Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

1 The following appeared in a Southern newspaper during the days of Butler's rule in New Orleans:

Considering the character of the infamous order issued, with reference to the ladies of New Orleans, the following will be thought a well-designed act of retributive justice. Preparations were making for a dress-parade, and a number of officers had congregated in front of the St. Charles, Butler's headquarters. A handsome carriage was driven in front of the hotel, accompanied by servants in livery, with every sign of wealth and taste in the owner of the equipage. The occupant, dressed in the latest fashion and sparkling with jewelry, drew from her pocket her gold card-case, and taking therefrom her card, sent it up to Butler's rooms. The next day himself and lady called at the residence indicated on the card — a fine mansion in a fashionable part of the city — where a couple of hours were agreeably spent in conversation, followed by the introduction of wine and cake, when the highly-delighted visitors took their departure. Butler did not appreciate the fact that he had been made the victim of a successful “sell,” until he learned shortly afterwards that he had been paying his respects to the proprietress of one of the most celebrated bagnios in the State, who is at this time “ considered a woman of the town, plying her vocation as such.”

As a matter of justice-or as a specimen of ingenious quibbling, as the reader may decide-we should not omit Gen. Butler's explanation and attempted justification of his “woman-order.” The author of these pages, in the painful character of a prisoner of war, had, once, occasion to meet Gen. Butler, and to have some conversation with him, in the course of which Gen. B. volunteered a long defence of his rule in New Orleans. He declared that as to the “woman-order,” when Lord Palmerston denounced it in the British Parliament, he might, if he had turned to the Ordinances of London, have found that it had been borrowed from that ancient and respectable authority. The “Ladies” of New Orleans, he said, did not interfere with his troops; it was the demi-monde that troubled him. One of this class had spat in an officer's face. Another had placed herself vis-a-vis to an officer in the street, exclaiming, “La, here is a Yankee; don't he look like a monkey!” It became necessary to adopt an order that “would execute itself,” and have these women treated as street-walkers. “How do you treat a street-walker?” said Gen. Butler; “you don't hug and kiss her in the street!,” The General explained that he meant only that these women were to be treated with those signs of con tempt and contumely usually bestowed upon street-walkers, so as to make them ashamed of themselves; and it was thus the order “executed itself.”