‘State Rights Guards’ every night. This Frenchman, whose name I cannot spell, says in two weeks more he will be equal to a captain’s duties; but his father says he must understand the movements of a brigade, battalion and regiment, as well as that of company drill; he must know something and become qualified for everything; so I think he wishes him to have a commission. He is the sole representative of our immediate family. I fear for him, his youth is against him—he should be twenty-one instead of seventeen—though this will not disqualify him in the volunteer service if he is competent. He will go whenever called.”

Thus my young son left me for the army in Virginia where he served until incapacitated by an extraordinary wound through the head received at Seven Pines while a member of the staff of Gen. Leroy Stafford.

After this my brother went into an artillery company as first lieutenant, and I went to the Myrtle Grove plantation to take leave of him. It was during my temporary absence that New Orleans fell into Federal possession, which fact caused me to spend the whole period of the war with my family on the Atchafalaya river at this plantation, having only occasional visits from my husband, who found it necessary to take the greater portion of his slaves to a safer place in another part of the state. His own liberty was also threatened, and since one of his colleagues, Judge Voorhies, had been taken prisoner and detained away from his family and official business, it was desirable that Judge Merrick should incur no such risk.

When Louisiana seceded from the Union many thought that no blood would be spilled; that the Yankees would not fight, and would never learn to bear arms. But this was not Mr. Merrick’s opinion, nor that of many others. The men we called Yankees had fought bravely for their own independence and gained it, and they would fight if necessary again; we should see our soil dug up and earthworks made on our own secluded plantations.

I left my New Orleans home furnished with every comfort, but have never since seen it in that perfect condition. Under General Ben Butler, a public sale was made of the contents of the dwelling, stables and outhouses for the benefit of the United States. Mrs. J. Q. A. Fellows told me she counted thirteen wagon loads of furniture taken out, and had she known me then as she afterwards did, she would have saved many valuable things for me. I owned an excellent miscellaneous library, a new piano, valuable carriages, pictures, china and cut glass—the acquisition of twenty-five years, belonging to me personally who had done nothing to bring on the hostilities between the sections. I was informed that my carriage was appropriated by a Federal officer for his own use.

It was not long before the predictions of my husband were realized by General Banks’ invading our retreat with the purpose of investing Port Hudson in the rear, Farragut meanwhile was trying to force a passage past its guns on the Mississippi river. While Gen. Banks’ command was in transit we were in daily and hourly contact with the troops. When Brig.-Gen. Grover ascertained that my household consisted of women alone, he had his tent pitched very near the dwelling, informing me himself that he did this to secure our safety, and assuring me that we should be unmolested inside the enclosure of our dooryard and the lawn bordering in front on the Atchafalaya river. To this end three men were detailed to act as a guard. I had then a family consisting of two daughters, Laura and Clara, their baby brother Edwin and the two Misses Chalfant and Miss Little, who were my guests for a long time.

We were abundantly furnished with the necessaries of life, and had a bountiful supply of vegetables besides the products of our dairy and poultry yard. Lacking new books to read and mail to bring us letters, newspapers or magazines, there yet came into our lives an intenser interest in what was before us so constantly—this war between the North and the South; and in one way or another everybody, white and black, man, woman and child, took a more or less active part in carrying it on.

A letter from Mrs. Mary Wall gives the following: “I hear my son Benjamin has gone to the war, Willie too, and Bowman has joined the ‘Hunter Rifles.’ There is nothing talked of here but war. God help me, but it is hard! I nursed these boys and they are part of myself; life would be utterly barren without them. But I cannot keep them, nor say a word to stay them from defending their country; but I think it will kill me. I should be better off without children in this extremity.

“What do you think the North intends? Is it to be a war of extermination? Have you read Helper’s book? He says, ‘Go out of the Union to-day and we will scourge you back to-morrow, and make the banks of the Mississippi one vast sepulchre, but you shall give up your slaves.’

“Christians ought to pray constantly that the great Omnipotent may help us. We cannot fathom God’s plans. I am ready to let my negroes go if the way opens, but I do not see that it is my duty to set them free right here and now, though the time may be approaching for them to emerge from their captivity. God’s will is just and good. Oh for perfect reliance on His promises to all who love and serve Him!”

Those who were a part of ante-bellum affairs will remember how earnestly serious-minded and conscientious slaveholders discussed the possibility of gradual emancipation as advocated by Henry Clay. The negroes were in their possession by inheritance and by the customs and laws of the land in which they were born. The slaves were not only a property which had come to them as a birthright, but also a responsibility which could not be laid aside except in a manner that would secure the future good of the slave, with proper consideration for what was justly due the master and his posterity in the settlement of the great question. If politicians on both sides, who cared more for party control and for the money value of a negro than for the nation’s good, could have been ordered to the rear, there is little doubt but that slaveholder and abolitionist and the great American people could have been brought to weigh the subject together on its own merits, and slavery might have been abolished to the satisfaction of North and South by law instead of in a cataclysm of blood.

Those were anxious days when families were left without their male protectors and we women had only ourselves and our young children in our disquieted homes. Yet we were cheerful and marvelously comforted, drawing nearer day by day to the Almighty Father, and sleeping the sleep of the just, though often awakened by the sound of guns and to the sight of Federal blue-coats drawn up in battle-line with gleaming bayonets. There was fasting and prayer everywhere during all the long struggle. The most pathetic sight was thousands of women, children and slaves, with the few non-combatant men the army had spared, on their knees in daily union prayer-meetings, at sunrise or sunset, before the God of Battles.

Each of us sympathized with the words of Lizzie Dowdell, writing in May, 1861: “I do believe the Lord is on our side. If we fail, God have mercy on the world—for the semblance of human liberty will have fled. The enemy has men, money, horses and chariots; they are strong and boastful. Our sins may be flagrant, and we may need to be scourged with scorpions; but will God permit us to be overwhelmed?” Both sides referred their case to the Court of Heaven—as the assaulted Boers are doing to-day. If they sink beneath the unlimited resources of the British, will the triumph of might now be the triumph of right and of human liberties? Three and one-half