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

[464] army on the 10th of June, and of Halleck's reply on the 23d that his own army was weak and disorganized, I was convinced as to the sort of a man I had to deal with, and I never had any more dealings with him during my stay in New Orleans.

Meanwhile I had received some information which put the proposed movement against Mobile wholly to one side and also showed that Farragut's fleet might at any moment be called from his attack on Vicksburg.

Before the 16th of May, a short time after my arrival in New Orleans, a small French vessel, the Catinet, came up and anchored at the head of the fleet. Her officers and sailors did not sympathize with the Union people of New Orleans, or with the military officers, or troops. Her commander did not do himself the honor of calling on the commanding general even on a visit of ceremony. He passed by the forts after Farragut passed up without Farragut seeing him.

I learned afterwards that he was simply a French spy. The only communication I had with him was within thirty days after his arrival. He held a great jubilee on his vessel one evening, and had a large party there singing secession songs at the top of their voices, calling large crowds to the levee to hear them. I sent him a communication saying that such conduct must not be repeated on board his vessel, and that if it was I should send down a battery of artillery to prevent it. It did not recur.

Meanwhile I was informed by the Secretary of State, verbally, that information had been received, through confidential channels, from Paris that Emperor Louis Napoleon had made substantially this proposition to the English government:--

That the two governments should unite in recognizing the independence of the Confederacy. That a treaty should then immediately be made with the Confederacy through Mason and Slidell. That Louis Napoleon, being promised aid by the rebels, should make an attack upon Mexico [which was afterwards made without their aid], for the purpose of establishing the empire of Maximilian, and that he should occupy New Orleans as a base of his operations, as Vera Cruz was not a harbor that could be safely occupied by a fleet, on account of its exposure to the “northers.”

More in detail, the last part of the scheme was this: The Emperor was to assemble his fleet at Martinique under the pretence of blockading