sought an opportunity to speak to Captain Bailey, and to welcome him to the city. He shook hands with me, and said that he would see me again; but he had no time for conversation just then, and as my object was accomplished by introducing myself to his notice as a pretended friend of his cause, I did not make any endeavor to further attract his attention.
Mayor Monroe behaved nobly when he was asked to surrender the city. He said that the city was without defence, and at the mercy of the conquerors, but that it was not within his province as a municipal officer to surrender. He declined to raise the United States flag over the public buildings, or to do anything that would seem a recognition of the right of the Federals in any way to regulate affairs in New Orleans by any thing else than the law of force. When I read his reply to Farragut's demand for a surrender, I readily forgave my private grievance against him. The mayor having positively refused to have anything to do with displaying the United States flag, or with lowering the flag of Louisiana, the raising of the stars and stripes on the public buildings was done by the sailors from the Federal fleet.
Mumford pulls down the Flag from the Mint.
The United States flag which was raised upon the mint was pulled down again by Mumford, who paid the penalty of his life for the act after Butler took command of the city. The execution of this young man was an outrage on civilization, and a crime on the part of the man who ordered it which entitles his memory to execration. Mumford told me himself that he perpetrated the act through a mistaken idea that the flag had been displayed by some traitor, and that he was not aware at the time that the Federals had assumed control of the city. The execution of Mumford was a fair specimen of the many dastardly actions perpetrated by Butler during the reign of terror that he inaugurated, and that will cause his name to be remembered with hatred in New Orleans, and, indeed, throughout the whole South, long after the ordinary passions of the war have died out.
When Butler took command, which he did on May 1st, he issued orders stopping the circulation of Confederate currency, directing the people to resume their usual avocations, and giving everybody to understand that he intended to have his own way.
