Today in History:

512 Series I Volume XV- Serial 21 - Baton Rouge-Natchez

Page 512 W. FLA., S. ALA., S. MISS., LA., TEX., N. MEX. Chapter XXVII.

It is therefore ordered that for this desecration of the dead he be confined at hard labor for two years on the fortifications at Ship Island, and that he be allowed no verbal or written communication to or with any one except through these headquarters.

By order of Major-General Butler:

R. S. DAVIS,

Captain and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

[Inclosure No. 6.]

NEW ORLEANS, June 23, 1862.

Major General BENJAMIN F. BUTLER:

SIR: The undersigned desire to resign their position as administrators of the Charity Hospital of New Orleans, and as you are the only representative of executive authority in this part of the States of Louisiana to whom we can have access for that purpose we hereby resign the trust above referred to, and request that our resignation may be considered as taking effect immediately.

Any assistance which we may be able to render to those whom you may select as our successors will be cheerfully afforded.

Very respectfully, yours.

J. N. LEA.

CH. JUMONVILLE.

JNO. C. RICKS.

W. C. BIBB.

[Inclosure No. 7.]


HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
New Orleans, La., June 25, 1862.

MESSIEURS: Your resignation of the trust of administration of the Charity Hospital cannot be accepted. You will continue to exercise your functions under the authority of the United States until further orders. It may be well that you should show your readiness to renounce official relations under the State authority, as its civil affairs are at present constituted; but yours is a charity belonging to all the world; a refuge for the sick of all nations. Upon such institutions the United States have not come to make war, but rather to avert, so far as possible, the consequences of war. I can therefore assure the aid and protection of the military department of the Government in every possible way to your institution. And on your part, gentlemen, have you not duties to do to your fellow citizens, to your city, to your States, to your country, to yourselves, and your God? Can you, as Christian men, lightly lay down those duties and turn over the administration of this institution to untried and strange hands, by whom it may not be carried on without derangement, confusion, and loss? If in this day of the distress of the city, and therefore of the highest usefulness of your institution, you desert your post and add one pang to the sick pillow of a suffering invalid, otherwise to be avoided, how can your reconcile it to your consciences? Indeed, from the tone of your letter in offering assistance to those who should take your places, I do not understand you as desiring to lay down your trust, but rather as acting in the belief that holding it may render you in some way obnoxious to military orders or to the acts of Congress operating upon those who hold State offices. Be assured that in this you are mistaken Administer your institution in the spirit of that "Charity which suffereth long and is kind, which


Page 512 W. FLA., S. ALA., S. MISS., LA., TEX., N. MEX. Chapter XXVII.