CHAPTER XXV
THE BOMBARDMENT
Baton Rouge seethed with excitement on the day of Jennie's arrival. Every wagon and dray was pressed into service. The people were hauling their cotton to be burned on the commons. Negroes swarmed over the bales, cutting them open, piling high the fleecy lint and then applying the torch. The flames leaped upward with a roar and dropped as suddenly into a smoldering and smoking mass.
A crowd rushed to the wharf to see them fire an enormous flat-boat piled mountain-high with cotton. A dozen bales had been broken open and the whole floating funeral pyre stood shrouded in spotless white which leaped into flames as it was pushed into the stream.
Along the levee as far as the eye could reach negroes crawled like black ants rolling the cotton into the river. The ties were smashed, and the white bundle of cotton tumbled into the water and was set on fire. Each bale sent up its cloud of smoke until the surface of the whole river seemed alive with a fleet of war crowding its steam to run fresh batteries. Another flat-boat was piled high, its bales cut open, soaked with whiskey, and set on fire. The blue flames of burning alcohol gave a touch of weird and sinister color to the scene.
The men who owned this cotton stood by cheering and helping in its destruction. The two flat-boats with flames leaping into the smoke pall of the darkened skies led the fleet of fire down the river to greet Farragut's men in their way.
Every saloon was emptied and every gutter flowed with wines and liquors.