The net result of the contest was the destruction of the Confederate fleet. With that out of the way Farragut pushed on to New Orleans and with guns out for action, demanded the city's surrender.
Only one issue was possible, of course. The city was at Farragut's mercy. He could easily destroy it should it resist. It only remained for him to hoist the National flag over it and to send for General Butler's land force to occupy and possess the chief city of the South, which he did on the first of May.
Butler's rule in the city, where the white population at that time consisted chiefly of women and children, was harsh and even brutal—so harsh and so brutal in its attitude toward women as to offend sentiment both North and South, and in Europe.
He issued one order which could not have come from the headquarters of any man of soldierly instincts or gentle associations. By way of resenting the attitude and conduct of women toward a conquering soldiery, he put forth a decree in these words:
General Orders No. 28
Headquarters, Dept. of the Gulf,
New Orleans, May 15, 1862.As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans in return for 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 soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.
By order of Major-General Butler.
George C. Strong,
Assistant Adjutant General and
Chief of Staff.
It needs no argument and no exposition to show that in issuing this order Benjamin F. Butler deliberately gave license and authority to the most brutal impulses of the most degraded men under his command,—authorizing them to judge for themselves when they should choose to think themselves insulted "by word, gesture, or movement," and upon every such occasion, without further inquiry, and upon their own initiative, to treat every woman who had occasion to venture into the streets as "a woman of the town plying her avocation."
With the cynicism that had equipped him for practice in the criminal courts of Boston, Butler afterwards explained his order by saying that the only right way to treat "a woman of the town plying her avocation," is to pass her by unnoticed. But he perfectly knew that that was not what his order meant to his soldiery or what he meant it to mean.
The rigor of Butler's rule in New Orleans was in some other respects salutary. He wantonly imprisoned many citizens—men and women indifferently—without warrant or just cause, but apart from that he ruled the city to its advantage. In mortal dread of yellow fever, he cleaned New Orleans as it had never been cleaned before, and throughout a hot summer he kept the city healthier than it had ever been in all its history.
Having thus completely achieved that "success" which the civilians of the Navy Department had "required" of him, Farragut was ambitious to accomplish more. He proposed further operations of like character against other Confederate ports from which commerce was being carried on in spite of the blockade. It was quite obvious that no blockade could stop this commerce on which the South so largely depended for its supplies. The only way in which the shutting in of the Confederacy could be made effective was to capture the defensive works of every Confederate port.
To that task Farragut earnestly desired to address himself. It was his purpose to make himself master of every Confederate seaport, relieve the blockading squadrons of their expensive, perilous, difficult, and ineffective work, and completely to seal the South against all outward or inward commerce with the world. His plan was to substitute the absolute possession of Confederate ports for their manifestly inefficient blockade. He asked permission, therefore, to proceed at once upon this mission, beginning with Mobile.