網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

and from 200 to 300 others. We | cure ice for our sick sailors, and was took about 100 prisoners, half of unexpectedly attacked by some 200 them wounded. Neither party had more cannon at the close than at the beginning of the battle; but the Rebels boasted that they had destroyed Federal munitions and camp equipage of very considerable value.

[ocr errors]

Next morning, Commander Porter, with the Essex, 7 guns and 40 men, accompanied by the Cayuga and Sumter, moved up in quest of the Arkansas, whose two consorts had already fled up the river. The ram at first made for the Essex, intending to run her down; but her remaining engine soon gave out, and she was headed toward the river bank, the Essex pursuing and shelling her; the Arkansas replying feebly from her stern. When the Essex had approached within 400 yards, Lt. Stevens, of the ram, set her on fire and abandoned her, escaping with his crew to the shore. The Essex continued to shell her for an hour; when her magazine was fired and she

blew up.

armed civilians, who killed or wounded 7 of her crew. Porter thereupon opened fire on the town, bombarding it for an hour, and setting a number of its houses on fire, when the Mayor surrendered. On her way down the river, the Essex had a smart engagement with the rising batteries at Port Hudson.

Gen. Butler's preparations having rendered the retaking of New Orleans hopeless, the meditated attack on it was abandoned, and the forces collected for that purpose transferred to other service. An incursion into the rich district known as Lafourche, lying south-west of New Orleans, between that city and the Gulf, was thereupon projected, and Generallate Lieut.-Weitzel, was sent with a brigade of infantry and the requisite artillery and cavalry, to rëestablish there the authority of the Union. This was a section of great wealth: its industry being devoted mainly to the production of sugar from cane, its population more than half slaves; and its Whites, being entirely slaveholders and their dependents, had ere this been brought to at least a semblance of unanimity in support of the Rebel cause; but their military strength, always moderate, had in good part been drafted away for service elsewhere; so that Gen. Weitzel, with little difficulty and great expedition, made himself master of the entire region," after two or three collisions, in which he sustained little loss. But the wealthy Whites generally fled from their homes at his approach; while the negroes, joyfully hailing him as their liberator, Sept. 7.

Commander Porter, having remained at Baton Rouge until it was evacuated by our troops-who were concentrated to repel a threatened attack on New Orleans-returned up the river" to reconnoiter Rebel batteries that were said to be in progress at Port Hudson. Ascending thence to coal at Bayou Sara, his boat's crew was there fired upon by guerrillas, whereupon some buildings were burned in retaliation; and, the firing being repeated a few days afterward, the remaining structures were in like manner destroyed. A boat's crew from the Essex was sent ashore, some days later, at Natchez, to pro"August 23.

38

39 Oct. 22-29.

BUTLER SUPERSEDED BY BANKS.

105

speedily filled his camps with crowds | city, there were not a hundred persons in Louisiana outside of our army and fleet who would have dared take the oath, however willing to do so.

Toward the end of November, Gen. Butler's spies brought him information from the nearest Rebel camps that he had been superseded in his command, and that Gen. N. P. Banks either was or soon would be on his way to relieve him. Some days before information of the purposed change reached our side, Secessionists in New Orleans were offering to bet a hundred to ten that Gen. Butler would be recalled before New Year's. The fact was known to Jefferson Davis before it was to Gen. Bankslong before it was communicated from Washington to Gen. Butler. It is probable that the French Minister, whose Government had not been pleased with Gen. Butler's management in New Orleans, was the immediate source of Rebel assurance on this point. Gen. Banks's assignment to the Department of the Gulf is dated November 9th, but was not made known to him till some weeks afterward.

of men, women, and children, destitute of food, and fearing to go outside of his lines lest they should be reduced again to Slavery. Gen. Butler, after anxious consideration, felt obliged to subject the whole district to sequestration, in order to secure the cutting and grinding of the cane, so as to save the remaining inhabitants from death by famine. Maj. Bell, Lt.-Col. Kinsman, and Capt. Fuller, were appointed a commission, who were to take charge of all personal property, and either apply it to the use of the army or transport it to New Orleans and there sell it to the highest bidders, dispensing to loyal citizens and neutral foreigners their just share of the proceeds, and applying the residue to the uses of the Federal service in this military department. Thus were the negroes employed, paid, and subsisted, the crops saved, and a large sum turned over to the support of our armies, while the number of White loyalists in Lafourche was rapidly and largely increased. Two Congressional districts having thus been recovered, Messrs. Benjamin F. Flanders and Gen. Banks reached New Orleans Michael Hahn were elected" there- Dec. 14th, was received with every from to the Federal House of Repre- honor, and on the 16th formally assentatives: the former receiving 2,370 sumed the high trust to which he votes, to 173 for others, and the lat- had been appointed. On the 23d, ter 2,581, which was 144 more than Gen. Butler took personal leave of were cast against him. The voting his many friends, and next day issued was confined to electors under the his farewell address to the people of laws of Louisiana who had taken New Orleans; leaving for New York, the Federal oath of allegiance since via Havana, by that day's boat. He the repossession of New Orleans; was not then aware that he had been and the aggregate poll in that city honored, the day previous, by a prooutnumbered, it was stated, its total clamation from Jefferson Davis, devote for Secession by about 1,000. claring him a felon, outlaw, and When Gen. Butler first reached that common enemy of mankind, and

40 Early in December.

directing any Confederate officer who | which he had faithfully applied to

should capture him to hang him the public service. He had, of course, without trial immediately; and fur- made himself very unpopular with ther directing that all commissioned the wealthy Rebels, whom he had, in officers in his command be regarded proportion to their several volunteer as robbers and criminals, deserving contributions of money in aid of the death; and each of them, whenever | Rebel cause, assessed for the support captured, reserved for execution." of the New Orleans poor, deprived Mr. Richard Yeadon, of Charleston, S. C., backed this proclamation by an offer" of $10,000 reward, payable in Confederate currency, for the capture and delivery of the said Benjamin F. Butler, dead or alive, to any proper Confederate authority.

of employment by the war; and he was especially detested by that large body of influential foreigners who, having freely devoted their efforts and their means to the support of the Rebellion, were neither regarded nor treated by him as though they had been honestly neutral in the contest. In his farewell address to the people of New Orleans, he forcibly says:

"I saw that this Rebellion was a war of of the rich against the poor; a war of the the aristocrats against the middling menland-owner 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 sub

Gen. Butler had taken 13,700 soldiers from the North for the capture of New Orleans. He had received no rëenforcements since; and he now turned over to his successor 17,800 drilled and disciplined men, including three regiments and two batteries of negroes. He sent home to the treasury the sum of $345,000; ex-jugation of the few and the disenthrallment of the many. I, therefore, felt no hesitapended $525,000 in feeding the poor tion in taking the substance of the wealthy, of New Orleans; and turned over about $200,000 to the Commissary and Quartermaster of his successor. He had collected, by taxation, assess-ings of the humble and loyal, under the roof ments, fines, forfeitures, and confiscations, an aggregate of $1,088,000,

41 Mr. Davis's proclamation recites the hanging of Mumford; the neglect of our Government to explain or disavow that act; the imprison

who had caused the war, to feed the innocent poor, who had suffered by the war. And I shall now leave you with the proud consciousness that I carry with me the bless

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."

ders, and not as free agents; that they, therefore, be treated, when captured as prisoners of home on the usual parole that they will in no war, with kindness and humanity, and be sent ment of non-combatants; Butler's woman order manner aid or serve the United States in any caaforesaid; his sequestration of estates in west-pacity during the continuance of this war, unless ern Louisiana; and the inciting to insurrection and arming of slaves on our side, as his justifications for proclaiming―

"First. That all commissioned officers in the command of said Benjamin F. Butler be declared not entitled to be considered as soldiers engaged in honorable warfare, but as robbers and criminals, deserving death; and that they and each of them be, whenever captured, reserved for execution.

"Second. That the private soldiers and noncommissioned officers in the army of said Butler be considered as only the instruments used for the commission of crimes perpetrated by his or

duly exchanged.

"Third. That all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong, to be dealt with according to the laws of said States.

"Fourth. That the like orders be executed in all cases with respect to all commissioned officers of the United States, when found serving in company with said slaves in insurrection against the authorities of the different States of this Confederacy.

[Signed and sealed at Richmond, Dec. 23, 1862.] "JEFFERSON DAVIS."

42 Jan. 1, 1863.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
« 上一頁繼續 »