laxed his clutch upon the throat of the Missis-
sippi. "My orders" he wrote on one occasion,
are imperative and distinct to my health-risk of molestation.
officers, to subject all vessels coming from in-
fected ports to such a quarantine as shall insure
safety from disease. Whether one day or one
hundred is necessary for the purpose, it will be
done. It will be done if it is necessary to take
the vessel to pieces to do it, so long as the United
States has the physical power to enforce it. I
have submitted to the judgment of my very
competent surgeon at the quarantine the ques-general order was issued:
tion of the length of time and the action to be
taken to insure safety. I have by no order
interfered with his discretion. If he thinks ten

So the people trafficked, and rode, and passed their days as they had been wont to do while under the sway of Mayor Monroe, General Lovell, and Mr. Soulé. Perfect order generally prevailed. The general walked and rode about the city with a single attendant, by day and by night. A child could have carried a purse in its hand from Carrollton to Chalmette without

days sufficient in a given case, be it so; if forty in another, be it so; if one hundred in another,

it shall be so."

To revive the business of New Orleans and cause its stagnant life to flow again in its ordinary channels, was among the first endeavors of General Butler after reducing the city to order and providing for its subsistence. It was necessary, at first, to compel the opening of retail stores, by the threat of a fine of a hundred dollars a day for keeping them closed. Mechanics refused to work for the United States. Certain repairs upon the light steamers, essential to the supply of the troops, could only be got done by the threat of Fort Jackson. One burly contractor was imprisoned and kept upon bread and water till he consented to undertake a piece of work of urgent necessity. The cabmen and draymen, as we have seen, required to be cajoled or impressed. This state of feeling, however, soon passed away. It was half affectation, half terror-the men only needed such a show of compulsion as would serve them as an excuse to their comrades. The ordinary business of the city soon went on as it had before

The commerce of the city could not be revived before the opening of the port. In one of his earliest dispatches, General Butler advised that measure, as well as a general amnesty for all past political offenses. The planters, however, were distrustful, and feared to place their sugar within reach of the Union authorities.

To remove their apprehensions, the following

"NEW ORLEANS, May 4, 1862.

"The commanding general of the department having been informed. that rebellious, lying and desperate men have represented, and are now people of the state of Louisiana, that the United representing, to the honest planters and good States government, by its forces, have come here to confiscate and destroy their crops of cotton and sugar, it is hereby ordered to be made known, by publication in all the newspapers of this city, the safe conduct of the forces of the United that all cargoes of cotton and sugar shall receive States, and the boats bringing them from beyond the lines of the United States forces, may be allowed to return in safety, after a reasonable delay, if their owners so desire; provided, they bring no passengers except the owners and managers of said boat, and of the property so conveyed, and no other merchandise except provisions, of which such boats are requested to bring a full supply, for the benefit of the poor of this city."

In anticipation of the opening of the port to northern trade, and in order to convince the holders of produce that New Orleans was already a safe market, the general determined, at once, to commence the purchase and exportation of sugar on government account. What merchants would call a "brilliant operation" was the result of his endeavors. Lying at the levee he had a large fleet of transports, which, by the terms of their charters, he was bound to send home in ballast. There is no ballast to be had in New Orleans at any time, and none nearer than the white sand of Ship Island, five days' sail and thirty hours' steam from the city. There was sugar enough on the levee to ballast all the vessels, at an immense saving to the government, to say nothing of the profit to be realized in the sale of the sugar at the North. He determined to buy enough sugar for the purpose.

To show the wisdom of this measure, take the case of the steamer Mississippi, hired at the rate of fifteen hundred dollars a day. "She must have," explained the general, "two hundred and

When the port was opened in June, the condition of affairs was such that no man in business, with either capital or credit at command, could fail to make money with almost unexampled rapidity. Turpentine in New Orleans was a drug at three dollars; in New York, it was in demand at thirty-eight. Sugar in New Orleans was worth three cents a pound; in New York, six. Flour, in New York, six dollars a barrel; New Orleans, twenty-four. Dry goods in New York were selling at rates not greatly in advance of prices before the war; in New Orleans, every article in the trade was scarce and First, let me adduce another little operation dear. The rates of exchange were such as to which has been construed to his disadvantage. afford an additional profit of fifteen per cent. on I refer to a small quantity of cotton sent home all transactions between the two ports. In such from Ship Island by General Butler, which a state of affairs, the most useful class of persons chauced to arrive a short time before the papers that explained the transaction.