“I say ‘drawn from the veins of her abuser,’ because she declared she was his daughter; and everyone in the room, looking upon the man and woman confronting each other, confessed that the resemblance justified the assertion.
“At the conclusion of all the evidence in the case, the general continued in the same position as before, and remained for some time apparently lost in abstraction. I shall never forget the singular expression on his face.
“I had been accustomed to see him in a storm of passion at any instance of oppression or flagrant injustice; but, on this occasion, he was too deeply affected to obtain relief in the usual way.
“His whole air was one of dejection, almost listlessness; his indignation too intense, and his anger too stern, to find expression, even in his countenance. After sitting in the mood which I have described at such length, the general again turned to the prisoner, and said, in a quiet, subdued tone of voice,—
“‘Mr. Landry, I dare not trust myself to decide to-day what punishment would be meet for your offence; for I am in that state of mind that I fear I might exceed the strict demands of justice. I shall therefore place you under guard for the present, until I conclude upon your sentence.’
“A few days after, a number of influential citizens having represented to the general that Mr. Landry was not only a ‘high-toned gentleman,’ but a person of unusual ‘amiability’ of character, and was consequently entitled to no small degree of leniency, he answered, that, in consideration of the prisoner’s ‘high-toned’ character, and especially of his ‘amiability,’ of which he had seen so remarkable a proof, he had determined to meet their views; and therefore ordered that Landry give a deed of manumission to the girl, and pay a fine of five hundred dollars, to be placed in the hands of a trustee for her benefit.”
It was scenes like the above that changed Gen. Butler’s views upon the question of slavery; for it cannot be denied, that, during the first few weeks of his command in New Orleans, he had a controversy with Gen. Phelps, owing to the latter’s real antislavery feelings. Soon after his arrival, Gen. Butler gave orders that all negroes not needed for service should be removed from the camps. The city was sealed against their escape. Even secession masters were assured that their property, if not employed, should be returned. It is said that pledges of reimbursement for loss of labor were made to such. Gen. Phelps planted himself on the side of the slave; would not exile them from his camp; branded as cruel the policy that harbored, and then drove out the slave to the inhuman revenge that awaited him.
Yet the latter part of Gen. Butler’s reign compensated for his earlier faults. It must be remembered, that, when he landed in New Orleans, he was fresh from Washington, where the jails were filled with fugitive slaves, awaiting the claim of their masters; where the return of the escaped bondman was considered a military duty. Then how could he be expected to do better? The stream cannot rise higher than the spring.
His removal from the Department of the Gulf, on account of the crushing blows which he gave the “peculiar institution,” at once endeared him to the hearts of the friends of impartial freedom throughout the land.
The following imitation of Leigh Hunt’s celebrated poem is not out of place here:—