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

[434] rebel secretary of war, the partner of General Reichard, late Prussian consul, then in command in the Confederate army, who subscribed for himself, his partner and Mrs. Vogel, the wife of his former partner, thirty thousand dollars--did he not know what he was doing, when he bought these bonds of this Committee of public safety ?

On the contrary, it was done to aid the rebellion to which he was bound by his sympathies, his social relations, his business connections and marriage ties. But it is said that this subscription is made to the fund for the sake of the investment. It will appear, however, by a careful examination, that Mr. Kruttschnidt collected for his principal a note, secured by mortgage, in anticipation of its being due, in order to purchase twenty-five thousand dollars of this loan. Without, however, descending into particulars, is the profitableness of the investment to be permitted to be alleged as a sufficient apology for aiding the rebellion by money and arms? If so, all their army contractors, principally Jews, should be held blameless, for they have made immense fortunes by the war. Indeed, I suppose another Jew--one Judas — thought his investment in the thirty pieces of silver was a profitable one, until the penalty of treachery reached him.

When I took possession of New Orleans, I found the city nearly on the verge of starvation, but thirty days provision in it, and the poor utterly without the means of procuring what food there was to be had.

I endeavored to aid the city government in the work of feeding the poor; but I soon found that the very distribution of food was a means faithlessly used to encourage the Rebellion. I was obliged, therefore, to take the whole matter into my own hands. It became a subject of alarming importance and gravity. It became necessary to provide from some source the funds to procure the food. They could not be raised by city taxation, in the ordinary form. These taxes were in arrears to more than a million of dollars. Besides, it would be unjust to tax the loyal citizens and honestly neutral foreigners, to provide for a state of things brought about by the rebels and disloyal foreigners related to them by ties of blood, marriage, and social relation, who had conspired and labored together to overthrow the authority of the United States, and establish the very result which was to be met.

Farther, in order to have a contribution effective, it must be upon those who have wealth to answer it.

There seemed to me no such fit subjects for such taxation as the cotton brokers who had brought the distress upon the city, by thus paralyzing commerce, and the subscribers to this loan, who had money to invest for purposes of war, so advertised and known as above described.