Trial and Execution
Three days later Union Army Major General Benjamin Butler, the commander of the Union ground forces, heard about the incident and decided to arrest and punish Mumford. When the Union Army occupied the city on May 1, Mumford was arrested and charged with "high crimes and misdemeanors against the laws of the United States, and the peace and dignity thereof and the Law Martial." On May 30, he was tried before a military tribunal and was convicted even though there was no clear attempt to determine whether the city was actually occupied when the event occurred.
On June 5, Butler issued the following Special Order No. 70:
- William B. Mumford, a citizen of New Orleans, having been convicted before a military commission of treason and an overt act thereof, tearing down the United States flag from a public building of the United States, after said flag was placed there by Commodore Farragut, of the United States navy: It is ordered that he be executed according to sentence of said military commission on Saturday, June 7, inst., between the hours of 8 a.m. and 12 a.m. under the directions of the provost-marshal of the District of New Orleans, and for so doing this shall be his sufficient warrant.
On June 7, a little before noon, Mumford was taken to be hanged in the courtyard of the mint itself, a place that Butler had decided "according to the Spanish custom" would be the ideal place. Many people came to the spot, and Mumford was allowed to give a final speech in which he spoke of his patriotism for the Confederacy and his love for what he considered the true meaning of the U.S. flag, a symbol he had fought under in the Seminole and Mexican-American wars.
Read more about this topic: William Bruce Mumford
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