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[242] highway. By an order (No. 91), the entire property in that part of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River was sequestrated for confiscation, and officers were assigned to the duty, with orders to gather up and collect the personal property, and turn over to the proper officers, upon their receipts, such of it as might be required for the use of the United States army, and to bring the remainder to New Orleans, and cause it to be sold at public auction to the highest bidders. This was an order which, if it had been executed, would have condemned to punishment by starvation at least a quarter of a million persons of all ages, sexes, and conditions. The African slaves, also, were not only incited to insurrection by every license and encouragement, but numbers of them were armed for a servile war which in its nature, as exemplified in other lands, far exceeds the horrors and merciless atrocities of savages. In many instances the officers were active and zealous agents in the commission of these crimes, and no instance was known of the refusal of any one of them to participate in the outrages.

The order of Major General Butler to which reference is made above was as follows:

headquarters, Department of the Gulf, New Orleans.
As officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from women, calling themselves ladies, of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered hereafter, when any female shall, by mere gesture or movement, insult, or show contempt for any officers or soldiers of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman about town plying her vocation.

By command of Major-General Butler.

This order was issued on May 15, 1862, and known as General Order No. 28.

Another example was the cold-blooded execution of William B. Mumford on June 7th. He was an unresisting and noncombatant captive, and there was no offense ever alleged to have been committed by him subsequent to the date of the capture of the city. He was charged with aiding and abetting certain persons in hauling down a United States flag hoisted on the mint, which was left there by a boat's crew on the morning of April 26th, and five days before the military occupation of the city. He was tried before a military commission, sentenced, and afterward hanged.

On December 15, 1862, Major General N. P. Banks took command of the military forces, and Major General Butler retired. The military governor, early in August, had attempted to set on foot a judicial system

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