Chapter V: Part 5

Reverting to Montgomery, one may say without offence that its claims to be the capital of a republic which asserts that it is the richest, and believes that it will be the strongest in the world, are not by any means evident to a stranger. Its central position, which has reference rather to a map than to the hard face of matter, procured for it a distinction to which it had no other claim. The accommodations which suited the modest wants of a state legislature vanished or were transmuted into barbarous inconveniences by the pressure of a central government, with its offices, its departments, and the vast crowd of applicants which flocked thither to pick up such crumbs of comfort as could be spared from the executive table. Never shall I forget the dismay of myself, and of the friends who were travelling with me, on our arrival at the Exchange Hotel, under circumstances with some of which you are already acquainted. With us were men of high position, members of Congress, senators, ex-governors, and General Beauregard himself. But to no one was greater accommodation extended than could be furnished by a room held, under a sort of ryot-warree tenure, in common with a community of strangers. My room was shown to me. It contained four large four-post beds, a ricketty table, and some chairs of infirm purpose and fundamental unsoundness. The floor was carpetless, covered with litter of paper and ends of cigars, and stained with tobacco juice. The broken glass of the window afforded no ungrateful means of ventilation. One gentleman sat in his shirt sleeves at the table reading the account of the marshalling of the Highlanders at Edinburgh in the Abbottsford edition of Sir Walter Scott; another, who had been wearied, apparently, by writing numerous applications to the government for some military post, of which rough copies lay scattered around, came in, after refreshing himself at the bar, and occupied one of the beds, which by the bye, were ominously provided with two pillows apiece. Supper there was none for us in the house, but a search in an outlying street enabled us to discover a restaurant, where roasted squirrels and baked opossums figured as luxuries in the bill of fare. On our return we found that due preparation had been made in the apartment by the addition of three mattresses on the floor. The beds were occupied by unknown statesmen and warriors, and we all slumbered and snored in friendly concert till morning. Gentlemen in the South complain that strangers judge of them by their hotels, but it is a very natural standard for strangers to adopt, and in respect to Montgomery it is almost the only one that a gentleman can conveniently use, for if the inhabitants of this city and its vicinity are not maligned, there is an absence of the hospitable spirit which the South lays claim to as one of its animating principles, and a little bird whispered to me that from Mr. Jefferson Davis down to the least distinguished member of his government there was reason to observe that the usual attentions and civilities offered by residents to illustrious stragglers had been “conspicuous for their absence.” The fact is, that the small planters who constitute the majority of the land-owners are not in a position to act the Amphytrion, and that the inhabitants of the district can scarcely aspire to be considered what we would call gentry in England, but are a frugal, simple, hog-and-hominy living people, fond of hard work and, occasionally, of hard drinking.

* * * * *

NEW ORLEANS, _May_ 24, 1861.

It is impossible to resist the conviction that the Southern Confederacy can only be conquered by means as irresistible as those by which Poland was subjugated. The South will fall, if at all, as a nation prostrate at the feet of a victorious enemy. There is no doubt of the unanimity of the people. If words mean any thing, they are animated by only one sentiment, and they will resist the North as long as they can command a man or a dollar. There is nothing of a sectional character in this disposition of the South. In every state there is only one voice audible. Hereafter, indeed, state jealousies may work their own way. Whatever may be the result, unless the men are the merest braggarts--and they do not look like it--they will fight to the last before they give in, and their confidence in their resources is only equalled by their determination to test them to the utmost. There is a noisy vociferation about their declarations of implicit trust and reliance on their slaves which makes one think “they do protest too much,” and it remains to be seen whether the slaves really will remain faithful to their masters should the abolition army ever come among them as an armed propaganda. One thing is obvious here. A large number of men who might be usefully employed in the ranks are idling about the streets. The military enthusiasm is in proportion to the property interest of the various classes of the people, and the very boast that so many rich men are serving in the ranks is a significant proof, either of the want of a substratum, or of the absence of great devotion to the cause, of any such layer of white people as may underlie the great slave-holding, mercantile, and planting oligarchy. The whole state of Louisiana contains about 50,000 men liable to serve when called on. Of that number only 15,000 are enrolled and under arms in any shape whatever, and if one is to judge of the state of affairs by the advertisements which appear from the adjutant-general’s office, there was some difficulty in procuring the 3,000 men--merely 3,000 volunteers--“to serve during the war,” who are required by the Confederate government. There is “plenty of prave ’ords,” and if fierce writing and talking could do the work, the armies on both sides would have been killed and eaten long ago. It is found out that “lives of the citizens” at Pensacola are too valuable to be destroyed in attacking Pickens. A storm that shall drive away the ships, a plague, yellow fever, mosquitos, rattlesnakes, small-pox--any of these agencies, is looked to with confidence to do the work of shot, shell, and bayonet. Our American “brethren in arms” have yet to learn that great law in military cookery, that “if they want to make omelets they must break eggs.” The “moral suasion” of the lasso, of head-shaving, ducking, kicking, and such processes, are, I suspect, used not unfrequently to stimulate volunteers; and the extent to which the acts of the recruiting officer are somewhat aided by the arm of the law, and the force of the policeman and the magistrate, may be seen from paragraphs in the morning papers now and then, to the effect that certain gentlemen of Milesian extraction, who might have been engaged in pugilistic pursuits, were discharged from custody unpunished on condition that they enlisted for the war. With the peculiar views entertained of freedom of opinion and action by large classes of people on this continent, such a mode of obtaining volunteers is very natural, but resort to it evinces a want of zeal on the part of some of the 50,000 who are on the rolls; and, from all I can hear--and I have asked numerous persons likely to be acquainted with the subject--there are not more than those 15,000 men of whom I have spoken in all the state under arms, or in training, of whom a considerable proportion will be needed for garrison and coast defence duties. It may be that the Northern states and Northern sentiments are as violent as those of the South but I see some evidences to the contrary. For instance, in New York ladies and gentlemen from the South are permitted to live at their favorite hotel without molestation, and one hotel keeper at Saratoga Springs advertises openly for the custom of his Southern patrons. In no city of the South which I have visited would a party of Northern people be permitted to remain for an hour if the “citizens” were aware of their presence. It is laughable to hear men speaking of the “unanimity” of the South. Just look at the peculiar means by which unanimity is enforced and secured! This is an extract from a New Orleans paper:

CHARGES OF ABOLITIONISM.--Mayor Monroe has disposed of some of the
cases brought before him on charges of this kind by sending the
accused to the workhouse.

A Mexican named Bernard Cruz, born in Tampico, and living here with
an Irish wife, was brought before the Mayor this morning charged
with uttering Abolition sentiments. After a full investigation, it
was found from the utterance of his incendiary language, that
Cruz’s education was not yet perfect in Southern classics, and his
Honor therefore directed that he be sent for six months to the
Humane Institution for the Amelioration of the Condition of
Northern Barbarians and Abolition Fanatics, presided over by
Professor Henry Mitchell, keeper of the workhouse, who will put him
through a course of study on Southern ethics and institutions.

The testimony before him Saturday, however, in the case of a man
named David O’Keefe, was such as to induce him to commit the
accused for trial before the Criminal Court. One of the witnesses
testified positively that he heard him make his children shout for
Lincoln; another, that the accused said, “I am an abolitionist,”
&c. The witnesses, the neighbors of the accused, gave their
evidence reluctantly, saying that they had warned him of the folly
and danger of his conduct. O’Keefe says he has been a United States
soldier, and came here from St. Louis and Kansas.

John White was arraigned before Recorder Emerson on Saturday for
uttering incendiary language while traveling in the baggage car of
a train of the New Orleans, Ohio, and Great Western Railroad,
intimating that the decapitator of Jefferson Davis would get
$10,000 for his trouble, and the last man of us would be whipped
like dogs by the Lincolnites. He was held under bonds of $500 to
answer the charge on the 8th of June.

Nicholas Gento, charged with declaring himself an Abolitionist, and
acting very much like he was one, by harboring a runaway slave, was
sent to prison in default of bail, to await examination before the
recorder.

Such is “freedom of speech” in Louisiana! But in Texas the machinery for the production of “unanimity” is less complicated, and there are no insulting legal formalities connected with the working of the simple appliances which a primitive agricultural people have devised for their own purposes. Hear the Texan correspondent of one of the journals of this city on the subject. He says:

It is to us astonishing, that such unmitigated lies as those
Northern papers disseminate of anarchy and disorder here in Texas,
dissension among ourselves, and especially from our German, &c.,
population, with dangers and anxieties from the fear of
insurrection among the negroes, &c., should be deemed anywhere
South worthy of a moment’s thought. It is surely notorious enough
that in no part of the South are Abolitionists, or other disturbers
of the public peace, so very unsafe as in Texas. The _lasso_ is so
_very_ convenient!

Here is an excellent method of preventing dissension described by a stroke of the pen; and, as such, an ingenious people are not likely to lose sight of the uses of a revolution in developing peculiar principles to their own advantage, repudiation of debts to the North has been proclaimed and acted on. One gentleman has found it convenient to inform Major Anderson that he does not intend to meet certain bills which he had given the major for some slaves. Another declares he won’t pay any one at all, as he has discovered it is immoral and contrary to the law of nations to do so. A third feels himself bound to obey the commands of the governor of his state, who has ordered that debts due to the North shall not be liquidated. As a _naïve_ specimen of the way in which the whole case is treated, take this article and the correspondence of “one of the most prominent mercantile houses in New Orleans:”

SOUTHERN DEBTS TO THE NORTH.

The _Cincinnati Gazette_ copies the following paragraph from _The
New York Evening Post_:

“BAD FAITH.--The bad faith of the Southern merchants in their
transactions with their Northern correspondents is becoming more
evident daily. We have heard of several recent cases where parties
in this city, retired from active business, have, nevertheless,
stepped forward to protect the credit of their Southern friends.
They are now coolly informed that they cannot be reimbursed for
these advances until the war is over. We know of a retired merchant
who in this way has lost $100,000”--and adds:

“The same here. Men who have done most for the South are the chief
sufferers. Debts are coolly repudiated by Southern merchants, who
have heretofore enjoyed a first-class reputation. Men who have
grown rich upon the trade furnished by the West are among the first
to pocket the money of their correspondents, asking, with all the
impudence and assurance of a highwayman, “What are you going to do
about it?” There is honor among thieves, it is said, but there is
not a spark of honor among these repudiating merchants. People who
have aided and trusted them to the last moment, are the greatest
losers. There is a future, however. This war will be over, and the
Southern merchants will desire a resumption of their connections
with the West. As the repudiators--such as Goodrich & Co., of New
Orleans--will be spurned, there will be a grand opening for honest
men.

“There are many honorable exceptions in the South, but dishonesty
is the rule. The latter is but the development of latent rascality.
The rebellion has afforded a pretext merely for the swindling
operations. The parties previously acted honestly, only because
that was the best policy. The sifting process that may now be
conducted will be of advantage to Northern merchants in the future.
The present losses will be fully made up by subsequent gains.”

We have been requested to copy the following reply to this tirade
from one of our most prominent mercantile houses, Messrs. Goodrich
& Co.:

NEW ORLEANS, _May 24_, 1861.

_Cincinnati Gazette._--We were handed, through a friend of ours,
your issue of the 18th inst., and attention directed to an article
contained therein, in which you are pleased to particularize us out
of a large number of highly respectable merchants of this and other
Southern cities as repudiators, swindlers, and other epithets,
better suited to the mouths of the Wilson regiment of New York than
from a once respectable sheet, but which now has sunk so low in the
depths of niggerdom that it would take all the soap in Porkopolis
and the Ohio River to cleanse it from its foul pollution.

We are greatly indebted to you for using our name in the above
article, as we deem it the best card you could publish for us, and
may add greatly to our business relations in the Confederate
States, which will enable us in the end to pay our indebtedness to
those who propose cutting our throats, destroying our property,
stealing our negroes, and starving our wives and children, to pay
such men in times of war. You may term it rascally, but we beg
leave to call it patriotism.

“Giving the sinews of war to your enemies has ever been considered
treason.”--_Kent._

Now for “repudiating.” We have never, nor do we ever expect to
repudiate any debt owing by our firm. But this much we will say,
never will we pay a debt due by us to a man, or any company of men,
who is a known Black Republican, and marching in battle array to
invade our homes and firesides, until every such person shall be
driven back and their polluted footsteps shall, now on our once
happy soil, be entirely obliterated.

We have been in business in this city for twenty years, have passed
through every crisis with our names untarnished or credit impaired,
and would at present sacrifice all we have made, were it necessary,
to sustain our credit in the Confederacy, but care nothing for the
opinions of such as are open and avowed enemies. We are
sufficiently known in this city not to require the indorsement of
_The Cincinnati Gazette_, or any such sheet, for a character.

The day is coming, and not far distant, when there will be an awful
reckoning, and we are willing and determined to stand by our
Confederate flag, sink or swim, and would like to meet some of _The
Gazette’s_ editors _vis-à-vis_ on the field of blood, and see who
would be the first to flinch.

Our senior partner has already contributed one darkey this year to
your population, and she is anxious to return, but we have a few
more left which you can have, provided you will come and take them
yourselves.

We have said more than we intended, and hope you will give this a
place in your paper.

GOODRICH & CO.

There is some little soreness felt here about the use of the word “repudiation,” and it will do the hearts of some people good, and will carry comfort to the ghost of the Rev. Sydney Smith, if it can hear the tidings, to know I have been assured, over and over again, by eminent mercantile people and statesmen, that there is a “general desire” on the part of the repudiating states to pay their bonds, and that no doubt, at some future period, not very clearly ascertainable or plainly indicated, that general desire will cause some active steps to be taken to satisfy its intensity, of a character very unexpected, and very gratifying to those interested. The tariff of the Southern Confederation has just been promulgated, and I send herewith a copy of the rates. Simultaneously, however, with this document, the United States steam-frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have made their appearance off the Pass à l’Outre, and the Mississippi is closed, and with it the port of New Orleans. The steam-tugs refuse to tow out vessels for fear of capture, and British ships are in jeopardy.

_May 25._--A visit to the camp at Tangipao, about fifty miles from New Orleans, gave an occasion for obtaining a clearer view of the internal military condition of those forces of which one reads much and sees so little than any other way. Major-General Lewis of the State Militia, and staff, and General Labuzan, a Creole officer, attended by Major Ranney, President of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railway, and by many officers in uniform, started with that purpose at half-past four this evening in a railway carriage, carefully and comfortably fitted for their reception. The militia of Louisiana has not been called out for many years, and its officers have no military experience and the men have no drill or discipline.

Emerging from the swampy suburbs, we soon pass between white clover pastures, which we are told invariably salivate the herds of small but plump cattle browsing upon them. Soon cornfields “in tassel,” alternate with long narrow rows of growing sugar-cane, which, though scarcely a fourth of the height of the maize, will soon overshadow it; and the cane-stalks grow up so densely together that nothing larger than a rattlesnake can pass between them.

From Kennersville, an ancient sugar plantation cut up into “town lots,” our first halt, ten miles out, we shoot through a cypress swamp, the primitive forest of this region, and note a greater affluence of Spanish moss than in the woods of Georgia or Carolina. There it hung, like a hermit’s beard, from the pensile branch. Here, to one who should venture to thread the snake and alligator haunted mazes of the jungle, its matted profusion must resemble clusters of stalactites pendent from the roof of some vast cavern; for the gloom of an endless night appears to pervade the deeper recesses, at the entrance of which stand, like outlying skeleton pickets, the unfelled and leafless patriarchs of the clearing, that for a breadth of perhaps fifty yards on either side seems to have furnished the road with its sleepers.

The gray swamp yields to an open savanna, beyond which, upon the left, a straggling line of sparse trees skirts the left bank of the Mississippi, and soon after the broad expanse of Lake Pontchartrain appears within gunshot of our right, only separated from the road by a hundred yards or more of rush-covered prairie, which seems but a feeble barrier against the caprices of so extensive a sheet of water, subject to the influences of wind and tide. In fact, ruined shanties and out-houses, fields laid waste, and prostrate fences, remain evidences of the ravages of the “wash” which a year ago inundated and rendered the railroad impassable save for boats. The down train’s first notice of the disaster was the presence of a two-story frame building, which the waves had transported to the road, and its passengers, detained a couple of days in what now strikes us as a most grateful combination of timber-skirted meadow and lake scenery, were rendered insensible to its beauties by the torments of hungry mosquitos. Had its engineers given the road but eighteen inches more elevation its patrons would have been spared this suffering, and its stockholders might have rejoiced in a dividend. Many of the settlers have abandoned their improvements. Others, chiefly what are here called Dutchmen, have resumed their tillage with unabated zeal, and large fields of cabbages, one of them embracing not less than sixty acres, testify to their energy.

Again, through miles of cypress swamps the train passes on to what is called the “trembling prairie,” where the sleepers are laid upon a tressel-work of heavier logs, so that the rails are raised by “cribs” of timber nearly a yard above the morass. Three species of rail, one of them as large as a curlew, and the summer-duck, seem the chief occupants of the marsh, but white cranes and brown bitterns take the alarm, and falcons and long-tailed “blackbirds” sail in the distance.

Toward sunset a halt took place upon the long bridge that divides Lake Maurepas, a picturesque sheet of water which blends with the horizon on our left, from Pass Manchac, an arm of Lake Pontchartrain, which disappears in the forest on our right. Half-a-dozen wherries and a small fishing-smack are moored in front of a ricketty cabin, crowded by the jungle to the margin of the cove. It is the first token of a settlement that has occurred for miles, and when we have sufficiently admired the scene, rendered picturesque in the sunset by the dense copse, the water and the bright colors of the boats at rest upon it, a commotion at the head of the train arises from the unexpected arrival upon the “switch” of a long string of cars filled with half a regiment of volunteers, who had been enlisted for twelve months’ service, and now refused to be mustered in for the war, as required by the recent enactment of the Montgomery Congress. The new-comers are at length safely lodged on the “turn-off,” and our train continues its journey. As we pass the row of cars, most of them freight wagons, we are hailed with shouts and yells in every key by the disbanded volunteers, who seem a youngish, poorly-clad, and undersized lot, though noisy as a street mob.

After Manchac, the road begins to creep up toward _terra firma_, and before nightfall there was a change from cypresses and swamp laurels to pines and beeches, and we inhale the purer atmosphere of dry land, with an occasional whiff of resinous fragrance, that dispels the fever-tainted suggestions of the swamp below. There we only breathed to live. Here we seem to live to breathe. The rise of the road is a grade of but a foot to the mile, and yet at the camp an elevation of not more than eighty feet in as many miles suffices to establish all the climatic difference between the malarious marshes and a much higher mountain region.

But during our journey the hampers have not been neglected. The younger members of the party astonish the night-owls with patriotic songs, chiefly French, and the French chiefly with the “Marseillaise,” which, however inappropriate as the slogan of the Confederate states, they persist in quavering, forgetful, perhaps, that not three-quarters of a century ago Toussaint l’Ouverture caught the words and air of his masters, and awoke the lugubrious notes of the insurrection.

Toward nine P. M., the special car rests in the woods, and is flanked on one side by the tents and watch-fires of a small encampment, chiefly of navvy and cotton-handling Milesian volunteers, called “the Tigers,” from their prehensile powers and predatory habits. A guard is stationed around the car; a couple of Ethiopians who have attended us from town are left to answer the query, _quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_, and we make our way to the hotel, which looms up in the moonlight in a two-storied dignity. Here, alas! there have been no preparations made to sleep or feed us. The scapegoat “nobody” announced our coming. Some of the guests are club men, used to the small hours, who engage a room, a table, half a dozen chairs, and a brace of bottles to serve as candlesticks. They have brought stearine and pasteboards with them, and are soon deep in the finesses of “Euchre.” We quietly stroll back to the car, our only hope of shelter. At the entrance we are challenged by a sentry, apparently ignorant that he has a percussion cap on his brown rifle, which he levels at us cocked. From this unpleasant vision of an armed and reckless Tiger rampant we are relieved by one of the dusky squires, who assures the sentinel that we are “all right,” and proceeds to turn over a seat and arrange what might be called a sedan-chair bed, in which we prepare to make a night of it. Our party is soon joined by others in quest of repose, and in half an hour breathings, some of them so deep as to seem subterranean, indicate that all have attained their object--like Manfred’s--forgetfulness.

An early breakfast of rashers and eggs was prepared at the _table d’hôte_, which we were told would be replenished half-hourly until noon, when a respite of an hour was allowed to the “help,” in which to make ready a dinner, to be served in the same progression.

Through a shady dingle a winding path led to the camp, and, after trudging a pleasant half-mile, a bridge of boards, resting on a couple of trees laid across a pool, was passed, and, above a slight embankment, tents and soldiers are revealed upon a “clearing” of some thirty acres in the midst of a pine forest. Turning to the left, we reach a double row of tents, only distinguished from the rest by their “fly roofs” and boarded floors, and, in the centre, halt opposite to one which a poster of capitals on a planed deal marks as “Head-quarters.” Major-General Tracy commands the camp. The white tents crouching close to the shade of the pines, the parade alive with groups and colors as various as those of Joseph’s coat, arms stacked here and there, and occasionally the march of a double file in green, or in mazarine blue, up an alley from the interior of the wood, to be dismissed in the open, resembles a militia muster, or a holiday experiment at soldiering, rather than the dark shadow of forthcoming battle. The cordon of sentinels suffer no volunteer to leave the precincts of the camp, even to bathe, without a pass or the word. There are neither wagons nor ambulances, and the men are rolling in barrels of bacon and bread and shouldering bags of pulse--good picnic practice and campaigning gymnastics in fair weather.

The arms of these volunteers are the old United States smooth-bore musket, altered from flint to percussion, with bayonet--a heavy and obsolete copy of Brown Bess in bright barrels. All are in creditable order. Most of them have never been used, even to fire a parade volley, for powder is scarce in the Confederated States, and must not be wasted. Except in their material, the shoes of the troops are as varied as their clothing. None have as yet been served out, and each still wears the boots, the brogans, the patent leathers, or the Oxford ties in which he enlisted. The tents have mostly no other floor than the earth, and that rarely swept; while blankets, boxes, and utensils are stowed in corners with a disregard of symmetry that would drive a martinet mad. Camp-stools are rare and tables invisible, save here and there in an officer’s tent. Still the men look well, and, we are told, would doubtless present a more cheerful appearance, but for some little demoralization occasioned by discontent at the repeated changes in the organic structure of the regiments, arising from misapprehensions between the state and federal authorities, as well as from some favoritism toward certain officers, elected by political wire-pulling in the governing councils. The system of electing officers by ballot has made the camp as thoroughly a political arena as the poll-districts in New Orleans before an election, and thus many heroes, seemingly ambitious of epaulettes, are in reality only “laying pipes” for the attainment of civil power or distinction after the war.

The volunteers we met at Manchac the previous evening had been enlisted by the state to serve for twelve months, and had refused to extend their engagement for the war--a condition now made precedent at Montgomery to their being mustered into the army of the Confederate States. Another company, a majority of whom persist in the same refusal, were disbanded while we were patrolling the camp, and an officer told one of the party he had suffered a loss of 600 volunteers by this disintegrating process within the last twenty-four hours. Some of these country companies were skilled in the use of the rifle, and most of them had made pecuniary sacrifices in the way of time, journeys, and equipments. Our informant deplored this reduction of volunteers, as tending to engender disaffection in the parishes to which they will return, and comfort, when known, to the Abolitionists of the North. He added that the war will not perhaps last a twelvemonth, and if unhappily prolonged beyond that period, the probabilities are in favor of the short-term recruits willingly consenting to a re-enlistment.

The encampment of the “Perrit Guards” was worthy of a visit. Here was a company of _professional gamblers_, 112 strong, recruited for the war in a moment of banter by one of the patriarchs of the fraternity, who, upon hearing at the St. Charles Hotel one evening that the vanity or the patriotism of a citizen, not famed for liberality, had endowed with $1,000 a company which was to bear his name, exclaimed that “he would give $1,500 to any one who should be fool enough to form a company and call it after him.” In less than an hour after the utterance of this caprice, Mr. Perrit was waited upon by fifty-six “professionals,” who had enrolled their names as the “Perrit Guards,” and unhesitatingly produced from his wallet the sum so sportively pledged. The Guards are uniformed in mazarine-blue flannel with red facings, and the captain, a youngish-looking fellow, with a hawk’s eye, who had seen service with Scott in Mexico and Walker in Nicaragua, informed us that there is not a pair of shoes in the company that cost less than $6, and that no money has been spared to perfect their other appointments. A sack of ice and half a dozen silver goblets enforced his invitation “to take a drink at his quarters,” and we were served by an African in uniform, who afterward offered us cigars received by the last Havana steamer. Looking at the sable attendant, one of the party observed that if these “experts of fortune win the present fight, it will be a case of _couleur gagne_.”

It would be difficult to find in the same number of men taken at hazard greater diversities of age, stature, and physiognomy; but in keenness of eye and imperturbability of demeanor they exhibit a family likeness, and there is not an unintelligent face in the company. The gamblers, or, as they are termed, the “sports,” of the United States have an air of higher breeding and education than the dice-throwers and card-turners of Ascot or Newmarket--nay, they may be considered the Anglo-Saxon equals, minus the title, of those _âmes damnées_ of the continental nobility who are styled Greeks by their Parisian victims. They are the Pariahs of American civilization, who are, nevertheless, in daily and familiar intercourse with their patrons, and not restricted, as in England, to a betting-ring toleration by the higher orders. The Guards are the model company of Camp Moore, and I should have felt disposed to admire the spirit of gallantry with which they have volunteered in this war as a purification by fire of their maculated lives were it not hinted that the “Oglethorpe Guards” and more than one other company of volunteers are youths of large private fortunes, and that in the Secession as in the Mexican War, these patriots will doubtless pursue their old calling with as much profit as they may their new one with valor.

From the lower camp we wind through tents, which diminish in neatness and cleanliness as we advance deeper, to the upper division, which is styled “Camp Tracy,” a newer formation, whose brooms have been employed with corresponding success. The adjutant’s report for the day sums up 1,073 rank and file, and but two on the sick list. On a platform, a desk, beneath the shade of the grove, holds a Bible and Prayer-book, that await the arrival, at ten o’clock, of the Methodist preacher, who is to perform Divine service. The green uniforms of the “Hibernian Guards,” and the gray and light-blue dress of other companies, appertain to a better appointed sort of men than the lower division.

There may be 2,000 men in Camp Moore--not more, and yet every authority gives us a different figure. The lowest estimate acknowledged for the two camps is 3,500 men, and _The Picayune_ and other New Orleans papers still speak in glowing terms of the 5,000 heroes assembled in Tangipao. Although the muster there presents a tolerable show of ball-stoppers, it would require months of discipline to enable them to pass for soldiers, even at the North; and besides that General Tracy has never had other experience than in militia duty, there is not, I think, a single West-Point officer in his whole command. The only hope of shaping such raw material to the purposes of war would naturally be by the admixture of a proper allowance of military experience, and until those possessing it shall be awarded to Camp Moore we must sigh over the delusion which pictures its denizens to the good people of New Orleans as “fellows ready for the fray.”

While the hampers are being ransacked, an express locomotive arrives from town with dispatches for General Tracy, who exclaims, when reading them, “Always too late!” from which expression it is inferred that orders have been received to accept the just disbanded volunteers. The locomotive was hitched to the car and drew it back to the city. Our car was built in Massachusetts, the engine in Philadelphia, and the magnifier of its lamp in Cincinnati. What will the South do for such articles in future?

_May 26._--In the evening, as I was sitting in the house of a gentleman in the city, it was related, as a topic of conversation, that a very respectable citizen named Bibb had had a difficulty with three gentlemen, who insisted on his reading out the news for them from his paper, as he went to market in the early morning. Mr. Bibb had a revolver, “casually,” in his pocket, and he shot one citizen dead on the spot and wounded the other two severely, if not mortally. “Great sympathy,” I am told, “is felt for Mr. Bibb.” There has been a skirmish somewhere on the Potomac, but Bibb has done more business “on his own hook” than any of the belligerents up to this date; and though I can scarcely say I sympathize with him, far be it from me to say that I do not respect him.

One curious result of the civil war in its effects on the South will, probably, extend itself as the conflict continues--I mean the refusal of the employers to pay their workmen, on the ground of inability. The natural consequence is much distress and misery. The English consul is harrassed by applications for assistance from mechanics and skilled laborers who are in a state bordering on destitution and starvation. They desire nothing better than to leave the country and return to their homes. All business, except tailoring for soldiers and cognate labors, is suspended. Money is not to be had. Bills on New York are worth little more than the paper, and the exchange against London is enormous--eighteen per cent. discount from the par value of the gold in bank, good drafts on England having been negotiated yesterday at ninety-two per cent. One house has been compelled to accept four per cent. on a draft on the North, where the rate was usually from one-fourth per cent. to one-half per cent. There is some fear that the police force will be completely broken up, and the imagination refuses to guess at the result. The city schools will probably be closed--altogether things do not look well at New Orleans. When all their present difficulties are over, a struggle between the mob and the oligarchy, or those who have no property and those who have, is inevitable; for one of the first acts of the legislature will probably be directed to establish some sort of qualification for the right of suffrage, relying on the force which will be at their disposal on the close of the war. As at New York, so at New Orleans. Universal suffrage is denounced as a curse, as corruption legalized, confiscation organized. As I sat in a well-furnished clubroom last night, listening to a most respectable, well-educated, intelligent gentleman descanting on the practices of “the Thugs”--an organized band who coolly and deliberately committed murder for the purpose of intimidating Irish and German voters, and were only put down by a vigilance committee, of which he was a member--I had almost to pinch myself to see that I was not the victim of a horrid nightmare.

_Monday, May 27._--The Washington Artillery went off to-day to the wars--_quo fas et gloria ducunt_; but I saw a good many of them in the streets after the body had departed--spirits who were disembodied. Their uniform is very becoming, not unlike that of our own foot artillery, and they have one battery of guns in good order. I looked in vain for any account of Mr. Bibb’s little affair yesterday in the papers. Perhaps, as he is so very respectable, there will not be any reference to it at all. Indeed, in some conversation on the subject last night, it was admitted that when men were very rich they might find judges and jurymen as tender as Danae, and policemen as permeable as the walls of her dungeon. The whole question now is, “What will be done with the blockade?” The Confederate authorities are acting with a high hand. An American vessel, the Ariel, which had cleared out of port with British subjects on board, has been overtaken, captured, and her crew have been put in prison. The ground is that she is owned in main by Black Republicans. The British subjects have received protection from the consul. Prizes have been made within a league of shore, and in one instance, when the captain protested, his ship was taken out to sea, and was then recaptured formally. I went round to several merchants to-day; they were all gloomy and fierce. In fact, the blockade of Mobile is announced, and that of New Orleans has commenced, and men-of-war have been reported off the Pas-à-l’outre. The South is beginning to feel that it is being bottled up, all fermenting and frothing, and is somewhat surprised and angry at the natural results of its own acts, or, at least, of the proceedings which have brought about a state of war. Mr. Slidell did not seem at all contented with the telegrams from the North, and confessed that “if they had been received by way of Montgomery he should be alarmed.” The names of persons liable for military service have been taken down in several districts, and British subjects have been included. Several applications have been made to Mr. Mure, the consul, to interfere in behalf of men who, having enlisted, are now under orders to march, and who must leave their families destitute if they go away; but he has, of course, no power to exercise any influence in such cases. The English journals to the 4th of May have arrived here to-day. It is curious to see how quaint in their absurdity the telegrams become when they have reached the age of three weeks. I am in the hapless position of knowing, without being able to remedy, the evils from this source, for there is no means of sending through to New York political information of any sort by telegraph. The electric fluid may be the means of blasting and blighting many reputations, as there can be no doubt the revelations which the government at Washington will be able to obtain through the files of the dispatches it has seized at the various offices, will compromise some whose views have recently undergone remarkable changes. It is a hint which may not be lost on governments in Europe when it is desirable to know friends and foes hereafter, and despotic rulers will not be slow to take a hint from “the land of liberty.”

Orders have been issued by the governor to the tow-boats to take out the English vessels by the south-west passage, and it is probable they will all get through without any interruption on the part of the blockading force. It may be imagined that the owners and consignees of cargoes from England, China, and India, which are on their way here, are not at all easy in their minds. Two of the Washington artillery died in the train on their way to that undefinable region called “the seat of war.”

_May 28._--The Southern states have already received the assistance of several thousands of savages, or red men, and “the warriors” are actually engaged in pursuing the United States troops in Texas, in conjunction with the state volunteers. A few days ago a deputation of the chiefs of the Five Nations, Creeks, Choctaws, Seminoles, Comanches, and others, passed through New Orleans on their way to Montgomery, where they hoped to enter into terms with the government for the transfer of their pension list and other responsibilities from Washington, and to make such arrangements for their property and their rights as would justify them in committing their fortunes to the issue of war. These tribes can turn out twenty thousand warriors, scalping-knives, tomahawks, and all. The chiefs and principal men are all slave-holders.

_May 29._--A new “affair” occurred this afternoon. The servants of the house in which I am staying were alarmed by violent screams in a house in the adjoining street, and by the discharge of firearms--an occurrence which, like the cry of “murder” in the streets of Havana, clears the streets of all wayfarers, if they be wise, and do not wish to stop stray bullets. The cause is thus stated in the journals:

SAD FAMILY AFFAIR.--Last evening, at the residence of Mr. A. P.
Withers, in Nayades street, near Thalia, Mr. Withers shot and
dangerously wounded his stepson, Mr. A. F. W. Mather. As the police
tell it, the nature of the affair was this: The two men were in the
parlor, and talking about the Washington artillery, which left on
Monday for Virginia. Mather denounced the artillerists in strong
language, and his stepfather denied what he said. Violent language
followed, and, as Withers says, Mather drew a pistol and shot at
him once, not hitting him. He snatched up a Sharp’s revolver that
was lying near and fired four times at his stepson. The latter fell
at the third fire, and as he was falling Withers fired a fourth
time, the bullet wounding the hand of Mrs. Withers, wife of one and
mother of the other, she having rushed in to interfere, and she
being the only witness of the affair. Withers immediately went out
into the street and voluntarily surrendered himself to Officer
Casson, the first officer he met. He was locked up. Three of his
shots hit Mather, two of them in the breast. Last night Mather was
not expected to live.

Another difficulty is connected with the free colored people who may be found in prize ships. Read and judge of the conclusion:

What shall be done with them? On the 28th inst., Captain G. W.
Gregor, of the privateer Calhoun, brought to the station of this
district about ten negro sailors, claiming to be free, found on
board the brigs Panama, John Adams, and Mermaid.

The recorder sent word to the marshal of the confederate states
that said negroes were at his disposition. The marshal refused to
receive them or have any thing to do with them, whereupon the
recorder gave the following decision:

Though I have no authority to act in the case, I think it is my
duty as a magistrate and good citizen to take upon myself, in this
critical moment, the responsibility of keeping the prisoners in
custody, firmly believing it would not only be bad policy, but a
dangerous one, to let them loose upon the community.

The following dispatch was sent by the recorder to the Hon. J. P. Benjamin:

NEW ORLEANS, May 29.

To J. P. Benjamin, Richmond--_Sir_: Ten free negroes taken by a
privateer from on board three vessels returning to Boston, from a
whaling voyage, have been delivered to me. The marshal refuses to
take charge of them. What shall I do with them?

Respectfully, A. BLACHE, Recorder, Second District.

The monthly statement I inclose of the condition of the New Orleans banks on the 25th inst., must be regarded as a more satisfactory exhibit to their depositors and shareholders, though of no greater benefit to the commercial community in this its hour of need than the tempting show of a pastrycook’s window to the famished street poor. These institutions show assets estimated at $54,000,000, of which $20,000,000 are in specie and sterling exchange, to meet $25,000,000 of liabilities, or more than two for one. But, with this apparent amplitude of resources, the New Orleans banks are at a dead-lock, affording no discounts and buying no exchange--the latter usually their greatest source of profit in a mart which ships so largely of cotton, sugar, and flour, and the commercial movement of which for not over nine months of the year is the second in magnitude among the cities of the old Union.

As an instance of the caution of their proceedings, I have only to state that a gentleman of wealth and the highest respectability, who needed a day or two since some money for the expenses of an unexpected journey, was compelled, in order to borrow of these banks the sum of $1,500, to hypothecate, as security for his bill at sixty days, $10,000 of bonds of the Confederate states, and for which a month ago he paid par in coin--a circumstance which reflects more credit upon the prudence of the banks than upon the security pledged for this loan.

* * * * *

NATCHEZ, MISS., _June 14, 1861_.