a license on the part of keepers of public houses, coffee-houses, and drinking saloons: to the posting of placards about the streets, giving infornation concerning the action or movements of rebel troops, and the publishing in tho newspapers of notices or resolutions laudatory of the enemies of the United States. "The soldiers of this command are subject, upon the part of some low-minded persons, to insult. This must stop. Repetition will lead to instant arrest and punishment. In the performance of his duties the undersigned will, in no degree trench upon the regularly established police of the city, but will confine himself simply to the performance of such acts as were to be assumed by the military authorities of the United States; and, in such action, he hopes to meet with the ready co-operation of all who have the welfare of the city at heart."

At noon, the foreign consuls waited upon General Butler, accompanied by General Juge, commanding the European Brigade. The interview was in the highest degree amicable and courtcous. General Butler explained to the consuls the line of conduct he had marked out for himself, and related the leading points of his proposal to the mayor and council, whose reply he was then awaiting. He also assured the consuls, that nothing should be wanting on his part, to facilitate the discharge of their public duties. His most earnest desire, he said, was to confine his attention to his military duty, and leave all public functionaries, domestic and foreign, to the unrestrained discharge of their vocations. He warmly thanked General Juge for his eminent services during the last week, expressed regret that he had disbanded his men, hoped he would reorganize them, and aid him in maintaining order. The gentlemen retired, apparently well pleased with what they had heard. They all shook hands with the general at parting.

together, each keeping to its own department; General Butler governing the army, and extending the area of conquest; the mayor and council ruling the city, aided, if necessary, by General Juge and his brigade. This was the theory upon which General Butler began his memorable administration. This was the offer which he sincerely made to the people and government of the city. We shall discover, in time, whose fault it was that the theory proved so signally untenable.

The comments of the press of New Orleans upon the new order of things, were far more favorable to General Butler than could have been expected. The True Delta frankly admitted the truth of that part of the Proclamation which gave to the European Brigade the credit of having preserved the city. "For seven years past," said the True Delta, of May 6th, "the world knows that this city, in all its departments-judicial, legislative, and executive-has been at the absolute disposal of the most godless, brutal, ignorant and ruthless ruffianism the world has ever heard of since the days of the great Roman conspirator. By means of a secret organization emanating from that fecund source of every political infamy, New England, and named Know Nothingisin or 'Sammyism-from the boasted exclusive devotion of the fraternity to the United States-our city, from being the abode of decency, of liberality, generosity and justice, has become a perfect hell; the temples of justice are sanctuaries for crimes; the ministers of the laws, the nominees of blood-stained, vulgar, ribald caballers; licensed murderers shed innocent blood on the most public thoroughfares with impunity; witnesses of the most atrocious crimes are either spirited away, bought off, or intimidated from testifying; perjured associates are retained to prove alibis, and ready bail is always procurable for the immediate use of those A delegation from the common council next whom it is not immediately prudent to enlarge appeared, who informed the general that his pro- otherwise. The electoral system is a farce and posal of the evening before was accepted. The a. fraud; the knife, the slung-shot, the brass city government should go on as usual; but knuckles determining, while the sham is being they requested that the troops should be with-enacted, who shall occupy and administer the drawn from the vicinity of the City Hall, that offices of the municipality and the commonthe authorities might not seem to be acting under wealth. Can our condition then surprise any military dictation. This request was granted: man? Is it, either, a fair ground for reproach the troops were withdrawn. to the well-disposed, kind-hearted and intelligent The general went farther. He sent a consid-fixed population of New Orleans, that institutions erable body of troops under General Phelps to Carrollton, where a permanent camp was formed. A brigade under General Williams soon went up the river with Captain Farragut, to take possession of and hold Baton Rouge. Other troops were posted in the various forts upon the lakes abandoned by the enemy. Others were at Algiers. The camps in the squares of the city were broken up. When all the troops were posted, there remained in the city, during the first few weeks, two hundred and fifty men: and these men were lodged in the Custom-House, and served merely as a provost-guard. Mr. Soulé, therefore, had his desire, or nearly so, for the general was fully resolved to omit no fair means of conciliating the people, and winning them back to their allegiance,

Thus, bthe end of the third day, the city was tranqu, and there seemed a prospect of the two sets of authorities going on peacefully

and offices designed for the safety of their persons, the security of their property, and maintenance of their fair repute and unsullied honor, should by a band of conspirators, in possession by force and fraud of the electoral machinery, be diverted from their legitimate uses and made engines of the most insupportable oppression? We accept the reproach in the Proclamation, as every Louisianian alive to the honor and fair fame of his state and chief city must accept it, with bowed heads and brows abashed."

The Bee of May 8th said: "The mayor and municipal authorities have been allowed to retain their power and privileges in everything unconnected with military affairs. The federal soldiers do not seem to interfere with the private property of the citizens, and have done nothing that we are aware of to provoke difficulty. The usual nightly reports of arrests for vagrancy, assaults, wounding and killing have unquestionably been

diminished. The city is as tranquil and peacca- | many centers of hostile operations; he had to ble as in the most quiet times."

CHAPER XIII.

FEEDING AND EMPLOYING THE POOR.

NEW ORLEANS was in danger of starving. It contained a population of, perhaps, one hundred and fifty thousand, for whom there was in the city about thirty days' supply of provisions, held at prices beyond the means of all but the rich. A barrel of four could not be bought for sixty dollars; the markets were empty, the provision stores closed. The trade with Mobile, which had formerly whitened the lakes and the sound with sails, was cut off. The Texas drovers had ceased to bring in cattle, and no steamboats from the Red River country were running. The lake coasts were desolate and half-deserted, because the trade with New Orleans had ceased, and because the locusts of secession had devoured their substance.

penetrate their mysteries. His army was considerable, his field of operation immense; be could not neglect the chief business of his mission. All these affairs claimed his immediato attention, and had it. But though a thousand events may occur simultaneously, it is not convenient to relate them simultaneously. We shall have sometimes to disregard the order of time, and pursue one subject or class of subjects to the end.

General Butler's first measures for the supply of the city were taken upon the suggestion of the city magnates. Orders were promulgated on the third day of the occupation of the city, which permitted steamboats to ply to Mobile and the Red River and bring to the city provisions, but only provisions. The directors of the Opelousas Railroad received permits to run trains for the same purpose.

For the immediate relief of the poor, General Butler gave from his own resources a thousand dollars, half in money, half in provisions. His brother, Colonel A. J. Butler, who found himself, by the action of the senate, without employment in New Orleans, and having both capital and credit at command, embarked in the business of bringing cattle from Texas, to the great advantage of the city and his own considerable profit. The quartermaster's chest being empty, General Butler placed all the money of his own, which he could raise, at his disposal. Provisions soon began to arrive, but not in the requisite quantities. At the end of a month, flour bad fallen to twen

hundred families were daily fed at the public expense, and thousands more barely contrived to subsist.

New Orleans was thus a starving city, in the midst of an impoverished country. The river planters, who had been wont to send marketing to the city, now feared to trust their sloops, their produce and their slaves, within the lines of an army which they had been taught to believe was bent on plunder only. A large proportion of the men of New Orleans were away with the Confederate armies, at Shiloh, in Virginia, and elsewhere, having left wives and children, mis-ty-four dollars a barrel; but nearly nineteen tresses and their offspring, to the public charge. The city taxes were a million dollars in arrears; and the city government, it was soon discovered, was expending its energies and its ingenuity upon a business more congenial than that of providing for the poor; namely, that of frustrating and exasperating the commander of the Union army. In a word, fifty thousand human beings in New Orleans saw before them a prospect, not of want, not of a long struggle with adversity, but of starvation; and that immediate, to-morrow or the next day; and General Butler, wielding the power and resources of the United States, alone could save them.

It immediately appeared that every one of the passes and permits issued by the general, in ac|cordance with the orders just given, was abused, to the aid and comfort of secession. It was discovered that provisions were secretly sent out of the city to feed General Lovell's troops. It was ascertained that Charles Heidsieck, one of the champagne Heidsiecks, had come from Mobile in the provision steamboat, disguised as a barkeeper, and conveyed letters to and from that city; an offense which consigned him speedily to Fort Jackson. Nor did the city government stir in the business of providing for the poor; not a dollar was voted, not a relieving act was passed. The city was reeking, too, with the accumulated filth of many weeks, the removal of which would have afforded employment to many hungry men; but it was suffered to remain, inviting the yellow fever.

To this task he addressed himself; it necessarily had the precedence of all other work during the first few days. If we confine our selves to this topic for a short time, so as to show in one view all that General Butler did for the poor of New Orleans, the reader will please bear in mind, that the commanding general was by no means able to confine his attention to it. He had everything to do at once. The business of General Butler, on the 9th of May, reminded the city was dead; he strove to revive it. Con- the mayor and council of the compact between idence in the honest intentions of the Union himself and the city authorities made five days authorities did not exist; he endeavored to call before. "I desire," said he, "to call your attenit into being. The currency was deranged; it tion to the sanitary condition of your streets. was his duty to rectify it. The secessionists Having assumed, by the choice of your fellowwere audaciously diligent; he had to circumvent citizens, and the permission of the United States aud repress them. The yellow fever seasou was authorities, the care of the city of New Orleans at hand; he was resolved to ward it off. The in this behalf, that trust must be faithfully admiucity government was obstructive and hostile; it istered. Resolutions and inaction will not do. was his business to frustrate their endeavors. Active, energetic measures, fully and promptly The negro problem loomed up, vast and por-executed, are imperatively demand by the exitentous; he had to act upon it without delay.gencies of the occasion. The present suspension The banks were in disorder; their affairs de- of labor furnishes ample supplies of hungry men, mauded his attention. The consulates were so who can be profitably employed to this end. A

tithe of the labor and effort spent upon the streets and public squares, which was uselessly and inanely wasted upon idle fortifications, like that about the United States Mint, will place the city in a condition to insure the health of its inhabitants. It will not do to shift the responsibility from yourselves to the street commissioners, from thence to the contractor, and thence to the sub-contractors, and through all the grades of civic idleness and neglect of duty. Three days since I called the attention of Mr. Mayor to the subject, but nothing has been done."

The mayor boldly replied that three hundred extra men had been set to work upon the streets. No such force could be discovered by the optics of the Union officers. Steps may have been taken toward the employment of men, and even extra men," in cleaning the city; but it is certain that, up to the ninth of May, no streetcleaners were actually at work. The weather was extremely hot, and the need of purification was manifest and pressing

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On the same day, General Butler issued one of his startling general orders, the terms and tone of which were doubtless influenced by the mayor's audacious reply, as well as by the abuse of the passes which admitted food to a starving city.

"NEW ORLEANS, May 9, 1862.

"The deplorable state of destitution and hunger of the mechanics and working classes of this city has been brought to the knowledge of the commanding general.

"He has yielded to every suggestion made by the city government, and ordered every method of furnishing food to the people of New Orleans that government desired. No relief by those officials has yet been afforded. This hunger does not pinch the wealthy and influential, the leaders of the rebellion, who have gotten up this war, and are now endeavoring to prosecute it, without regard to the starving poor, the workingman, his wife and child. Unmindful of their suffering fellow-citizens at home, they have caused or suffered provisions to be carried out of the city for Confederate service since the occupation by the United States forces.

"Lafayette Square, their home of affluence, was made the dépôt of stores and munitions of war for the rebel armies, and not of provisions for their poor neighbors. Striking hands with the vile, the gambler, the idler, and the ruffian, they have destroyed the sugar and cotton which might have been exchanged for food for the industrious and good, and regrated the price of that which is left, by discrediting the very currency they had furnished, while they eloped with the specie; as well that stolen from the United States, as from the banks, the property of the good people of New Orleans, thus leaving them to ruin and starvation.

"They can not protect those whom they have ruined, but have left them to the mercies and assassinations of a chronic mob:

"They will not feed those whom they are starving:

"Mostly without property themselves, they have plundered, stolen, and destroyed the means. of those who had property, leaving children penniless and old age hopeless.

"MEN OF LOUISIANA, WORKINGMEN, PROPERTY HOLDERS, MERCHANTS, AND CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, of whatever nation you may have had birth, how long will you uphold these flagrant wrongs, and, by inaction, suffer yourselves to be made the serfs of these leaders?

"The United States have sent land and naval forces here to fight and subdue rebellious armies in array against her authority. We find, substantially, only fugitive masses, runaway pro- · perty-burners, a whisky-drinking mob, and starving citizens with their wives and children. It is our duty to call back the first, to punish the second, root out the third, feed and protect the last.

"Ready only for war, wo had not prepared ourselves to feed the hungry and relieve the distressed with provisions. But to the extent possible, within the power of the commanding general, it shall be done.

"He has captured a quantity of beef and sugar intended for the rebels in the field. A thousand barrels of these stores will be distributed among the deserving poor of this city, from whom the rebels had plundered it; even although some of the food will go to supply the craving wants of the wives and children of those now herding at Camp Moore' and else where, in arms against the United States.

"Captain John Clark. acting chief commissary of subsistence will be charged with the execution of this order, and will give public notice of the place and manner of distribution, which will be arranged, as far as possible, so that the unworthy and dissolute will not share its benefits."

Another measure of relief was adopted when the arrival of stores from New York had delivered the army itself from the danger of scarcity. The chief commissary was authorized to "sell to families for consumption, in small quantities, until farther orders, flour and salt meats, viz: pork, beef, ham, and bacon, from the stores of the army, at seven and a half cents per pound for flour and ten cents for meats. City banknotes, gold, silver, or treasury notes to be taken in payment."

The city government still neglecting the streets, General Butler conceived the idea of combining the relief of the poor with the purification of the city. There was nothing upon "Fugitives from justice many of them, and which he was more resolved than the disapothers, their associates, staying because too puer-pointment of rebel hopes with regard to the ile and insignificant to be objects of punishment by the clement government of the United States. They have betrayed their country: "They have been false to every trust: "They have shown themselves incapable of defending e state they had seized upon, although they have forced every poor man's child into their service as soldiers for that purpose, while they made their sons and nephews officers:

yellow fever. He understood the yellow fever, knew the secret of its visitations, felt himself equal to a successful contest with it. June fourth (the mayor of the city being then in a state of suppression at Fort Jackson, for acts yet to be related), the general sketched his plan in a letter to General Shepley and the cominon council.

General Shepley communicated this letter to

the council, who readily adopted the plan, and appointed a gentleman to superintend their share in it. On the part of the United States, General Shepley named Colonel T. B. Thorpe, the well-known author of the "Bee Hunter," who had received the appointment of city surveyor. The entire management of the two thousand laborers fell to Colonel Thorpe, as his colleague refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, which General Butler made a sine qua non. No man could have done the work better. He waged incessant and most successful war upon nuisances. He tore away shanties, filled up hollows, purged the canals, cleaned the streets, repaired the levee, and kept the city in such perfect cleanliness as extorted praise from the bitterest foes of his country and his chief. In gangs of twenty-five, each under an overseer, the street-sweepers pervaded the city;

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ed," said Mr. Chase, when acknowledging the return of twenty-five thousand dollars in gold, which had been sent to General Butler's com missary.

The following general order explains the secret: "NEW ORLEANS, August 4, 1862.

"It appears that the need of relief to the destitute poor of the city requires more extended measures and greater outlay than have yet been made.

"It becomes a question, in justice, upon whom should this burden fall.

"Clearly upon those who have brought this great calamity upon their fellow-citizens.

"It should not be borne by taxation of the whole municipality, because the middling and working men have never been heard at the ballot-box, unawed by threats and unmenaced by "Thugs' and paid assassins of conspirators against peace and good order. Besides, more than the vote that was claimed for secession have taken the oath of allegiance to the United States.

"The United States government does its share when it protects, defends, and preserves the people in the enjoyment of law, order, and calm quiet.

"Those who have brought upon the city this stagnation of business, this desolation of the hearth-stone, this starvation of the poor and helpless, should, as far as they may be able,

"It was a reflecting sight," says an eye-witness, to behold these men on the highways and by-ways, with their shovels and brooms; and it was still more gratifying to notice and to feel the happy effects of their work. The street cleaning commenced, the colonel then undertook the distribution of the food to the families of the laborers, and this was a task of no ordinary magnitude. A thousand half-starved women, made impatient by days of starvation, brought in contact and left to struggle at the entrance of some ill-arranged establishment, for their food and rights, was a formidable subject of contem-relieve these distresses. plation; so the colonel organized a distributing department, and so well managed his plans that the food is being given out with all the quietness of a popular grocery. To secure the object of the charity, he had tickets printed that made the delivery of the food to the women only; in this way it was carried into the family, consumed by the helpless, and not sold by the unprincipled "It is brought to the knowledge of the comfor rum. The moment Colonel Thorpe's name manding general that a subscription of twelve appeared in the papers, he was flooded with let-hundred and fifty thousand dollars was made by ters calling his attention to nuisances, the people acting voluntarily as street inspectors. By a judicious distribution of labor, in a few days the change became a subject of comment, some of the most ferocious secessionists admitting that the federals could clean the streets, if they couldn't do anything else.'"*

Colonel Thorpe's labors were permanently beneficial to the city in many ways. The freaks of the Mississippi river constantly create new land within the city limits. This land, which is called batture (shoal), requires the labor of man before it is completely rescued from the domains of the river. It is computed that Colonel Thorpe's fully directed exertions upon the batture added to the city a quantity of land worth a million of dollars.

"There are two classes whom it would seem peculiarly fit should at first contribute to this end. First, those individuals and corporations who have aided the rebellion with their means; and second, those who have endeavored to destroy the commercial prosperity of the city, upon which the welfare of its inhabitants depend.

the corporate bodies, business firms, and persons whose names are set forth in schedule 'A' annexed to this order, and that sum placed in the hands of an illegal body known as the "Committee of Public Safety,' for the treasonable purpose of defending the city against the government of the United States, under whose bumane rule the city of New Orleans had enjoyed such unexampled prosperity, that her warehouses were filled with trade of all nations who came to share her freedom, to take part in the benefits of her commercial superiority, and thus she was made the representative mart of the world.

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The stupidity and wastefulness with which this immense sum was spent was only equaled by the folly which led to its being raised at all. The subscribers to this fund, by this very act, betray their treasonable designs and their ability to pay at least a much smaller tax for the relief of their destitute and starving neigbors.

And this leads us to the most remarkable of all the circumstances attending General Butler's relief of the poor of New Orleans. He not only made it profitable to the city, but he managed it "Schedule 'B' is a list of cotton brokers, who, so as not to add on ollar to the expenditures claiming to control that great interest in New of his own government. At a time when thirty- Orleans, to which she is so much indebted for five thousand persons were supported by the her wealth, published in the newspapers, in public funds, he could still boast, and with literal October, 1861, a manifesto deliberately advising truth, that it cost the United States nothing. the planters not to bring their produce to the "You are the cheapest general we have employ-city, a measure which brought ruin at the same time upon the producer and the city.

*Correspondent of New York Times, July 21, 1862.

"This act sufficiently testifies the malignity

of these traitors, as well to the government as | General Order, No. 55, placed at the disposal of their neighbors, and it is to be regretted that General Butler, for the support of the poor of the their ability to relieve their fellow-citizens is not city, the sum of $341,916.25. equal to their facilities for injuring them.

List of Cotton Brokers of New Orleans who pub-by ties of blood, marriage, and social relation, lished in the Crescent, in October last, a card advising planters not to send produce to New Orleans, in order to induce foreign intervention in behalf of the rebellion.

"Farther, in order to have a contribution effective; it must be upon those who have wealth to answer it.

"There seemed to me no such fit subjects for such taxation as the cotton brokers who had brought the distress upon the city, by thus paralyzing commerce, and the subscribers to the rebel loan, who had money to invest for purposes of war, so advertised and known.

"With these convictions, I issued General The amount of this assessment was $29,200. | Order No. 55, which will explain itself, and have