The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-02 00:00:00

The Tyranny of General Butler.

The following is a copy of a letter to President
Davis, from one of the victims of the brutal rule of
General Butler at New Orleans.

"TO lIIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS, PRESIDENT 07

THE CONFEDERATE STATES.
" Ship Island,
Sept. 13, 1862.
State of Mississippi,

" Sir,—A close prisoner on this desolate island,
with some 50 or more of my fellow-citizens, I have
thought it my duty, at every risk, to communicate
to you some at least of the incidents of the adminis-
tration of the brutal tyrant who has been sent by the
United States Government to oppress,
rob, insult,
and trample upon our people in every manner which
the most fiendish ingenuity andmost wanton cruelty
could devise, and in gross violation of all the laws
and usages of the most remorseless wars between
civilised and even savage nations and tribes.

" I was consigned to Ship Island as a close pri-
soner, with seven other respectable citizens, to a
small hut, 15 feet by 20, exposed to rain and sun,
without permission to leave, except for a bathe in
the sea once or twice a week.
" A description of the causes and circumstances
of the imprisonment of our citizens, who are now
held on this island, will afford some of the mildest
illustrations of Butler's brutality.
"There are about 60 prisoners here, all of whom
are closely confined in portable houses, and furnished
with most wretched end unwholesome condemned
soldiers' rations. Some are kept at hard labour on
the fort; several,
in addition to labour, are com-
pelled to wear a ball and chain, which are never re-
moved. Among these is Mr. Shepherd, a respect-
able, elderly, and weakly citizen, who is charged
with secreting certain papers belonging to the
naval officer of the Confederate States, which the
latter left in his charge when he departed from
New Orleans. Mr. Shepherd had the proof that the
officer who had deposited these documents after-
wards returned and took them, and that they
had been carried into the Confederate States.
This testimony Butler would not receive, and de-
clared that if it existed it would make no difference
in his case. Dr. Moore, a dealer in drugs, is also
at hard labour with ball and chain, on the charge
of having sent a few ounces of quinine into the Con-
federate States. There are five prisoners condemned,
and employed at hard labour, on the charge of in-
tending to break their parole as prisoners of war,
captured at Fort Jackson. There is also a delicate
youth from the country who is subjected to the
same treatment, on the charge of being a guerilla,'
the terms which Butler applies to the Partisan
Rangers, organised under the Act of Congress of
the Confederate States.

" Alderman Beggs, on the charge of denouncing
those who have taken the oath to the Confe-
derate States afterwards swore allegiance to the
United States, and Mr. Keller, a vendor of
books, stationery, and scientific apparatus, on
the charge of permitting a clerk to placard the
word Chickahominy' on a skeleton which was sus-
pended in his show-window for sale for the use
of students of anatomy, are condemned also to close
imprisonment and hard labour for two years. The
others mentioned above are condemned for a longer
period. A like condemnation and punishment were
imposed upon Judge John W. Andrews, a most re-
spectable citizen, recently a member of the judiciary
of state, of the legislature, and of the city council,
and a prominent merchant. This gentleman is ad-
vanced in years and in very delicate health. There
is little hope that his health can long sustain his
present burdens and hardships.

"The circumstances of Mrs. Phillips's imprison-
ment are probably known to you. As, however
I desire this to be an authentic and studiously ac-
curate statement of facts, I will here relate them.
In the raid of the United States troops near War-
renton, Mississippi, a young officer named Dekay
was mortally wounded. He died in New Orleans,
and an attempt was made by the Federal authori-
ties to get up
a pompous funeral ceremony and pro-
cession in honour of so,' gallant and heroic a young
officer,' who had,fallen in an expedition which had
no other purpose or object but the pillage of de-
fenceless farms and villages. The effort to excite
the sympathies of our people on this occasion proved
a ridiculous failure, and the funeral ceremony had
no aspect of solemnity or even propriety—a long
line of carriages composing the cortege, designed for
the Union citizens, being all empty. As this pro-
cession passed the residence of Mr. P. Phillips,Mrs.
Phillips, standing on the balcony with several lady
friends was observed by some Federal officers to
smile ; so it was charged. She was then arrested
and taken before Butler, who in the most brutal
and violent manner sought to terrify the heroic
lady. In this he did not succeed. Whilst denying
that her gaiety had any reference whatever to the
funeral ceremony, Mrs. Phillips refused to make
any apologies on concessions to the vulgar tyrant.
Thereupon she was condemned to close imprison-
ment in a filthy guard-room, thence to be trans-
ported to Ship Island, where she was to be held in
close confinement for two years, with no other fare
but soldiers' rations, no intercourse or correspon-
dence with any person, except through Gen. Butler.
This sentence was published in the newspapers,
accompanied by words of :the grossest insult and
most vulgar ribaldry, in which Mrs. Phillips was
denounced not a common, but an uncommon bad
woman,' referring to his proclamation denounced
by Lord Palmerston and the whole civilised world,
as ' so infamous,' in which his soldiers are autho-
rised to treat as common women plying their pro-
fession' all who may manifest any contempt or dis-
courtesy towards them. To add further insult, in
the order condemning Mr. Keller, it was made a
part of his sentence to permit him to hold con-
verse and intercourse with Mrs. Phillips, to which
condition that honest man was induced to protest,
from the belief that his fellow-p-isoner was a no-
torious courtesan of the city, who bore the name
of Phillips. This protest was published in
the papers, with Butler's order granting the re-
quest of Keller, so to convey to the world
the idea that a poor vendor of periodicals
declined association with a lady of the highest
respectability, the wife of a distinguished lawyer
and ex-member of Congress. I can bear personal
testimony to the rigorous execution of the sentence
against Mrs. Phillips, having been imprisoned for
weeks in a building adjoining to that which she
was never allowed to leave. Such was the treatment