This condition of affairs continued about two weeks, until it became positively intolerable.

Young officers, too gallant, and too deeply imbued with the American respect for woman, to resent, by word or deed, the indignity, would come to the General with their cheeks crimson with shame and the effort to repress their just indignation, and beg him to take some measure for the suppression of the evil.

Most men would have seen no other solution of the difficulty than the arrest and punishment of a few of the offenders as a warning to the rest.  But General Butler foresaw, what was afterwards proved in the case of Mrs. Larue, that the arrest of women would invariably provoke a street-disturbance, which might lead to bloodshed; he, therefore, remembering an old ordinance of the city of London, republished it in the form of the General Order which has gained so universal a celebrity.

Mr. Monroe, who was mayor of the city at the time of its capture, came in a paroxysm of anger to protest against the order as a libel on every lady in New Orleans.

The General, with perfect good-nature, went over every word of it with him, explaining its origin and its intent, and demonstrating beyond doubt that it simply gave the female population of the city the opportunity to choose in which of the two categories they would be classed,—­ladies or “common women,”—­and assured the Mayor, that, above all, his idea was to promulgate such an order as would execute itself, and prevent the very thing which the Rebels have since charged upon him,—­“a war upon women.”

Three times Mr. Monroe left the General with the firm conviction that the act was perfectly proper; but, instigated by crafty and able conspirators, of whom the ruling spirit was Mr. Pierre Soule, he repeatedly returned with fresh attacks on the General’s administration, and especially on this order, until, the General’s patience being exhausted, he said to him,—­“Mr. Mayor, you have played with me long enough.  Your case is settled.  The boat leaves for Fort Jackson this afternoon, and you must be ready to take passage on her at four o’clock.”

I never witnessed greater forbearance than the General displayed in his treatment of the Mayor; indeed, I was at the time quite indignant that he allowed him such liberty of speech and action.

One word more about “Order No. 28.”  General Beauregard’s fierce anger, and his horrible construction of its provisions, intended for effect on his troops, will be well remembered by my readers.  It may not be uninteresting to them to know that Beauregard’s sister in New Orleans, when asked her opinion of the order, answered,—­“I have no interest in or objection to it; it does not apply to me.”  Is it difficult to guess to which class she belonged?

Can I say anything stronger in vindication of the propriety of this order, or of the General’s sagacity in issuing it, than that the first twenty-four hours after its promulgation witnessed a complete, and, it seemed to us who were there, almost miraculous, change in the deportment of the ladies of the Crescent City?  If success is the test of merit, then was it one of the most meritorious acts of the war.