Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

“General, as I was walking down Canal Street, a young lad, of say ten years, in the presence of his mother, who is the wife of one of the first lawyers, rushed from her side and spit all over my uniform. What am I to do?”

“Nothing, Colonel; I think the matter will be easily remedied. Orderly, give my compliments to Mr. P. and tell him that I would like to see him.”

Mr. P. called on me. I had known him as a fellow-practitioner in the Supreme Court of the United States. I had never heard that he was in any way a violent secessionist, but I had heard that his wife was exceedingly interested on the side of the rebels, and had been ordered out of Washington by the Secretary of War for some treasonable acts. I said to him:--

“I want to say to you that one of my officers has complained to me that, this afternoon your son, a boy old enough to know better, came from his mother's side and spit over this officer's uniform as he was passing by. Of course that cannot be permitted; but, as it was the act of a boy and perhaps of a boy not realizing what he was doing, I have sent for you to say that I shall leave the correction of that act to you.”

Pretty soon, complaints of treatment from women of all states and conditions and degrees in life came pouring in upon me. When a soldier or an officer was passing along quietly on the sidewalk (these acts seemed rather the more venomous towards the officers) a woman coming the opposite way would turn out in the carriage way, take great pains to hold her skirts aside as if she feared they might be contaminated if they touched the soldier, and accompany this act with every possible gesture of contempt and abhorrence. On one occasion, a woman, when about to pass two officers on the sidewalk, flung herself off the sidewalk just before she got to them, and so impetuously that she threw herself down in the gutter. The two officers immediately proceeded to do what was their duty,--to help her up. She refused their assistance, and said that she would rather lie there in the gutter than be helped up by Yankees. She lived to repent of it afterwards, and to tell the story in the presence of many Yankees. Again, an officer would get into a street car where there were two or three women perhaps in the other end of the car, and they would immediately jump from the car with every sign of disgust, abhorrence, and aversion.