Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[437] did so. But nobody paid the slightest attention to it and nobody paid anything afterwards on that order, and it stands to-day unrepealed, uncancelled, and unexecuted. But the necessities of the poor remained the same, and if they were relieved it must have been from some other source. But with that I have nothing to do.

It may be remembered that I recognized a man parading in the mob in front of the St. Charles Hotel, wearing in his buttonhole a fragment of the national flag, which had been torn down from the mint, and that I ordered measures to be taken for his identification. Soon afterward he was arrested, but before he could be brought to trial there was another cause for a military commission.

Six soldiers who were captured and paroled at Forts Jackson and St. Philip were confederating together to enlist a company to be known as the “Monroe guard,” Monroe being mayor of the city. This company, when fully organized, was to arm itself in the city and break through our lines and join Beauregard. These men, some of whom had been sergeants, were to be officers. This combination being brought to my notice, proper measures were taken to secure the prevention of its designs. The six instigators of it were brought before a military commission and tried for breach of parole, the punishment of which by military law is death. This was a very flagrant case of such breach, because they took advantage of the liberty obtained by parole to plot war against the United States. On the 31st day of May, in pursuance of the advice of the commission as to what disposition should be made of them, an order was issued for their execution by hanging.

Now, it was known in New Orleans that no capital execution had been had in the State of Louisiana for eighteen years, the sequence of which was that New Orleans had been the scene of the most unprovoked and unjustifiable murders which could well be imagined, with no punishment therefor. One had taken place on the day of my landing there. A German citizen on the levee shouted out: “Hurrah for the old flag.” He was immediately shot, seized and thrown into the river. I made many exertions to find out who did it, but was not able to do so.

I had some misgivings when I gave orders for the punishment of these six men whether they had understood fully how great was their crime. Indeed, one of them said in his defence: “Paroling is ”