10 Fascinating Facts About the Civil War in Louisiana

Benjamin Butler

Following New Orleans’ surrender in April 1862 to Union naval forces, Major General Benjamin F. Butler was put in command of the city ahead of 10,000 occupation troops. The Massachusetts-born politician turned military leader ruled with an iron fist and was branded with the sobriquet “Beast.” On June 7, in spite of pleas from the the wife and children of prisoner William Mumford, Butler followed through on a military court order to hang the accused rabblerouser for tearing down the American flag from the New Orleans Mint and ripping it to shreds. Tempers flared, and at least one woman was known to have discarded the contents of a chamber pot upon the head of an officer from her second-floor window. Such brazenly disrespectful actions by women, including encouraging children to sing Confederate songs, spitting upon soldiers and turning backs to avoid acknowledging the military occupiers, prompted Butler to issue his infamous General Order No. 28. The edict read: “As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subjected to repeated insults from the women, calling themselves ‘Ladies,’ of New Orleans, in return of the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or private of the United States she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her vocation.” Profiting from the ensuing outrage, merchants in New Orleans began clandestine sales of chamber pots with Butler’s photograph pasted to the bottom. P. G. T. Beauregard had the Order read aloud to Confederate troops to stir emotions: “Men of the South! Shall our mothers, our wives, our daughters and our sisters, be thus outraged by the ruffianly soldiers of the North, to whom is given the right to treat, at their pleasure, the ladies of the South as common harlots? Arouse friends, and drive back from our soil, those infamous invaders of our homes and disturbers of our family ties.”