A picture of New Orleans.
[From the Courier des Etate Unis] The following letter was written without any expectation that it would ever be published. It comes from a person who takes no part in politics, who has been called to New Orleans merely by accident and whose position places him beyond all personal prejudice. These circumstances render his statements particularly important, and place his assertions beyond all suspicion of exaggeration, of passion, or of bias. The indignation which breaks out in his language is simply that of a man of spirit revolted at the spectacle which he has under his eyes. We copy without any change other than the softening of certain expressions, the energy of which oversteps the bounds permitted to publicity:
New Orleans, Oct. 11, 1862.
You wish a true picture of what is passing here.
I will give it you.
You are acquainted with the Confiscation act passed by Congress. It was there said that every person having been a citizen of the United States who should not renew his allegiance to those States within the sixty days, should be tried and punished with confiscation if he was found guilty. Mr. Butler by the effect of his own omnipotence without troubling himself even with the protest of his own generals has decided that the oath should be exacted under pain of immediate confiscation, from all persons of both sexed over eighteen years of age. He thus transforms into citizens, by a stroke of his pen all the and twenty one years of age.
The first period specified for taking the oath expired on September 2d. The ceremony was then postponed till October 4. Something, however, was added to the programme. According to an order issued September 2d. each head of a family was directed to hand in within ten days a list of the persons in his house over eighteen years of age, specifying those who had taken the oath, and also those who had refused or neglected to take it. The list was also to contain a specification of every description of property belonging to the head of the family from which it emanated. Battle terms of another order, those who did not wish to take the oath were directed to make a declaration to that effect before the Provost Marshal and have themselves registered as enemies of the United States. All persons not complying with this formula were to be punished by imprisonment or hard labor, or both.
I commend these two grades of punishment for one and the same fruit to your particular attention. All this was accompanied by ignoble threats contained in the editorials of the Delta, a journal "whose affairs are conducted by the Federal authorities" as it appears from an order of General Butler himself. Finally, that no one should escape, the agents of police were directed to collect in each quarter the list required from the heads of families and to report all irregularities that should be discovered, under penalty of a fine of $5 for every person not denounced and with a reward of the same sun for every one denounced.
You will understand the effect. There is not a family which has not one of its members in the army, or which has not lost one in some of the battles. A large number of the fathers of families, however, seeing their fortunes about to be confiscated, and their children thrown upon the street — for they were threatened with this without delay and without trial — had taken the oath. When the order of the 24th came, they comprehended with terror that their perjured oath had saved them from nothing. They used every effort then to wring the oath from their wives and children. Some mothers yielded, for we can force women to anything, by menacing their children. A number of young men yielded, also; for it must be confessed that the large majority of those who remain here are not remarkable for an excess of spirit.
But the young woman refused almost every one. Then scenes of the most frightful character passed in family circles. The father implored the daughter resisted. Day by day the apprehensions of the father increased and with them, his prayers. The resistance of the daughter became more determined, and when the decisive moment occurred abuse took the place of argument. I have seen--I myself — a father threaten his daughter with the workhouse, where she would mix indiscriminately with public woman, and heard the daughter reply that she preferred that to committing a perjury, as her father had done. All my friends have seen scenes of the same kind; and what may not take place during our absence, when such scenes constantly occur in the presence of strangers.
The efforts of the parents having failed, on the 4th of October they had no choice but to register with their own hands their children as rebels, and to hand them over to the persecution of Mr. Butler. Those who did not do so were visited by a policeman, who returned their list as incomplete, and notified them to specify such persons as they had forgotten. There are some men whom these incidents have turned crazy.
Since the 4th Mr. Butler has made an excursion, no one knows where, which has competed him to postpone to a later period the persecution of his victims. He has just returned, and I think he is about to commence work. Already confiscations have begun. Without any other form of process Federal officers call and announce to you that after such a time — always very short — your house must be vacated; you are allowed to carry away clothing, but nothing precious — no silver nor jewels. A few days since the sisters of Mr. Benjamin, Secretary of State at Richmond, were notified at 9 o'clock in the evening that their house was to be vacated at 7 o'clock next morning and placed at the disposal of Mr. Butler. I say nothing more of these and worse cases.
Now, is it intended to drive away from the town and throw upon a ruined country, without resources, the ten or twelve thousand persons who have refused to be false to their confidences! Are the men to be placed in Fort Jackson, or St. Philip, or Pickens, and are the women to be herded together in cotton presses, reserved it is raid, for this purpose? The future will tell us. But Mr. Butler is a sort of byens, whose instincts lead us to expect nothing good. I shall be astonished at nothing I hear of him.
Terror hangs over this poor city. Those who have taken the oath are bowed down with ame those who have refused, dread the future; and these,-too, are the men of spirit the dignity of whose conduct would recommend them to the regard of every other man than Mr. Butler.
Among the Northern press which has poured, for so many years, such eloquent anathemas against Haynan and Radetzki, is there not one single journal to brand their rival in New Orleans? Among so many orators who have made a reputation of devotion to liberty, by weeping over Hungary and Venice, is there not one who dares demand mercy from the Government at Washington for the metropolis of Louisiana? He would render a double service to the Union; for the conduct of Mr. Butler only tends to embitter the hatred of the South and to dishonor the Federal cause in the eyes of the world. Acts such as his are neither legitimate as acts of vigor, nor necessary for control; they are a cowardly and revolting tyranny.
