[Illustration: OLD CITY HALL, NEW ORLEANS, WHERE THE SURRENDER OF THE CITY WAS DEMANDED.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL MANSFIELD LOVELL, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: THOS. O. MOORE, GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA.]
On the night of the 24th, by order of the authorities in the city, the torch was applied to everything, except buildings, that could be of use to the victors. Fifteen thousand bales of cotton, heaps of coal and wood, dry-docks, a dozen steamboats and as many cotton-ships, and an unfinished ironclad ram were all burned. Barrels were rolled out and broken open, the levee ran with molasses, and the poor people carried away the sugar in their baskets and aprons. The Governor called upon the people of the State to burn their cotton, and two hundred and fifty thousand bales were destroyed.
Butler had witnessed the passage of the forts, and he now hurried over his troops and invested St. Philip on the land side, while Porter sent some of his mortar-boats to a bay in the rear of Fort Jackson, and in a few days both works were surrendered. Farragut sent two hundred and fifty marines into the city to take formal possession and guard the public buildings. Butler arrived there with his forces on the 1st of May, and it was then turned over to him, and it remained in Federal possession throughout the war. His administration of the captured city, from May to December, was the subject of much angry controversy; but no one denies that he reduced its turbulence to order, made it cleaner than it had ever been before, and averted a pestilence. He also caused provisions to be issued regularly to many of the needy inhabitants.
The most famous incident of his administration was what became known as "the woman order." Many of the women of New Orleans, even while they were living on food issued to them by the National commissary, took every possible pains to flaunt their disloyalty and to express contempt for the wearers of the blue uniform. If an officer entered a street car, all the women would immediately leave it. If a detachment of soldiers passed through a residence street, many windows were thrown open and "Dixie" or the "Bonny Blue Flag" was loudly played on the piano. If the women met an individual soldier on the sidewalk, they drew their skirts closely around them and passed at its extreme edge. And all the while they took every opportunity to display small rebel flags on their bosoms and to proclaim loudly that their city was "captured but not conquered." These things were borne with patience; but when one woman, enraged at the imperturbable calmness of the city's captors, stepped up to two officers in the street and spat in their faces, General Butler judged that the time for putting a stop to such proceedings had come. Accordingly, he issued General Orders No. 28, which read thus: