NEW ORLEANS. 



of the United States. The men who had assumed to 

 govern you and to defend your city in arms having 

 fled, some of your women flouted at the presence of 

 those who came to protect them. By a simple order 

 (No. 26) I called upon every soldier of this army 

 to treat the women of New Orleans as a gentleman 

 should deal with the sex, with such effect that I now 

 call upon the just-minded ladies of New Orleans to say 

 whether they have ever enjoyed so complete protection 

 and calm quiet for themselves and their families as 

 since the advent of the United States troops. The 

 enemies of my country, unrepentant and implacable, I 

 have treated with merited severity. I hold that rebel- 

 lion is treason, and that treason persisted in is death, 

 and any punishment short of that due a traitor gives 

 so much clear gain to him from the clemency of the 

 Government. Upon this thesis have I administered 

 the authority of the United States, because of which I 

 am not unconscious of complaint. I do not feel that I 

 have erred in too much harshness, for that harshness 

 has ever been exhibited to disloyal enemies of my 

 country, and not to loyal friends. To be sure, I might 

 have regaled you with* the amenities of British civiliz- 

 ation, and yet been within the supposed rules of civil- 

 ized warfare. You might have been smoked to death 

 in caverns, as were the covenanters of Sotland, by the 

 command of a general of the royal house of Engfand ; 

 or roasted like the inhabitants of Algiers during the 

 French campaign ; your wives and daughters might 

 have been given over to the ravisher, as were the un- 

 fortunate dames of Spain in the Peninsula war ; or you 

 might have been scalped and tomahawked as "our 

 mothers were at Wyoming, by savage allies of Great 

 Britain, in our own Revolution ; your property could 

 have been turned over to indiscriminate 'Hoot," like 

 the palace of the Emperor of China ; works of art 

 which adorned your buildings might have been sent 

 away, like the paintings of the Vatican ; your sons 

 might have been blown from the mouths of cannon, 

 like the sepovs of Delhi ; and yet all this would have 

 been within the rules of civilized warfare as practised 

 by the most polished and the most hypocritical na- 

 tions of Europe. For such acts the records of the 

 doings of some of the inhabitants of your city to- 

 ward the friends of the Union, before my coming, 

 were a sufficient provocative and justification. But I 

 have not so conducted. On the contrary, the worst 

 punishment inflicted, except for criminal acts punish- 

 able by every law, has been banishment, with labor, to 

 a barren island, where I encamped my own soldiers be- 

 fore marching here. It is true, I have levied upon the 

 wealthy rebels, and paid out nearly half a million of 

 dollars to feed forty thousand of the starving poor of 

 all nations assembled here, made so by this war. I 

 saw that this rebellion was a war of the aristocrat 

 against the middling men ; of the rich against the 

 poor; a war of the landowner against the laborer; that 

 it was a struggle for the retention of power in the 

 hands of the few against the many ; and I found no 

 conclusion to it save in the subjugation of the few and 

 the disenthralment of the many. I therefore felt no 

 hesitation in taking the substance of the wealthy, who 

 had caused the war, to feed the innocent poor who had 

 Buffered by the war. And I shall now leave you with 

 the proud consciousness that I carry with me the 

 blessings of the humble and loyal under the roof of 

 the cottage and in the cabin of "the slave, and so am 

 quite content to incur the sneers of the salon or the 

 curses of the rich. I found you trembling at the ter- 

 rors of servile insurrection. All danger of this I have 

 prevented by so treating the slave that he had no cause 

 to rebel. I found the dungeon, the chain, and the lash 

 your only means of enforcing obedience in your ser- 

 vants. I leave them peaceful, laborious, controlled by 

 the laws of kindness and justice. I have demonstrated 

 that the pestilence can be kept from your borders. I 

 have added a million of dollars to your wealth in the 

 form of new land from the battue of the Mississippi. 

 I have cleansed and improved your streets, canals, and 

 public squares, and opened new avenues to unoccupied 

 land. I have given you freedom of elections, greater 



than you have ever enjoyed before. I have caused jus- 

 tice to be administered so impartially that your own 

 advocates have unanimously complimented the judges 

 of my appointment. You have seen, therefore, tho 

 benefit of the laws and justice of the Government 

 against which you have rebelled. Why, then, will you 

 not all return to your allegiance to that Government 

 not with lip service, but with the heart V I conjure you, 

 if you desire to see renewed prosperity, giving busi- 

 ness to your streets and wharves if you hope to see 

 your city become again the mart of the Western world, 

 fed by its rivers for more than three thousand miles, 

 draining the commerce of a country greater than the 

 mind of man hath ever conceived return to your al- 

 legiance. If you desire to leave to your children the 

 inheritance you received of your fathers a stable con- 

 stitutional government if you desire that they should 

 in the future be a portion of the greatest empire the 

 sun ever shone upon return to your allegiance. There 

 is but one thing that stands in the way. There is but 

 one thing that this hour stands between you and the 

 Government, and that is slavery. The institution, 

 cursed of God, which has taken its last refuge here, in 

 His providence will be rooted out as the tares from the 

 wheat, although the wheat be torn up with it. I have 

 given much thought to this subject. I came among 

 you, by teachings, by habit of mind, by political posi- 

 tion, by social affinity, inclined to sustain your domes- 

 tic laws, if by possibility they might be with safety to 

 the Union. Months of experience and of observation 

 have forced the conviction that the existence of slavery 

 is incompatible with the safety either of yourselves or 

 of the Union. As the system has gradually grown to 

 its present huge dimensions, it were best if it could be 

 gradually removed ; but it is better, far better, that it 

 should be taken out at once than'that it should longer 

 vitiate the social, political, and family relations of your 

 country. I am speaking with no philanthropic v'iews 

 as regards the slave, but simply of the effect of slavery 

 on the master. See for yourselves. Look around you 

 and say whether this saddening, deadening influence 

 has not all but destroyed the very framework of your 

 society. I am speaking the farewell words of one who 

 has sliown his devotion to his country at the peril of 

 his life and fortune, who in these words can have nei- 

 ther hope nor interest, save the good of those whom he 

 addresses ; and let me here repeat, with all the solem- 

 nity of an appeal to Heaven to bear me witness, that 

 Buc'h are the views forced upon me by experience. 

 Come, then, to the unconditional support of the Gov- 

 ernment. Take into your own hands your own insti- 

 tutions ; remodel them according to the laws of na- 

 tions and of God, and thus attain that great prosperity 

 assured to you by geographical position, only a por- 

 tion of which was" heretofore vours. 



BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 



To the address of the retiring commander- 

 in-chief succeeded the following proclamation 

 of Gen. Banks : 



HEADQUAKTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE GCLF, ) 

 ^EW ORLEAXS, Dec. 16, 1862. J 



In obedience to orders from the President of the 

 United States, I assume command of the Department 

 of the Gulf, to which is aoTded, by his special order, the 

 State of Texas. 



The duty with which I am charged requires me to 

 assist in the restoration of the Government of the 

 United States. It is my desire to secure to the people 

 of every class all the privileges of possession and en- 

 joyment consistent with public safety, or which it is 

 possible for a beneficent and just government to con- 

 fer. 



In execution of the high trust with which I am 

 charged, I rely upon the cooperation and counsel of 

 all loyal and well-disposed people, and upon the mani- 

 fest interest of those dependent upon the pursuits of 

 peace, as well as upon the support of the naval and 

 land forces. 



My instructions require me to treat as enemies those 



