their perishing children, calling all the saints to witness the truth of their story and the honesty of their intentions. A large majority of the applicants were women, who assailed the tender hearts of the general and his staff with tears, entreaties and protestations.

During the first weeks, General Butler himself heard the applicants, and decided upon their claims. But as this business involved a great deal of questioning, cross-questioning and examination of papers, he was compelled, at length, to establish a member of his staff in an outer office at head-quarters, whose duty it was to sift from the mass of suitors the few whose story seemed credible and to warrant the indulgence of a pass. These were reported to the general, who then decided upon their application. Captain A. F. Puffer, of Boston, was the officer selected for this duty. When he left the city to conduct the three clergymen northward, his place was filled by Lieutenant Frederick Martin, of New York. These young officers held a post which severely taxed their patience, their firmness and their sagacity. I might add their integrity, also, if the integrity of an honorable soldier could ever be severely tried. "I was so often offered money for a pass," said Captain Puffer, “that, at last, I ceased to be indignant, and would merely say to the orderly in attendance, as a matter of business, 'Show this woman out.' He was once offered three thousand dollars for a pass, the money to be paid before it wàs procured.

From the first, nine in ten of the applications were refused. Every one at head-quarters was aware that the indulgence was almost certain to be abused in some instances, and that the only safe course was to make the lines impassable. But many of the cases were so movingly piteous, the agony of the applicants seemed so real and so great, that it was not in human nature to shut the door inexorably upon them. Every possible precaution was taken to prevent the conveyance of contraband articles, or articles in contraband quantities. Every box and package was minutely examined; every departing boat was searched. A list was required of everything allowed to be taken, and the applicant pledged his honor that he would take nothing else, nor apply the articles to any but the specified use.

It soon appeared, however, that nearly every pass that was granted was abused. It soon appeared that a secessionist con

sidered it no more dishonorable to lie to a Union officer than Jews once deemed it a sin to lie to a Christian. Here would come

a woman, having the appearance and manners of a lady, begging with tears and sobs for permission to convey to her starving children across the lake just one barrel of flour, that they might have at least the means of sustaining life. She would bring friends and papers in great numbers to testify to the truth of her story. After many days, the pass would be granted; and the detective officer, upon probing the barrel with a probe of extra length, would find a pound or two of quinine in the middle. A trunk of clothes. would be found to have a false bottom stuffed with contraband articles. A barrel of potatoes would serve to hide some thousands of percussion-caps. Letters, too, giving contraband information, were frequently discovered concealed in the boats.

Every detection, of course, increased the stringency of the passoffice. In August, the rebels began to seize boats that ventured within their lines, with a view to collect a flotilla for operations against the city. Then, at length, was adopted the inflexible rule, that no passes should be granted. The adoption of the rule, however, did not lessen the number of applicants, nor diminish their importunity. "I was plied," says Captain Puffer, " with every conceivable story of heart-rending woe and misery, which the general, in consequence of the fact that in almost every instance where he had yielded to such importunities, his confidence had been abused by the carrying of supplies and information to the rebel army, had ordered me invariably to refuse. Ordinarily, I succeeded in steeling my heart against these urgent entreaties ; but occasionally some story, peculiarly harrowing in its details, seemed to demand a special effort in behalf of the applicant, and I would go to the general, and, in the desperation of my cause, exclaim:

"General, you must see some of these people. I know, if you would only hear their stories, you would give them passes.

"You are entirely correct, captain," he would reply. "I am sure I should; and that is precisely why I want you to see them for me."

"And with this very doubtful satisfaction I would return to my desk, convinced that sensibility in a man who was allowed no discretion in its exercise, was an entirely useless attribute, and that in

future, I would set my face as a flint against every appeal to my feelings."*

Two incidents of the pass-office, related to me by Lieutenant Martin, will place this matter distinctly before the reader's mind. One Mrs. L. haunted the office for three weeks, pleading with tears for her starving children, to whom she wished to convey a little food. She had shown some kindness to Union troops on one occasion, when they were passing her house, and this was remembered in her favor. A pass was given her to go to St. Johns and return. Something led a detective officer to examine her boat with unusual thoroughness. He found that "false hips" had been built out upon her sides, which were filled with commodities outrageously contraband. The woman had deceived every one. Her simulation of a mother's agony and tears, sustained, too, for three weeks, was so perfect, that no one could doubt the reality of her emotions. Yet she was a professional smuggler.

Some weeks later, a lady applied to Lieutenant Martin for a similar permit. Her children, too, were starving, almost within sight of their mother; and, alas! this was a genuine case. Her children were starving. She was a lady in every sense of the word, and she convinced the lieutenant of the perfect truth of her story at the first interview. But he could only inform her, that no passes were then issued, and that any application to the general on her behalf would be useless. She came every day for a month, always hoping for a relaxation of the rule. At length, the young officer was so deeply moved by her distress, that he promised to disobey orders so far as to lay her case before

the next day to learn the result.

the general, and she might come

She came. She came. Lieutenant Martin had the anguish of telling her that her application was necessarily refused, as her boat was certain to be seized if she crossed the lake. She turned pale as death, and fell senseless to the floor. She was carried to the nearest physician. In half an hour she revived-a raving maniac. She has never known a gleam of reason to this day.

* Atlantic Monthly, July, 1863.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE NEGRO QUESTION-FIRST DIFFICULTIES.

LOUISIANA has a population of about six hundred thousand. Before the war, there was a slight excess of whites over slaves, but when the Union troops landed at New Orleans, there was one slave in the state to every white person. Many of the parishes contain twice as many slaves as whites; some, three times as many; a few, four times as many; one has nine hundred white inhabitants to nearly nine thousand slaves. The marching of a Union column into one of those sugar parishes, was like thrusting a walking-stick into an ant-hill-the negroes swarmed about the troops, every soldier's gun and knapsack carried by a black man, exulting in the service. For, in some way, this great multitude of bondmen had derived the impression that part of the errand of these troops was to set them free.

The population of New Orleans was about one hundred and fifty thousand, of whom eighteen thousand were slaves and ten thousand free colored. The class last named is the result of that universal licentiousness which exists, necessarily, in every community where the number of slaves is large. In New Orleans, that licentiousness was systematized, and partook, in some degree, of the character of matrimony. The connections formed with the quadroons and octoroons were often permanent enough for the rearing of large families, some of whom obtained their freedom from the affection of their father-master, and received the education he would have bestowed upon legitimate offspring. The class of free colored, therefore, includes a considerable number of wealthy, instructed, able, and estimable persons. They have been styled by competent observers, the richest class in New Orleans; many having inherited large estates, and many carrying on lucrative business. One of them entertained General Butler at a banquet of seven courses, served on silver.

The secret, darling desire of this class is to rank as human beings in their native city; or, as the giver of the grand banquet expressed

it, "No matter where I fight; I only wish to spend what I have, and fight as long as I can, if only my boy may stand in the street equal to a white boy when the war is over."

It is difficult for an inhabitant of the North to know how far such men as he were from the likelihood of ever enjoying the equality he craved. There was at the North a general, mild prejudice against color, before the late riots in New York expelled the last vestige of it from the heart of every decent human being. But, at the South, the prejudice is so complete that the people are not aware of its existence; they fondle and pet their favorite slaves, and let their children play with black children as with dogs and cats. The slightest taint of black blood in the superbest man, in the loveliest woman, one all radiant with golden curls and a blonde complexion, perfect in manners and abounding in the best fruits of culture, suffices to damn them to an eternal exclusion from the companionship of the people with whom they would naturally associate. The most striking illustration of the intensity of this abhorrence of African blood is the well-known fact, that a white wife in New Orleans is not generally jealous of her husband's slave mistress; and is frequently capable of consoling herself by the reflection that the other family, in the next street, are worth a hundred dollars each on the day of their birth, and increase in value a hundred dollars a year during the first fifteen years of their lives. She does not recognize in the mother of those children a being that could, in any sense of the word, be a rival of a woman in whose veins flowed no African blood that was discoverable. The slave mistress, also, relieved the sickly white wife of the burden of childbearing. This is southern prejudice against color. The prejudice that prevailed at the North, before the recent scenes revealed to every one its hellish nature, was base enough, and was strongest in the basest; but it was a trivial matter compared with the unconscious completeness of aversion that is observable in the true southerner-the "original secessionist."

There were a great many loose negroes about New Orleans when the troops landed, slaves of masters in the rebel army left to shift for themselves. A still larger number hired their time from their masters, and demonstrated that they could take care of themselves, besides contributing from sixty cents to a dollar and a half a day to the maintenance of another family.