This is an outrage pure and simple.
Agreed. Speaking of outrages, perhaps New Orleanians have forgotten outrages by New York troops during the occupation of New Orleans. The following is from the New Orleans newspaper, The Daily Picayune, of March 3, 1864 in an article entitled, "Beastly Outrages." Back then, "outrages" was the euphemism for "rape."
The paragraph breaks below are mine for readability. The word "Negro" appeared uncapitalized in the original article, and I report it below as it appeared in the newspaper.
Eleven soldiers belonging to the 159th New York Regiment were tried for marauding and committing outrages too gross for public mention. Of these, two were perhaps 25 years of age, and the others were mere boys, varying from 17 to 20. One of the youngest of these boys turned State’s witness and pointed out those of his companions who were engaged in the outrage; the part he took being simply that of stealing fowls of which he obtained about fifteen.
According to the story of this witness, the young men went to the plantation of Mr. R. D. Darden, in Lafourche, and while he and another of his companions were engaged in stealing chickens from the negro cabins, some of the crowd broke into one of the cabins. Who broke the door in he did not know and what was done therein he did not witness. The inmates of the cabin were a negro of about 40 years in age, his wife, and his daughter, a dusky damsel of 18 or 20 summers.
For the credit of humanity we will suppose that illegal foraging was all that they first intended. When the negro found that his hen house was being despoiled of his pretty chickens, he mustered up a sufficiency of courage to put his head out of the window and beg that a few at least of the brood should be spared to him for breed. Thereupon he was assailed by foul speeches and rude threats; brickbats were sent flying against his windows, and some of them threatened to enter the house and kill the old son of _____ .
Finding that there was a movement to carry these threats into execution, the old negro climbed up into his loft where he could look down on them, as he said, “like a eagle looking down on carrion.†About the time that he got up on the loft the door was burst open and a demand was made for the man who had spoken to them from the window. The women, to shield husband and father, declared that there was no man there.
In an instant the cabin was filled, a light was struck, and as the man was no where to be seen, a purpose more fiendish than that which had induced them to enter the dwelling, took possession of the marauders. The girl was at once seized, and with violence, alike criminal and brutal, they accomplished their fiendish purposes, one after another, in the presence of the father and the mother. They then stripped the girl of her jewelry, ear rings, finger rings, a bracelet, and some of her choicest articles of apparel, as trophies of their diabolical achievement, and having done so, left.
The Judge, in disposing of the case, said that the ringleader, one H. B. Hopkins, should be drawn and quartered, but he would only sentence him to Tortugas for life, there to labor with ball and chain; Jordan M. Lee, a youth who took an active part in the proceedings and stood at the girl’s head with the bayonet at her throat, was sent to Tortugas for ten years; the others were all sent to the same place for three years each. Their names are Henry Dennis, James Lee, D. Rafften, John Thorpe, R. Wheeler, R. Coons, J Horan and H. C. Nelson. J Reil, the boy who turned State’s witness, and G. W. Scoefield, who was proved not to have been in the crowd, were sent back to their regiments.
I posted this article back in 2002. At that time, I looked up the history of the 159th New York Regiment. There was no mention of this incident. There still isn't, but this time I will email the museum that posts online the contents of newspaper articles about this regiment that appeared during the war. Somehow, I doubt they will include the above article.