Dated New-Orleans, May 9, 1862. 2 pp., 5” x 8. Exhibits slight smudge,  page 1. Else VG plus.  Text:

In this general order, General Butler notes that the “state of destitution and hunger of the mechanics and working classes of this city has been brought to the knowledge of the  Commanding General.”

He goes on to blast the fleeing rebels leadership, and especially residents of affluent Lafayette Square, and then asks the working class left behind….”Men of Louisiana, workingmen, property holders, Merchants and Citizens of the United States, of whatever nation you may have had birth, how long will you uphold these flagrant wrongs, and by inaction suffer yourselves to be made serfs of these leaders?

The United states have sent land and naval forces here to fight and subdue rebellious armies….We find, substantially, only fugitive masses, runaway property burners, a whiskey drinking mob, and starving citizens with their wives and children. It is our call to call back the first, to punish the second, root out the third, feed and protect the last…

Ready only for war, we had not prepared ourselves to feed the hungry nd relieve the distressed with provisions”….Nonetheless, from a store of captured beef and sugar intended for rebels in the field...”A thousand barrels of those stores will be distributed among the deserving poor of this city, from whom the rebels had plundered it; even although some of the food will go to supply the craving wants of the wives and children herding at “Camp Moore” and elsewhere, in arms against the United States….”

In other words, Butler discovered upon arrival that, aside from the slave population, the New Orleans citizenry, high and low, hated Yankees the unrelentingly to hilt. In protective sleeve.  [jp][ph:L]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS ITEM, AS WITH ALL OTHER ITEMS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEB SITE,

MAY BE PURCHASED THROUGH OUR LAYAWAY PROGRAM.

CLICK HERE FOR OUR POLICIES AND TERMS.

THANK YOU!