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

“ [438] for officers and gentlemen; we are not gentlemen.” That they were guilty enough of bad acts toward the government, I did not doubt, but I questioned whether they were guilty of the precise act for which the sentence was invoked, for want of knowledge which caused that guilt.

Immediately the cry went out that I would not dare to hang them. That of course I took no notice of. Their lives were very earnestly and eloquently besought by three good Union men whom I knew. They presented a petition for this purpose, signed by many of the known Union citizens in the place. I gave the matter the most serious attention, for it was the first time that the life of a man had depended on my single order, and I was anxious to escape the responsibility for their death if I might properly do so. Upon their representation and upon the representations made to me that it would be regarded as an act of pacification, shortly before the date fixed for the execution of the order, I respited the prisoners to hard labor for a long term. That was done on the 4th day of June.

Meanwhile Mumford, who had torn down the flag, had been put on trial for that crime. His offence had been a most heinous one, and the dire results that might have arisen from it seemed almost providentially to have been averted.

After the military had fled, the mayor of New Orleans informed Farragut,--I say Farragut, for now it is no honor to him to be given a title,--that as the civil authority of the city he could not surrender the United States mint. Farragut then ordered the United States flag to be placed on the government buildings as a token of the surrender of the city, and had it placed there amidst the insults poured upon his officers and men charged with that duty. The authorities were warned that as long as the flag waved there it would be understood that the city had surrendered. Whenever it should be taken down, that act would be a signal that the city had resumed hostilities and would be followed by the threatened bombardment.

Farragut did not place a guard on the top of the mint for the reason that any altercation or interference with the guard might afford an excuse for somebody to haul down the flag. But he placed howitzers in the main-tops of his ship, the Hartford, with guns' crews to watch the flag. These men were instructed that if any persons