New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-02-08

Tribute to Butler-Homage to the Sreat
ProconsuI by one of his late Subjects
From the Baltimore Daily IndexI
1t is reported from Washington that an order
will be issued by the War. Department to-day,
mastering out Of the service several general
officers. As Maj. Gen. Butler has been frequently
invited to resign and as 1t has been as frequently
ntimated that his resignation would be promptly
accepted his maiden coyness IN responding to the
suggestion, scarcely deserves TO any longer re-
spected and we therefore trust that in the order
mastering out the officers referred to, his heroic
anu tsf 'Yoes baltimore Gazette.
1t is amazing with what pertnacity these unre-
generate rebels pursue and prosecute that imma.
culate American, Benjamln F. Butler. How long
invincibIe dsloyalty? Here is an officer of almost
the highest grade, promoted, as the official and
therefore infallible, military bulletin procaims,
" for gallant and meritorous services in the army;
patriot hero, who wreathed the banners of his
country with undying laurels on the glorious fields
of Bethel Drewrys Bluff and Fort Fisher an
accomplished governor who emuated the fame Of
Numa and Aurelius in the earlier days, and the re-
pute Of Francia and Lord Give in more recent
tines a rnerciful magistrate, who justified the
wisdom OF the administration in entrusting
him with the control of two hostile cities,
by leaving their borders, after many months
of command, amid the unanimous applause
of their inhabitants of one sex, and the afec-
tionate. gratitude Of those of the other; a
mastery engineer who, in the mere wantonness Of
genius, set at naught the fiat Of nature and re-
moved the mightiest Virginia river entirely from
its bed, to the utter discontinue ofthe plans of all
the wisest OF the enemy's generals and statesmen
knightly soldier, whose high sense of justice and
spotless honor shamed the naughty chivalry Of
Bayard and the noble heroism of Sidney scrus
pulous fnancier, whose irreproachable character
illustrious memory Of the Pensonary Dewitt
. patriotic Citizen who ever. lends the in
fuence Of his transcendant genius and talents
on the side Of harmony, compromise, con
Citation and equal rights-.and yet, this
model and exemplar of all that is admirable
and praiseworehy in the soldier, in the citizen, the
statesman and the man, is the victim Of perpetual
SANDER, sneer and insult at the hands of rebels
these men, enemies at once of the flag and of com
mon decency, have hunted and bounded this emf
nent citizen. One Of them pettifogging lawyer
by the name Of johnson, of the city OF Baltimore
contrived to have himself sent to New Orleans to
report upon the mastery management Of General
Butler Of the affairs Of that city. With Internal
industry and ingenuity, he gathered together a
| voluminous mass or affidavits and statements
accusing this fervent patriot and incorruptible
ruler Of every crime possible to be committed
under the coakof official position, unfortunately
for the repution of the republic there was found al
Washington the wisdom and the courage to suppress
this libellous document, and the enemies Of the
State were bah1ed for time. Less fortonate was
the cause Of truth in more reconnaissance, where
another pettifogGer succeeded in eluding the Wig.
lance Of Mr.. Stantons watchful guardians of the
public honor, and flooded the country with de-
famatory document, supported by pretended ex.
tracts from official letters from the heads of de-
partments, by forged notes from General Butler
himself, and by the invented evidence, accredited
| by the false signatures of gentlemen of eminent
responsibility accusing this pure citizen of stealing
will it be believed? ea!ing fifty thousand dollars
in gold from single banking house in New Or.
leans, and endeavorng to give plausibility to the
silly SANDER by elaborate and, Of COURSE fabricated
details of time, place and circumstance, connected
with the transaction. Again, still more recently a
miserable rebel of the city Of Norfolk, unworthy
obvouslyAof the slightest credit, shocked the
moral sense of the country by instituting mali
cous suit against this virtuous hero, for certain
audacity to affirm, with all the technical Formally
of declaration at rules, were feloniously alb
stracted from the said mendacious rebels premises
by General Butler and converted to his own indf-
vdual use and behoof! And, notwithstanding the
indignant protest of an outraged country, this
audacious enemy to the public has, we under.
stand, publicly declared that he designs proseeut
ing this malicious suit to verdict J.! And not only
is this patriots peace invaded by these formal as
saults, but by indirection, by caricature, by op-
probious epithets the stage in current literature
in the pulpit, in this country, and in foreign
lands, there seems to be a combination as wide as
the influence of the Evil One to asperse the char.
aeter and blacken the fame of this heroic, incor-
ruptible and patriotic man. But the other day
vile sheet published in Milwaukee had the effron
try to deny the statement that General Butler was
absent from a. certain fair, held for the soldiers,
because lady's pocket was picked during the
day! And at this very moment a sensational
drama is IN performance on the boards of Lon
don theater, in which the author, notwithstanding
the peerless heroisn of this soldier, and the pro-
verbal humanity that follows courage,
EeuaEi, 1.-The Ebrayeste are the tenderes., - zoo
persists in avang himself of the unfortunate ait-
GRAFTON which joins the names of 9" Brute " and
Beast" to the prosecuted subject of this article
And here, in the columns of Jacobin sheet, pub
shed in that foul nest Of treason. Baltimore, the
suggestion is boldly made that the name Of this in
comparable hero be " stricken from the muster
roll of the army!" True, this malignant foe to
valor and virtue, admits the heroism and fame of
Gen. Butler-these are SO eminent and apparent
that malice itself must admit then-but it has the
hardwood to suggest that all his exalted qualities
and splendid reputation shall be rewarded by the
ungrateful dismissal of their renowned possessor
We denounce and repudate the suggestion. Will not
our countrymen listen to the voice of history? On
every page we read the story of the neglect and
persecution of the great, and the more appalling
story of the disasters that followed this persec1.
ton. While the names of Belisarius, of Corioanus,
OF Arstides, fill the trump of fame, and point the
moral of that proverb, which, in an especial
degree ascribes ingratitude to republics, surely
we cannot be guilty Of the madness and wicked
ness of deliberately throwing away, for the paltry
consideration of few thousand dollars per an
mum, the glory and the substantial benefits which
will follow the retention of this patriot hero in the
public service, and his promotion even to higher
rank. And if it be said that the above fcele-
brated names are not compromised by an asso-
citation with distracted forks and confscated
pianos let remember that these articles are the
productions of modern times, and there was, con-
sequently, physical impossibility in the way Of
such charges against our hero's illustrous proto-
types in ancient story. No--wth foreign comp-
cations possible at any moment, with a delicate,
unsettled question with England, and zone mere
delicate, perhaps, with France-with, therefore,
an imminent danger that the day for the dictator's
oath, ne quid detrinentna, may be at hand, let us
not disgrace, ourselves and imperl our country by
putting upon this most renowned citizen a slight
which even his patriotic breast might resent, BY
refusing to come to our relief in the day of our
distress. and'' mocking at our calamity nH A few
thousand per annum as a military retaining fee,
will be, in this instance, the wsest economy.