On Sunday, January 8th, Gov. Kellogg telegraphed to President Grant to the same effect.
January 8th—Stephen B. Packard took the oath of office as Governor, and C. C. Antoine as Lieutenant-Governor, at the State House at 1:30, in the presence of the Legislature.
January 8—Francis T. Nicholls and L. A. Wiltz to-day took the oath of office of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, respectively, on the balcony of St. Patrick’s hall.
By the 11th of January both parties were waiting for the action of the authorities at Washington. Gov. Packard to-day commissioned A. S. Badger Major-General of the State National Guard, and directed him to organize the first division at once. Two members of the Packard Legislature, Mr. Barrett, of Rapides, and Mr. Kennedy, of St. Charles, had withdrawn from that body and gone over to the Nicholls Legislature.
Messrs. Breux, Barrett, Kennedy, Estopival, Wheeler, and Hamlet, elected as Republicans, under the advice of Pinchback—a defeated Republican candidate for U. S. Senator, left the Packard or Republican, and joined the Nicholls Legislature.
On the 15th, Governor Packard, after receiving a copy of the telegram of the President to General Augur, issued a proclamation aimed at the “organized and armed combination and conspiracy of men now offering unlawful and violent resistance to the lawful authority of the State government.”
The Nicholls court issued an order to Sheriff Handy to provide the means for protecting the court from any violence or intrusion on the part of the adherents of “S. B. Packard, a wicked and shameless impostor.”
Governor Packard on the 16th, in a letter to Gen. Augur, acknowledges the receipt of a communication from his aide-de-camp asking for assurances from him that the President’s wishes concerning the preservation of the present status be respected, and says that the request would have been more appropriate if made immediately after his installation as Governor and before many of the main branches of the Government had been forcibly taken possession of by the opposition. He says: “I had scarcely taken the oath of office when the White League were called to arms; the Court room and the records of the Supreme Court of the State were forcibly taken possession of, and various precinct police-stations were captured in like manner by overwhelming forces. Orders had been issued by the Secretary of War early on that day that all unauthorized armed bodies should desist. A dispatch from yourself of the same date to the Secretary of War, conveyed the assurances that Nicholls had promised the disbandment of his armed forces. * * * It was my understanding, that neither side should be permitted to interfere with the status of the other side. Yet the day after this order was received and the pledge given by Nicholls, a force of several hundred armed White Leaguers repaired to the State Arsenal and took therefrom into their own keeping five pieces of artillery, and a garrison of armed men was placed in and around the Supreme Court building. That on the following day, January 11, an armed company of the White League broke into and took possession of the office of the Recorder of Mortgages. * * * In view of all these facts it seemed to me that to give the pledge verbally asked of me this morning would be to sanction revolution, and by acquiescence give it the force of accomplished fact, and I therefore declined.”
Many telegrams followed between the Secretary of War, J. Don. Cameron, Gen’l Augur and Mr. Packard, the latter daily complaining of new “outrages by the White League,” while the Nicholls government professed to accord rights to all classes, and to obey the instructions from Washington, to faithfully maintain the status of affairs until decisive action should be taken by the National government. None was taken, President Grant being unwilling to outline a Southern policy for his successor in office.