Civil War History Talk

Lt. Col. James "Mike" Larkin, USAF (ret.) will discuss “General Butler and Metairie” at 7 p.m., Tuesday, May 26, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie. This event is free of charge and open to the public. 

Major General Benjamin Butler was an extremely controversial figure during the U.S. Civil War. He commanded the force that captured New Orleans in May 1862. His administration had some successes, but some of his acts were highly unpopular, including Order No. 28 of May 15, 1862, that if any woman should insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she may be treated similarly to a “woman of the town plying her avocation,” in other words, a prostitute.

He censored newspapers, seized cotton, offended the city’s Jewish population, and had a man executed for tearing down a flag atop the U.S. Mint. He achieved success when he imposed a rigid program of garbage disposal that dramatically cut the number of yellow fever cases to two in 1862, when the death rate could reach 10 percent of the city’s population each year.

After the war, Butler served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts and ran several campaigns for Massachusetts governor which he eventually won in 1882. He also had a leadership role in the impeachment of U.S. President Andrew Johnson. 

James Larkin grew up in Metairie and has been interested in what took place in the New Orleans area during the Civil War, the most tumultuous period in the region’s history. Since 2010, after retiring, he has been poring through regimental histories, the Compendium of the War, soldier diaries and military maps at the National Archives to get a picture of the people and events that occurred in the New Orleans region during the conflict.

For more information regarding this presentation, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.