General Butler harassed the beauties of New Orleans and was dubbed the Beast of Louisiana. One of Butler’s responsibilities was the command of the Union occupation forces in New Orleans, in 1862. Benjamin Franklin Butler, a lawyer from Massachusetts, was a career politician at the beginning of the war and was a political appointed general officer, with no prior military experience.
Butler had many civic accomplishments to his credit while in New Orleans, including stemming Yellow Fever epidemics and caring for the poor and indigent of the city. However, his political ego and self-aggrandizing persona begat many embarrassing incidents, that did not endear him to the residents or the power elite in Washington.
General Butler’s rule of the Southern City, was running smoothly with the male population, but the feisty secessionist females were another matter. The ladies repeatedly insulted the Union troops and especially the gentlemanly officers. According to reports, the fairer sex demonstrated their contempt for the Union Occupation, by baring and wagging petticoated behinds at the troops, spitting on officers and the ultimate humiliation, the dumping of a chamber pot on a passing soldier of influence.
Butler had endured enough, he became totally unhinged and immediately issued General Order No. 28, which stated that if any woman should, “insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and shall be held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.”
Needless to say, the reaction, both North and South, was immediate and incredulous. The order in itself martyred the entire female population of the Confederacy and gave Jefferson Davis much-needed fodder for inspiring his troops in the field and the men on the home front. The reputation of the comely and refined mothers, wives and sweethearts of Confederate Patriots was in jeopardy.
And for the Political General, right or wrong, he was forever dubbed as “Beast Butler.”
Bummer
