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filled with returning bullets.
Furthermore, the column, unless it is too long, can be protected in the street better in the dark than in daylight.
None of my troops up to this time had ever received or given a hostile shot, and I thought it would give them more confidence if I should lead the column, as I did at Baltimore.
But this time I went on foot, as I had no horses.
We marched without opposition to the Custom House, an immense granite building covering some acres and making a complete citadel.
Having disposed of my troops, I returned to the St. Charles Hotel with one company of the Thirty-First Massachusetts as a headquarters guard.
My officers having taken possession of the hotel, I returned to the steamer Mississippi, brought Mrs. Butler on shore, and took her to the hotel in a carriage.
The hotel keeper informed my adjutant-general, Major Strong, that he was afraid to have us come there lest some of the waiters should poison our food.
Strong observed in his hearing: “Well, General, if we are poisoned, the one who survives the longest will have a lively recollection of him who keeps this hotel.”
After breakfast I sent a staff officer to the mayor of the city, asking that he and the representatives of the city government call upon me at the hotel.
The mayor at first said: “No; tell General Butler if he wants to see the city government he will call upon them.”
The officer said to him kindly but significantly: “You had better not have me deliver that message to General Butler, for if you do I shall have to bring you to him in a way that may be unpleasant.”
The city was untamed.
The mayor came down to the hotel about two o'clock, and was received by me in the ladies' parlor, which was in a corner of the building on the first floor.
It was a large room and looked out upon a balcony.
Both streets, St. Charles and Common, were packed with a very clamorous and obstreperous mob. They did not seem to be the canaille.
They interrupted our consultation by their noise very considerably.
Lieutenant Kinsman came in and reported that a Union man, Mr. Somers, who had once been recorder of the city, and who had taken refuge on board the Mississippi, had just been brought off to the hotel.
I directed that he should be taken down to the Custom House for safety.
As he was well known to the mob, I thought it
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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