afforded for military distinction. He eagerly availed himself of it. With a single regiment, the Massachusetts eighth, he marched into Maryland, embarked on board a steamer, made a descent upon Annapolis, then the enemy's country, and held it. The war department immediately created the department of Annapolis, extending to within seven miles of Washington, and including Baltimore. General Butler was installed commander, with the rank of major-general.

He was equal to the emergency. He strengthened his exposed position in all possible ways, setting his soldiers—the ci-devant blacksmiths and jacks-of-alltrades-to construct locomotives, build bridges, and make railroads. He took possession of the Relay House, fortifying himself there with the Massachusetts sixth, the New York eighth, and Cook's Boston battery, controlling the great channel of communication between the insurgents in Baltimore and the rebels at Harper's Ferry. He seized the famous steam-gun, and turned it on the enemy. General Butler then marched into Baltimore, accompanied by the two regiments and the battery mentioned; intrenched himself on the highest point of land, overlooking the whole city; issued his proclamation of protection to all loyalists; arrested traitors; seized arms and munitions of war; and rode through the perilous streets at the head of a single company of the gallant Massachusetts sixth, which the mob had so grievously assaulted only three weeks before. His campaign here was a brilliant one in every respect.

In pursuance of Special Order No. 9, dated at Fortress Monroe, the headquarters of the department of Virginia, August 20th, 1861, General Butler assumed command of the volunteer forces in that vicinity. While occupying this post, the lamentable affair at Little Bethel, and the more disastrous repulse at Big Bethel, occurred, and General Butler was superseded by General Wool.

On the 1st day of the following September, the war department "authorized Major-General B. F. Butler to raise, organize, arm, uniform, and equip a volunteer force for the war, in the New England states, not exceeding six regiments." Two days later, the war department authorized him "to fit out and prepare such troops in New England as he may judge fit for the purpose, to make an expedition along the eastern shore of Virginia," etc., etc. In carrying out these plans, a series of embarrassing conflicts arose between General Butler and Governor Andrew. Much bitter feeling was generated. Recruiting was retarded in consequence, and delay followed delay. This is neither the tme nor the place to more than allude to the unfortunate controversy.

At length, on the 20th of February, 1862, General Butler left Boston for Ship Island, in Mississippi Sound, at which destination he arrived on the 23d of March, with a force of fifteen thousand men, to attack New Orleans. Leaving Ship Island on the 17th of April, with a portion of his command, he went up the Mississippi, and, after the surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, proceeded

to New Orleans, which city he entered with twenty-five hundred men on the evening of the 1st of May.

Here General Butler again loomed up as the man for the hour. His execu tive ability, his ready wit, decision, unflinching justice, and, in short, all the peculiar powers of his mind, came into play. That he should have made some false steps, where so many perplexing claims came in contact, does not admit of surprise. No man could have done better, few so well. General Butler's course in New Orleans was, from the first, necessarily a stringent one. He suppressed The Delta and The Bee, for advocating destruction of produce; arrested several British subjects, for affording aid to the rebels; seized a large amount of specie belonging to the enemy, in the office of the consul for the Netherlands; stopped the circulation of confederate paper-money; distributed among the suffering poor the provisions intended for the support of the Southern army; levied a tax on rebel sympathizers; gave care and protection to Mrs. Beauregard, whom he found in the house of Mr. Slidell; and issued that celebrated and characteristic procla mation respecting active female traitors, which at once extirpated a most annoying nuisance. He found the city demoralized. He shaped order out of chaos.

*

*Sympathizers with the South claimed to be greatly outraged by this order. The English press became eloquently vituperative on the subject; and General Butler was induced to explain, in a private letter, the motives which constrained him to issue the proclamation. The following is the general's characteristic epistle:

"HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, NEW ORLEANS, July 2d, 1862.

"MY DEAR SIR: I am as jealous of the good opinion of my friends as I am careless of the slanders of my enemies, and your kind expressions in regard to Order No. 28 lead me to say a word to you on the subject.

"That it ever could have been so misconceived as it has been by some portions of the Northern press is wonderful, and would lead one to exclaim with the Jew, 'O Father Abraham, what these Christians are, whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect the thoughts of others!'

"What was the state of things to which the woman order applied?

"We were two thousand five hundred men in a city seven miles long by two to four wide, of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants-all hostile, bitter, defiant, explosive-standing literally on a magazine; a spark only needed for destruction. The devil had entered the hearts of the women of this town (you know seven of them chose Mary Magdalen for a residence), to stir up strife in every way possible. Every opprobrious epithet, every insulting gesture was made by these bejewelled, becrinolined, and laced creatures, calling themselves ladies, toward my soldiers and officers, from the windows of houses and in the streets. How long do you suppose our flesh and blood could have stood this without retort? That would lead to disturbances and riot, from which we must clear the streets with artillery: and then a howl that we murdered these fine women! I had arrested the men who hurrahed for Beauregard. Could I arrest the women? No. What was to be done? No order could be made save one that would execute itself. With anxious, careful thought I hit upon this: Women who insult my soldiers are to be regarded and treated as common women plying their vocation.'

"Pray, how do you treat a common woman plying her vocation in the streets? You pass her by unheeded. She cannot insult you! As a gentleman, you can and will take no notice of her. If she

He has been the Government's faithful servant, and his services will link his name for ever with that of the Crescent City. It was a fortunate day for NewOrleans when "Picayune Butler came to town." The people who hate him can hardly help admiring him!

General Butler saved the city, not only from its own suicidal madness, but from the dread visitation of that malignant fever which has periodically changed the crowded metropolis into one vast charnel-house. That the yellow-fever would lay the invading Yankees at the mercy of their enemies, was the prayer and expectation of every noble son and daughter of the South. One "eminent divine" in the conquered city was heard to remark, that strong as was his belief in special providential dispensations, that faith would receive a severe, perhaps a fatal shock, if the sickness did not become epidemic in New-Orleans, the approaching summer. Fortunately, Providence and the Major-General commanding warded off that calamity. Sanitary science had long interested General Butler. His investigations 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 throughout the United States. He therefore argued that the yellow-fever is brought from tropical ports. He at once established such rigorous quarantine laws as again brought him in conflict with the testy representatives of "neutral" powers. The fever raged at Nassau, Havana, and other neighboring ports; but New-Orleans escaped untouched.

While General Butler was deeply engaged in elaborating plans for the farther benefit of the people of Louisiana, he was abruptly superseded by General Banks.

speaks, her words are not opprobrious. It is only when she becomes a continuous and positive nuisance that you call a watchman and give her in charge to him.

"But some of the Northern editors seem to think that whenever one meets such a woman, one must stop her, talk with her, insult her, or hold dalliance with her; and so from their own conduct they construed my order.

"The editor of the Boston Courier may so deal with common women, and out of the abundance of the heart his mouth may speak; but so do not I.

แ

'Why, these she-adders of New Orleans themselves were at once shamed into propriety of conduct by the order; and, from that day, no woman has either insulted or annoyed any live soldier or officer, and of a certainty no soldier has insulted any woman.

"When I passed through Baltimore, on the 23d of February last, members of my staff were insulted by the gestures of the ladies (?) there. Not so in New Orleans.

"One of the worst possible of all these women showed disrespect to the remains of gallant young De Kay; and you will see her punishment-a copy of the order of which I enclose-is at once a vindication and a construction of my order.

"I can only say that I would issue it again under like circumstances. Again thanking you for your kind interest, I am truly your friend,

"BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, Major-General commanding."

Considering the success and importance of his labors, the following order relieving him of his command, reads rather coldly:

WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

WASHINGTON, November 9, 1862.

GENERAL ORDER No. 184.

By direction of the President of the United States, Major-General Banks is assigned to the command of the Department of the Gulf, including the State of Texas. By order of the Secretary of War,

II. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief.

E. D. THOMAS, Assistant Adjt.-General.

The precise reason of General Butler's recall has not, up to the present moment, been made known to him.

On his return home, every city he passed through gave him such honorable welcome as is given only to heroes. For a time he reposed in the shade of his laurels.

General Butler was not, however, destined to remain long inactive. He superseded General Foster at Fortress Monroe, to participate in the present great campaign against Richmond under General Grant. Which statement brings our brief summary of General Butler's services down to July, 1864.

As a man, General Butler is of a warm, impulsive temperment, generous, combative, and brusque. As a politician, he is earnest and formidable. As an advocate, he has never ranked with the leaders of the Massachusetts bar, though his success as a criminal lawyer is, perhaps, without parallel. As an orator, he is fluent and effective, but seldom eloquent. He is apt at reading character, and sometimes applies his knowledge with consummate shrewdness. As a soldier, he has evinced many very high qualities: he has undertaken and performed various onerous duties with such éclût, that none but his most ungenerous political adversaries can withhold their commendation.