come so intolerable in New Orleans, that Gen. Butler felt
constrained to issue his famous order directing that women so offending
should be treated as "women of the town plying their vocation." This
was made the pretext of "firing the Southern heart" to an unwarranted
degree, and Jeff Davis issued a proclamation of outlawry against Ben
Butler, with a reward for his head.

Sanguine Secessionists hoped that this "flagrant outrage" by "Beast
Butler" would be sufficient cause for the recognition of the Southern
Confederacy by France and England.

Gen. Halleck met the same difficulty as Butler very shrewdly. The Chief
of Police of St. Louis had some measure of control over the disreputable
women of the city, and made law for them. Under Gen. Hal-leek's order he
instructed these women to vie with and exceed their respectable sisters
in their manifestations of hostility to the Union cause and of devotion
to the South. Where the fair young ladies of the Southern aristocracy
were wearing Secession rosettes as big as a rose, the women of the
demimonde sported them as big as a dahlia or sunflower. Where the
young belle gave a little graceful twitch to her skirts to prevent any
possible contamination by touching a passing Yankee, the other class
flirted theirs' aside in the most immodest way. It took but a few days
of this to make the exuberant young ladies of uncontrollable rebel
proclivities discard their Secession rosettes altogether, and subside
into dignified, self-respecting persons, who took no more notice of a
passing Union soldier than they did of a lamp-post or tree-box.

259

Another of Gen. Halleck's orders did not result so happily. It will be
remembered that Gen. Fremont declared free the slaves of men in arms
against the Government, and that their freedom would be assured them
upon reaching the Union lines.

In the inflamed condition of public sentiment in the Border States on
the negro question this was very impolitic, and the President promptly
overruled the order.

Gen. Halleck went still further in the issuance of the following
order, which created as intense feeling in the North as Gen. Fremont's
"Abolition order" had excited in the Border States:

It has been represented that important information respecting: the
number and condition of our forces is conveyed to the enemy by means of
fugitive slaves who are admitted within our lines. In order to remedy
this evil, it is directed that no such persons be