NEW ORLEANS. 



649 



cretion of the commander-in-chief, including 

 among others, Pierre Soul6, who was sent 

 North ; the "thugs," gamblers, and other des- 

 perate characters who had long dominated 

 in the city, were dispersed or intimidated into 

 silence ; the newspapers were on one occa- 

 sion temporarily suppressed for advocating the 

 burning of cotton and produce; and the bakers 

 and other venders of food, who had taken ad- 

 vantage of the scarcity of provisions to charge 

 exorbitant prices, were compelled to conform 

 to the tariff fixed by the city ordinances. For 

 the further protection of the citizens, stringent 

 orders were issued on May 27, and June 5, pro- 

 hibiting officers and soldiers from taking pri- 

 vate property or forcibly entering and searching 

 private dwellings without written authority 

 from the proper officers. 



On June 7, took place the first military exe- 

 cution since the occupation of the city, the 

 sufferer being one William B. Mumford, who 

 was arrested for hauling down, on the morning 

 of April 26, an American flag hoisted on the 

 mint by a boat's crew from Flag Officer Farra- 

 gut's fleet, and subsequently assisting in tearing 

 it into shreds, and otherwise insulting it in the 

 presence of a large and rjotous crowd of citi- 

 zens. The act, if unnoticed, was deemed to 

 offer so pernicious a precedent for future of- 

 fences, that Mumford was directed to be tried 

 before a military commission, by whom he was 

 convicted and sentenced to be hung. The 

 sentence was approved by Gen. Butler, and 

 carried into effect in the presence of an im- 

 mense throng of citizens, who made no demon- 

 stration and dispersed quietly to their homes. 

 A universal cry of indignation at what was 

 denounced as an act of murder went up from 

 the seceded States, the hoisting of the flag, 

 pending the formal surrender of the city, being 

 deemed an unauthorized and unjustifiablepro- 

 ceeding on the part of the United States au- 

 thorities, and one against which the mayor had 

 protested in a written communication to Flag 

 Officer* Farragnt. On the other hand, it was 

 claimed that the flag had been hoisted on a 

 public building of the United States, and that 

 the tearing of it down was an overt act of 

 treason, done for the purpose of exciting other 

 evil-minded persons to further resistance to the 

 laws and arms of the United States. 



To the deep feeling of revenge which this 

 execution aroused was due the vindictive re- 

 taliatory order subsequently issued by Jeffer- 

 son Davis, and the rewards for the assas- 

 sination of Gen. Butler, which have from time 

 to time appeared in the Southern papers. 

 The clemency of Gen. Butler had, however, 

 a few days previous, been successfully in- 

 voked in favor of six Confederate soldiers 

 paroled at Fort Jackson, and subsequently sen- 

 tenced by a court martial to be shot for being 

 engaged in a conspiracy to raise a company to 

 serve in Gen. Beauregard's army ; and on an- 

 other occasion he manifested his desire to ad- 

 minister justice impartially, by causing sentence 



of death against two soldiers of the garrison, 

 convicted of robbery by a court martial, to bo 

 carried into effect. These were the only mili- 

 tary executions which have taken place in New 

 Orleans during its occupation by the national 

 forces. 



In a speech delivered in Philadelphia, after 

 his return from New Orleans, Gen. Butler 

 defended the course pursued by the military 

 authorities in the case of Mumford. Referring 

 to the indignity offered by him to the American 

 flag, he said : 



That act, in its consequences, might have been most 

 calamitous. The commander of the Federal fleet and 

 the army, then coming up the river, had a right to 

 suppose that the city authorities had come to the con- 

 clusion to renew the contest, and the evidence of that 

 renewal was the hauling down of the flag. The com- 

 mander of the fleet had no means of knowing that this 

 was done by a mob, and the act might and ought, as 

 a military proposition, to have brougnt down upon the 

 city an instant bombardment. But, through the very 

 proper precaution of Commander Farragut, but a shot 

 or two were fired, and, no resistance following, no 

 special damage was done, it resulting in the wounding 

 of a single person. 



But, mark you, sir, it was not the fault of Mumford 

 that Xew Orleans was not laid in ashes, and the women 

 and children crushed beneath the shells of the Federal 

 fleet. We were about taking other towns and cities on 

 the Mississippi river. If every drunken ruffian, by 

 tearing down our flag, could bring bombardment upon 

 every city along the Mississippi river, there was no 

 safet'y to the non-combatants from the operations of war, 

 nor in the surrender of places. And it was in mercy 

 to the towns that we should take hereafter, and their 

 inhabitants, that I felt it necessary to punish, accord- 

 ing to the just laws of war, after a fair trial and full 

 confession of guilt, William B. Mumford. To save 

 human life and ameliorate the horrors of war, it became 

 necessary exemplarily to punish this crime. I have a 

 right to "say here that, in no unauthorized manner, in 

 the Department of the Gulf, has any other flag of the 

 nation been taken from the place where it has been 

 put by loyal hands. And whether rightfully or wrong- 

 fully done, that act still commends itself to my judg- 

 ment. 



And seeing the utter worthlessness of the man that 

 treason has attempted to exalt into a patriot, I was in- 

 clined to spare Mumford, but that was not permitted 

 to me. His associates, the thugs, roughs, rowdies, end 

 gamblers, assembled in New Orleans on the night be- 

 fore his execution, and solemnly voted that Mumford 

 should not be executed. It then became a question 

 whether the mob should rule New Orleans, as it had 

 done for fifteen years previously, or the commanding 

 general of the United fctates forces. From that day, 

 However, there has never been any question on that 

 subject. 



The difficulties with which Gen. Butler had 

 become involved at the very outset of his ad- 

 ministration, with the foreign consuls in New 

 Orleans, foreshadowed a long series of compli- 

 cations with that body, embodying several 

 grave questions of international comity. The 

 news of the proceeding in the case of the con- 

 sul of the Netherlands made some stir in the 

 Northern States, and the subject having been 

 brought to the notice of Mr. Seward by the 

 British minister in the latter part of May, or- 

 ders were issued from the War Department di- 

 recting Gen. Butler to refrain from practising 

 any severities or strictness of doubtful right to- 

 ward consuls or the subjects of any foreign 



