Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume II.

The great St. Charles Hotel having been suddenly closed, Gen. Butler reopened and made it his Headquarters, summoning the Mayor and Council to meet him there at 2 P. M. next day, which they did; and, after considerable debate, were satisfied, first, that Gen. Butler was master of the situation; secondly, that he intended to remain so; thirdly, that any who should undertake to dispute or defy his authority would certainly get into trouble; and fourthly, that the mob, though it might hoot and howl with impunity, must stop short of actual violence and mutiny, or their streets would be swept by grape and their gutters run red with blood. It took some time to impress these truths clearly on the average Rebel mind; but the work was effectively done; and New Orleans ultimately confessed that she had not before in a generation been nearly so clean, so quiet, so orderly, so free from robbery, violence, outrage, and murder, as she was under the rule of “ Beast Butler” in the year of grace 1862.

Two conspicuous instances out of many must here serve as examples of his dealings with the spirit of treason.

The women of New Orleans — that portion of them who arrogated to themselves the designation of ladies, with a large majority of their sisters throughout the Confederacy — had ere this become most impassioned Rebels. The aristocratic instinct being stronger in women than in men, Slavery, though it debauched the men and degraded the women of the South, had come to be regarded by the latter — that is, by those of the ruling caste — as their patent of nobility; and they clung to it, and stood ready to sacrifice and dare for it, as aristocrats are always ready to “stand by their order.” They talked loudly of shedding their blood, if need be, for the Confederacy; they acted so as to insure the shedding in that behalf of the blood of their male relatives and neighbors. To proclaim a rigid non-intercourse with all young men who did not promptly enlist in the Confederate armies, and to exhort, entreat, and finally insult, those who hesitated to do so, was a very common exhibition of Southern female patriotism. To treat our officers and soldiers at all times, and under all circumstances, with indications of hatred, contempt, disgust, and loathing, was their still more natural and general practice. The display of a miniature Secession flag on their persons was a harmless, in-offensive exhibition of their feelings which was never objected to on our side. To vacate a church-pew, quit a street-car, or other public vehicle, upon the entrance of one of our officers, was admissible; to strum “The Bonny Blue flag” on the piano whenever a Union officer entered the house, or a Union platoon marched by, could be endured; but when ladies, by breeding or brevet, saw fit to take several reefs in their respective noses, to make an ostentatious display of drawing aside their dresses, to oblique into the middle of the street and then back again, in order to avoid the possibility of contact with a passing officer, or being over-shadowed by the American flag; still more, when, to contemptuous and insuiting gestures, they added opprobrious