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| Benjamin "Beast" Butler, whose "Women's Order" in New Orlans brought outrage in the South. Here he is depicted as Bluebeard in this period carte-de-visite photograph. (Library of Congress) |
The Richmond Daily Dispatch
June 9, 1862
The order of Gen. Butler concerning the ladies of New Orleans was read in the camp of the 11th North Carolina regiment, near Wilmington, on the 31st ult., with the following address from Col. Leaventhorpe, of that regiment:
Fellow Soldiers: The infamous order which you have just heard read proceeds from the General whom the fortune of war has placed in possession of one of the noblest cities of the South. The base enemy whom we oppose, not content with the crimes of invasion, with insurrectionary attempts among our domestic population, and with pillaging the fairest regions of our country, has openly dared to threaten our most sacred relations, and to place our wives and our daughters upon the footing of common prostitutes of the town. Gentlemen of North Carolina, the debased passions of his soldiery needed no such incentive. The records of crime written in the and annuals of Maryland, and in there other unfortunate portions of our country which have been polluted by the enemy's feet, prove but too well the fate, worse than death, which awaits these most dear to us on the event of his conquest and our humiliation. But, follow soldiers, with the blessing of God, we need fear no such dusting for our country. Relying, then, on that blessing, let us resolve as one man that Wilmington shall not be reached by the invader, and, in the hour of trial, recalling these scandalous threats against the wives and daughters of New Orleans, let us meet him sternly and hurl him back upon his boats at the point of the bayonet.
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| Pvt. W. T. Harbison of Company B, 11th North Carolina Infantry. (Library of Congress/ Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs) |
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