Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1863-01-14
Gen. Buffers Farewell Address.

occasion, that there should be addressed
to you q few words at parting, by one
whose name is to be hereafter indissolu-
bly, connected with your city.
l shall speak in no bitterness, because
| am not conscious of a single personal
animosity. Commanding the Army OF
the Gulf, | found you captured, but not
surrendered conquered, but not orderly;
relieved from the presence of an army,
but incapable of taking care of yourselves.
So far from it, you had called upon a for
eign legion to protect you from your
selves. l restored order, punished crime,
opened commerce, brought provisions to
your starving people, reformed your cur
rency, and gave you quiet protection,
such as you had not enjoyed for many
years.
While doing this, my soldiers were
subjected to obloauy, ~reproach, and in
suit.
And now, speaking to you, who know
the truth, 1 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
fed, some of your women f1outed at the
presence of those who came to protect
them. By a simple order, mo. 28) L
called upon every soldier of this army to
treat the women of New Orleans as gen.
tlemen should deal with the sex, with
such effect that l now call upon the just
minded ladies of New Orleans to say
whether they have ever enjoyed so com
plete protection and calm quiet for
themselves and their families, as since
the advent of the United States troops.
The enemies of my country, unrepent-
ant and implacable, | have treated with
merited severity. | hold that rebellion
is treason, and that treason persisted in
is death, and any punishment short of
that due a traitor gives so much clear
gain to him from the clemency of the
government. Upon this thesis have |
administered the authority of the United
States, because of which l am not uncon-
scious of complaint. l do not feel that |
ave erred in too much harshness, for
that harshness has aver been exhibited
10 disloyal enemies to my country, and
o to loyal friends. To be sure | might
have RECALLED you with the amenities of
British civilization, and yet peer within
the supposed rules of civilized warfare.
You might have been smoked to death
in caverns, as were the C~oVenanters of
Scotland by the command of u 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 rayisher, as were the unfortunate !
danes of Spain in the Peninsula war or
o might have been scalped and toma-
hawked, as our mothors were at Wyoming
by the sayage allies of Great Britain in
our own Revolution; your property could
have been turned over to Indiscriminate
d" loot" like the Palace of the Emperor
of China; works of art which adorned
your buildings might nave been sent
away, like the paintings of the Vatican
your SON. might have been blown from
the mouths of cannon, like the Sepoys of
Delhi and yet all these would have been
within the rules of civilized warfare, as
practiced by the most polished and the
most hypOcritical nations OF Europe
For such acts the records of the doings
of some of the inhabitants of your city
towards the friends of the Union, before
my coming, were a sufficient provocative
and justification.
But | have not so conducted. On the
contrary, the worst punishment inflicted,
except for criminal acts punishable by
every law, has been banishment with
labor, to a barren island, where | en-
camped my own soldiers before marching
here.
1t is true l have levied upon the veal
thy rebels and paid out nearly half a
million of dollars to feed 40, 700 of the
poor of all nations assembled
here, made SC by the war.
| saw that this rebellion was O war of
the aTistocrats against the middling men;
of the rich against the poor; a wal of
the landowner against the laborer that
it was a struggle for the retention of pow
er in the hands of the few against the
many; and l found no conclusion to it
save in the subjugation of the few and
disenthralment of the many. | there
fore found no hesitation in taking the
of the wealthy, who had caus-
the war, to feed the innocent poor,
who had suffered by the war. And |
shall o leave you with the proud con-
that | carry with me the bless
ngs of the humble and loyal, under the
'oOf of the cottage and in the cabin of
he slave, and so am quite content to in
,ur the sneers of the salon, or the curses
If the rich.
l found you trembling at the terrors of !
ervile instruction. All danger of this l l
AVE prevented by so treating the slave q,
hat he had no cause to rebel. L
l found the dungeon, the chain, and
he lash, your only means of enforcing >
bedience in your servants. l leave q
hem peaceful, laborious, controlled by Z
he laws of kindness and justice. u
IhaYe demonstrated that the pestilence :,
an be kept from your borders. =
l have added a million of dollars to l.
wealth in the form of new land from y
he batture of the Mississippi. 4
L have cleansed and improved your y
reefs, canals and public squares, and q
pened new TO unoccupied land. I
l have given you freedom of elections .
reater than you have ever enjoyed be- :,
IRE. q
| have caused justice to be administer .
/ so impartially that your own advocates 7
ave unanimously complimented the ~
ldges of my appointment. a
You have seen, therefore, the benefit -,
the laws and justice of the government IL
yainst which you have rebelled.
Why, then, will you not return to your b,
iegiance to that goVernment-not with n
p-serVice, but with the heart! =.
| c~onjure you, if you desire ever to see vi
newed prosperity, giving business to hi
'ur streets and wharYes-if you hope to so
e your city become again the mart of
e Western world, fed by its rivers for \,
ore than 5000 miles, draining the COM N N
cree Of a country greater than the mind N
man hath ever conceiVed-return to so
'ur allegiance. or
If you desire to leave to your children -
e inheritance you received of your ia pe
ers-astable constitutional government; gu
you desire that they should in the flu ia
re be a portion of the greatest empire an
e sun ever shone upon-return to your
There is but n thing stands in the err
w. wf