“INCORRIGIBLE LITTLE DEVIL”
[Eggleston’s Recollections, pages 65-66.]
In New Orleans, soon after the war, I saw in a drawing-room, one day, an elaborately framed letter, of which, the curtains being drawn, I could read only the signature, which to my astonishment was that of General Butler.
“What is that?” I asked of the young gentlewoman I was visiting.
“Oh, that’s my diploma, my certificate of good behavior from General Butler;” and taking it down from the wall, she permitted me to read it, telling me at the same time its history. It seems that the young lady had been very active in aiding captured Confederates to escape from New Orleans, and for this and other similar offenses she was arrested several times. A gentleman who knew General Butler personally had interested himself in behalf of her and some friends, and upon making an appeal for their discharge received this personal note from the commanding general, in which he declared his 142 willingness to discharge all the others. “But that black-eyed Miss B.,” he wrote, “seems to me an incorrigible little devil, whom even prison fare won’t tame.” The young lady had framed the note, and she cherishes it yet, doubtless.
Later on Butler was given a command in the East and General Banks put in control at New Orleans. He was clean and soldierly, but more stern and overbearing in some respects than Butler. Dr. Stone, the most prominent citizen of New Orleans, said to the writer in 1863: “We could manage Butler better than we can Banks. We could scare Butler, but we can’t move Banks.” Our poor women, patient and prudent through it all, were out of the fire, but they were in the frying-pan.