"The amount of the order was that every woman who should behave as that one had, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, should be regarded and held liable to be treated as not of good moral character. The mayor made it the subject of another impudent and absurd letter to General Butler, for which he was arrested, but he was soon released again upon making a humble apology."
"Did they let him be mayor again, papa?" asked Grace.
"No; instead General G. F. Sheply of Maine, was appointed Military Governor of New Orleans, and made an excellent one, having the city made cleaner, and in consequence more wholesome, than it had been for years, if ever before. Soon after that William B. Mumford was arrested, tried by a military court for treason in having torn down the flag, found guilty, and hanged."
CHAPTER V.
There was a moment of silence broken by Lulu with an eager exclamation. "Oh, papa, don't you remember that when we were at Saratoga last summer you promised that sometime you would tell us about the fighting in the Revolution near and at Fort Schuyler? and won't you please do so now?"
"I will if the others wish to hear it," he replied, and a general eager assent being given he at once began the story.
"Fort Schuyler," he said, "at first called Fort Stanwix, in honor of the general of that name, who directed the work of its erection, stood at the head of boat navigation on the Mohawk, where the village of Rome now is. It cost the British and Colonial Government two hundred and sixty-six thousand four hundred dollars and was a strong post of resistance to attack from the French in Canada, with whom, as you all know, I think, the colonists were often at war, on their own account or that of the mother country, and a powerful protection to the Indian trade. It commanded the portage between Lake Ontario and the Mohawk valley, the theatre of many stirring events during the War of the Revolution. Indians and Tories kept in terror the people who lived there and were loyal to the cause of their country. There were daylight struggles and stealthy midnight attacks in such numbers that Tryon County came to be spoken of as 'the dark and bloody ground.'
"Congress perceiving the importance of defending the northern and western frontiers of New York from incursions by the British and Indians, sent General Schuyler to strengthen old Fort Stanwix, which had been allowed to fall into a state of decay so that it was little more than a ruin, and, if he found it necessary, to erect other fortifications.