Ben Butler Chamber Pot

Benjamin Franklin Butler was the first Civil War Union general to occupy New Orleans after the city surrendered in April of 1862. During his brief stay he engaged in a rather uncivil war with the ladies of the Crescent City who continued to show acts of disrespect and disobedience, including placing an image of “Beast” Butler at the bottom of their chamber pots. When one such pot was emptied from a French Quarter balcony onto the head of Union Admiral David Farragut, General Butler passed the infamous “General Order No. 28” which proclaimed that any woman who disrespected a Union soldier would be arrested “as a woman of the street plying her trade.”

This order was such an assault to the morals of the time that it caused an international stir and generated protests across the United States and Europe. President Lincoln was forced to remove General Butler after only eight months in New Orleans. However, during this brief time the general was able to amass a fortune in confiscated goods (including the silver spoons of many well- laid tables, earning him the alias “Spoons” Butler). Although Northerners may remember Butler serving in the United States Congress, as governor of Massachusetts, and as a presidential candidate in 1884, New Orleanians remember him as “the devil who came down to Dixie!”

This reproduction Chamber Pot made exclusively for Confederate Memorial Hall, is hand thrown and one-of-a-kind. The likeness of General Butler is from the Museum’s photographic collection.