Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-01-05
Farewell Address of Gen. Butler.

few words at parting, by one whose name is
to be hereafter indissolubly connected with
your CITY,
| shall speak in no bitterness, because am
not conscious of single personal luminosity.
Commanding the army of the Gulf, l found
you captured, but not surrendered; conquer
ed, but not orderly; relieved from the pre-
sence of an army, but incapable of taking care
of yourselves. So far from it, you had called
upon foreign legion to protect you from
yourselves. l restored ORDER punished crime,
opened commerce, brought provisions to your
starving people, reformed your currency, and
gave you quiet protection, such as you had
not enjoyed for many years.
While doing this my soldiers were subject
ed to obloquy, reproach and insult
And now, speaking to you, who know the
truth, here declare that whoever has quietly
remained about his business, affording neither
aid nor comfort to the enemies of the United
States, has never been interfered with by the
soldiers Of the United States.
The men who assumed to govern you and
to defend your city in arms, having fled, some
of your women flouted at the presence of
those who came to protect them. By sim
pie order (No 2S) | called upon every soldier
of this army to treat the women of New Or
leans as gentlemen should deal with the sex,
with such effect, that now call upon the just
minded ladies of New Orleans to say whether
they have ever enjoyed SO complete protec-
ton and calm quiet for themselves and their
families as since the advent of the United
States troops.
The enemies of my country, unrepentant
aud implacable, have treated with merited
severity. l hold that rebellion is treason, and
that treason persisted inis death, and any pun
ishment short of that due traitor, gives so
much clear gain to him from the clemency of
the government Upon this thesis have | adj
minstered the authority of the United States,
because OF which | am not unconscious of
complaint. do not feel that have erred in
too much harshness, for that harshness has
ever been exhibited to disloyal enemies of my
country, and not to loyal friends. To be sure
l might have RECALLED you with the amenities
of British civilization, and yet been within the
supposed rules of civilized warfare. You
might have been smoked to death in caverns,
as were the Covenanters of Scotland, by the
command of a general of the royal house of
England or roasted like the inhabitants of
Algiers, during the French campaign; your
wives and daughters might have been given
over to the ravisher, as were the unfortunate
DANES of Spain in the peninsula war; or you
might have been scalped and tomahawked as
were our mothers at Wyoming by the savage
allies of Great Britain in our own revolution;
your property might have been turned over to
indiscriminate ''loot," like the palace of the
emperor of China works of art which adorned
your buildings might have been sent away,
as were the paintings of the Vatican; your
sons might have been blown from the mouths
of cannon, like the Sepoys at Delhi; and yet
all this would have been within the rules of
civilized warfare as practiced by the most pol
fl,.,
rope. For such acts the records of the doings
of some of the inhabitants of your city toward
the friends of the Union, before my coming,
were different provocative and justification.
But have not so conducted. On the con-
trary, the worst punishment inflicted, except
for criminal acts punishable by every law
has been Punishment with labor to a barren
island, where | encamped my own soldiers be-
fore marching here.
1t is true that / have levied upon the
wealthy REBEL and paid out nearly half mil
lion of dollars to feed forty thousand of the
starving poor of all nations assembled here,
made so by this war.
| saw that this rebellion was war of the
aristocrats against the middling men, of the
rich against the poor; war of the land own
er against the laborer; that it was struggle
for the retention of power in the hands of the
sion to it save in the subjugation of the few
and the disenthrallment of the many. there
forefelt no hesitation in taking the substance
of the wealthy, who had caused the war. to
feed the innocent poor who had suffered by
the war. And | shall now leave you with the
proud consciousness that l shall carry with
me the blessings of the humble and loyal I'M
der the roof of the cottage and in the cabin of
the slave, and so am quite content to incur the
sneers of the salon or the curses of the rich.
l found you trembling at the terrors of SER
vile instruction. All danger of this | have
prevented by so treating the slave that he had
no cause to rebel.
[ found the dungeon, the chain, and the
lash, your only means of enforcing obedience
in your servants l leave them peaceful la
borious, controlled by the laws of kindness and
justice.
have demonstrated that the pestlence can
be kept from your borders
have added million of dollars to your
wealth, in the the form of new land from the
batture Of the Mississippi.
| have cleansed and improved your streets,
canals, and public squares, and opened new
avenues to unoccupied land
have given you freedom of elections great
er than you have ever enjoyed before.
have caused justice to be administered so
unanimously complimented the judges of my
appointment.
You lave seen, therefore, the benefit of the
laws and justice of the government against
which you have rebelled.
Why, then, will you not all return to your
allegiance to that government-not with lip
service, but with the heart?
conjure you, il you desire ever to see
renewed prosperity, giving business to your
streets and wharves-if you hope to see your
city become again the mart of the western
world, fed by its rivers for more than three
thousand miles, draining the commerce of
country greater than the mind of man hath
ever conceived-return to your allegiance.
If you desire to leave to your children the
inheritance you received of your fathers-a
stable constitutional governmental you de-
sire that they should in the future be a por-
ton of the greatest empire the sun ever shone
upon-return to your allegiance.
There is but one thing that stands in the
way.
There as but one thing that at this hour
stands betceeN you and the government, and
that IS SlaUery.
The institution, cursed of God, which has
taken its last refuge here, in His providence
will be rooted out as the tares from the wheat,
although the wheat be torn up with it.
have given much thought to this subject.
| came. among you, by teachings, by habit
of mind, by political position, by social affini-
ty, inclined to sustain your domestic laws, if
by possibility they might be with safety to the
Union.
Months of erDeyienee and obse,,yntlou hare