Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1871 — Gen, Bailer at New Orleans. [ARTICLE]

Gen, Bailer at New Orleans.

We are going to write a true story and a new one. The subject' is not very new, and yet not old; it is middle aged—Benjamin F. Butler. We learned the facts from a source whose integrity is truth itself, and although the General may have forgotten it—it was never before in print —the ladies have not. The ladies? Yes, there are ladles in it. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to remark that General Butler was once in command at New Orleans. Equally uselessis it to say that little good of him was written or thought during his administration of that .incorrigable department, and that his “ treatment” of Southern ladies was described by adjectives of a very severe import. Malignance in its worst form found vent at his expense, “ Beast Butler ” was the term by which he and his alleged character were best known in those days, both in the ’North and South. St. Michael’s is the name of a pretty little village not hundreds of miles north of New Orleans, on the Mississippi, which in war days was limited to a convert of the Sacred Heart, that formed a favorite school for the daughters of the rebels of, the section. Perhaps a dozen dwellings surrounded this mam feature of the place, Land St. Michael’s was rebel from rim to Wre.’ Mother Shannon was the Abbess of the convent and the Superior of the school. She and her '‘daughters in religion” cer tainlv shared the anti-Yankee sentiment which so sadly strove to ruin them and u*

in common chaos; but, holding old-tim e notions of woman’s sphere in political broils, they were not loud in the utterance of their thoughts. This did not keep (famine from the convent door, however; there came a day when the storehouse waa barren as a Southern field trodden by .Morgan's cavalry. The larder shelves were on a line impartially horizontal; neither fruit nor fish, nor flesh nor cereal bore them down to the accustomed curve of heaviness. Hunger already stalked among the houses of the villagers, and the famished people gathered at the outer convent gate, clamoring for food. Afere Shannon walked the convent, sad and prayerful, telling her beads. The silent, white-veiled novices flitted about their usual duties, asking not a question, but wondering, perhaps, how many fast days there would be in the coming week. The serious black veils still more thoughtful, gathered about Mere Shannon’s cliair, and reading the query in her eyes, beheld no answer. If the nuns uttered a bon mot that night, it must have been exquisitely spiritual. A loud knocking resounded at the gate, and a messenger appeared, startled and breathless. A deputation from Donaldsonville, a dozen miles northward on the river, from the house of the Bisters of Charity, waited to know if Afere Shannon would receive the sisters and their thirty orphan girls, whose asylum had succumbed to the fortunes of war, and who were houseless and hungry at Donaldsonville. Mother Shannon is a brave woman, but she blanched a little. The nuns were astonished at the newly discovered distress, and for the moment thought only of a miracle. “ Mon Dieu," cried mother Shannon, “ it is impossible! We have no food; New Orleans is under General Butler, and communication with the city, so far as the supplies are concerned, is beyond my power. Much as I may regret it ” But she could not send the refusal. The sisters and their whole flock «es orphans were soon as comfortable within St. Michael’s walls as cheery welcome and kindly hands could make them. Mother - Shannon sat at her desk and wrote something like this : “ Sir: We have no food, but we have orphans. Inclosed is a draft for $2,000 and an order we desire to have filled, with your permission, at New Orleans.” A faithful colored man was the deputation who bore this document to Beast Butler. The General asked a few questions ; the contraband proved intelligent, and the Beast learned the situation. A day or two later a supply train reached St. Michael's, and the messenger was intrusted with a note from the Beast which read something like this:

“ Madam; lam sincerely sorry you and your charge should suffer innocently by this cruel war. Should other misfortunes reach you, please inform me at once.” The supplies sent were found to be just double the quantity of each article ordered; and although the draft was not returned, $2,000 in cash came in its place, and supported the thirty orphans through later and more bitter times. Few knew of this action of Gen. Butler, and he never told it. On many succeeding occasions he was called upon in the same straightforward, womanly way for aid and protection, and in every instance Were both given, justly and with the courtesy of the' gentleman. The children of rebel soldiers, fallen on the wrong side of a cruel war, bad reason to know what a strange kind of beast “ Beast ” Butler was at New Orleans, and the nuns’notions of “ Yankees” were very materially modified. Mother Shannon’s idea became gradually, “ When Gen. Butler finds Southern ladies who do not forget that they are such, they find Gen. Butler a gentleman.— Chicago Evening Post.