Now here’s the name of John Hagan. Isn’t he the one who used to walk with two canes or a crutch? When I was a little child, of the credulous type, one of our darkies—the one that knew everything—told me “Dat man (speaking of a beggar that hobbled by) walks dat-away, caze he ain’t got no toes; you cain’t walk lessen you got toes.” I visited the Hagans once on their plantation and knew one of the younger sons, James, quite well, but he was the kind of beau that did not dance, and the dancing girls of my day had little use for such. So it is, my mind runs riot over this list, for I knew each name and some incident in the life or doings of each, pops up before me, and sends my thoughts wandering afar.

T. G. Morgan and W. W. McMain must have presented themselves as representing Baton Rouge. Both hailed from there. Besides they may have had a personal interest in the meeting, as Gen. Taylor was temporarily a neighbor, being in command at the Baton Rouge barracks. I wonder if those same barracks was not the only United States military station in Louisiana?

In the beginning of the war we Baton Rouge folks seemed to talk as though it was the only one in the South—talked of holding it against all odds—of never furling that home-made Confederate flag that floated over it. We delighted in those first days in just such bombastic talk. When I say “we” I mean those who remained at home, and fired remarks back and forth anent our invincibility. Very harmless shot, but it served to swell our breasts and make us believe we could conquer the whole Yankee land. However, when a few Yankees were good and ready to march in and demand that United States barracks, nobody said them nay.

My dear father, no doubt, would have helped swell the crowd, but mercifully he had fought his life’s battle and had joined a greater crowd where all is peace and rest. Col. John Winthrop was a nomad (doesn’t that word stand for a modern globe-trotter?), a lawyer who practiced his profession part of the time, but shut up his office, picked up his amiable wife and skipped off at frequent intervals to the enjoyment of travel and foreign life. They lived when at home in a house on Royal Street, a house with two rooms on each of two stories, which was enough and to spare for two people in those days. The Winthrops entertained a good deal too, in a quiet, sociable way, musicales, card parties and suppers. The last time I saw them was during one of their trips. They were leisurely resting in a quaint hotel in Havana. Now they are in the House of Many Mansions, for the dear Winthrops years ago took the long, final voyage....

But I find I have wandered, like any garrulous old lady, into all the bypaths leading from the great committee meeting. After the nomination of the soldier for the Presidency, an office he neither sought nor desired, and for which he was not fitted, he made a farewell visit to Baton Rouge and his old quarters at the United States barracks, to superintend the removal of his family and personal belongings. Of course, the little city that so loved the brave man was alive with enthusiasm, and rose to the extraordinary emergency of receiving a future President, to the tune of a fine satin-lined coach, a kind of chariot affair, and four horses! Such a sight was never seen there before, for there were no circus parades in those days, and if there had been they would not have honored small communities only accessible by river and boat. The modest, reluctant, great man was transported in this gorgeous affair back and forth, with the pomp and ceremony so unwelcome to him.

I did not happen to witness that first turnout, but I saw the same coach and four years after, a faded thing; it had been in the old stable at the barracks for years, where moth did corrupt, if the thieves did not steal. It was a sight that set all the little negroes flying to the gate to see this coach go lumbering down our river road, William S. Pike, the big man, the rich man, the banker with a capital B, on the box. Mr. Pike was Kentucky bred and could handle the reins of a four-in-hand as well as any stage driver in the Blue Grass region. He was collecting blankets for our soldiers, and made a hurried call (the road being long and business pressing) on us, just long enough to take every blanket we had, and the “winter of our discontent” at hand, too; proceeded with grand flourish and crack of whip to Col. Hicky’s, Fred Conrad’s, Gilbert Daigre’s, on down, down to William Walker’s at Manchac, taking blankets everywhere. At nightfall the loaded coach was driven again through our gate, and the tired coachman told of great success while refreshing himself with something hot and strengthening. The Daily Comet had published repeated appeals for blankets, which met with meager results, but Mr. Pike in his one trip in the old Gen. Taylor moth-eaten, rusty, rattling coach swept up every blanket that could be spared, and no doubt a good many that couldn’t. The next call for blankets for our half-frozen men, busy in the mountains of Virginia, found us so desperate and demoralized that we gladly parted with our carpets.

The next time—and I suppose the last—that the coach and four were called into service was when Gen. Breckinridge made the attempt to defeat the Federals in Baton Rouge. Mr. Pike got secret information of the impending assault. The Gen. Taylor chariot—four mules this time, but Mr. Pike at the helm—well packed, tight as blankets, with the Pike family, was driven furiously out of town.

XXXVIII
A RAMBLE THROUGH NEW ORLEANS WITH BRUSH AND EASEL

Several years ago I visited New Orleans with my artist daughter. She had heard in her New York home so many wonderful and surprising stories of her mother’s child-life in the Crescent City that she was possessed with the idea such a fairyland must be a fine sketching field. We, therefore, gladly accepted the hospitality of a dear Creole friend, who let us go and come at all hours, in deference to (I was going to say our, but—) my little girl’s own free will. It was indeed a foreign land to her when she opened her eyes to the Creole life, the Creole home, the Creole street. Every old gateway and every tumbledown iron railing was an inspiration to her artistic mind. We spent happy days with brush and easel, wandering about the old French quarter, and the picturesquely dirty back streets.