could not until then entertain the proposition. But CHAP. XV. while the rebel commanders were hesitating, the men composing the garrisons were forming their own conclusions and preparing to act on them. At midnight of April 27 there was a sudden mutiny in Fort Jackson; the insurgents seized the guards, reversed the field-pieces commanding the gates, began spiking the guns, and fired upon officers who went to the parapet to control them. Simultaneously, about half the garrison deserted the fort with 1862. w. R. their arms and surrendered themselves to Butler's pickets. Duncan, Vol. VI., p. 531. Higgins to 1862. W. R. Porter, April 28, Vol. VI., p. 544. This state of affairs left the commanders no alternative. On the forenoon of April 28 they sent a flag of truce to Porter, accepting his terms of capitulation, which were duly signed at an interview between the officers on the steamer Harriet Lane that afternoon. While the officers sat together in the cabin an exciting incident took place. The Confederate note of acceptance stated that "We have no control over the vessels afloat"; but it was taken for granted that the flags of truce flying from the Union ships and visible to all were a sufficient safeguard. Great was the consternation, therefore, when it was suddenly announced that the Confederate ironclad Louisiana, hitherto anchored above Fort St. Philip, had been set on fire by her commander, abandoned and cut adrift, and was floating down towards the other ships. Porter writes that he said to the Confederate officers: "This is sharp practice, but if you can stand the explosion when it comes, we can. We will go on and finish the capitulation." The Confed- Magazine," erate officers protested their innocence of the act, "Century April, 1885, p. 950. VOL. V.-18 Duncan, Vol. VI., CHAP. XV. and quietly remained. "As the wreck in descending kept close into the Fort St. Philip shore," reports Confederate General J. K. Duncan, “the 1861. W. R. chances were taken by the enemy without changing the position of his boats." Fortunately the Louisiana exploded while abreast Fort St. Philip, and before she had come near enough to cause damage to Porter's ships. p. 532. CHAPTER XVI NEW ORLEANS HE way was now clear to New Orleans; and CHAP. XVI. THE as soon as General Butler could get his trans ports from the Gulf side round into the river again, he proceeded, after occupying the forts, as rapidly as possible up the river with his troops. On the 1st of May the naval forces under Farragut turned over to him the formal possession of the city, and he continued in command of the Department of the Gulf until the following December. The withdrawal of General Lovell, and the abandonment of Forts Pike and McComb at the entrances to Lake Pontchartrain, left him with no serious campaign immediately on his hands; but the task of governing the city of New Orleans was one which put all his energy and shrewdness into requisition. The supply of provisions had been interrupted by the military operations of the rebels themselves before the coming of Farragut's fleet; a portion of these again were carried away with Lovell's retiring army. When Butler came, starvation was close upon 150,000 people of New Orleans.1 1"My efforts to accumulate provisions enough in the city to feed the population had proved abortive, and an examination made a few days previous to the evacuation had satisfied me that there were not in the city pro- 1862. CHAP. XVI. To avert this danger was the general's first urgent effort, and he made it successful over all difficulties. His second care was to quell and to control the dangerous disloyalty of the population. An order to his own soldiers forbade, under the severest penalties, the stealing of public or private property; a proclamation to the citizens established martial law and made minute regulations for the preservation of order. He gave to neutral aliens and to loyalists assurance of full protection to persons and property; and to non-combatant Confederates also, so far as the exigencies of the public service would permit. In their most favorable phases, war and martial law are full of necessary sacrifice and harshness, and it may be said that General Butler's military government, firm and vigilant throughout, was tolerant and even liberal to the well-disposed and orderly, but severe against transgressors and the malicious plottings of certain individuals, corporations, and classes in aid of rebellion. These pages do not afford room for an extended review of General Butler's administration. In all the war no man was so severely criticized by his enemies or more warmly defended by his friends. Confederate newspapers, orators, and writers have exhausted the vocabulary of abuse for epithets to heap upon his name, from "Yankee" to "Beast" and "Butcher." Secession sympathizers in England approvingly echoed this defamation; Palmerston in the House of Commons went out of his way to swell the unthinking British clamor by repeating the unjust censure. The whole subject might profitably be buried as part of the "animosities and passions of |