Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field: Southern Adventure in Time of War. / Life with the Union Armies, and Residence on a Louisiana Plantation

by Thomas Wallace Knox

The French element in New Orleans is apparent on every side. The auctioneers cry their wares in mingled French and English, and the negroes and white laborers on the levee converse in a hybrid language. In the French quarter, every thing is French. The signs on the shops and the street corners, the conversation of the inhabitants and the shouts of the boys who play on the sidewalks, are in the vernacular of La Belle France. In Jackson Square, notices to warn visitors not to disturb the shrubbery, are posted in two languages, the French being first. On one poster I saw the sentence: "Ne touche pas à les fleurs," followed by the literal translation into English: "Don't touch to the flowers." I was happy to observe that the caution was very generally heeded.

Before the war, New Orleans was a city of wonderful wealth. Situated at the outlet of the great valley, its trade in cotton, sugar, and other products of the West and South, was immense. Boats, which had descended from all points along the navigable portion of the Mississippi, discharged their cargoes upon its levee. Ships of all nations were at the wharves, receiving the rich freight that the steamers had brought down. The piles of merchandise that lay along the levee were unequaled in any other city of the globe. Money was abundant, and was lavishly scattered in all directions.

With the secession of the Gulf States, the opening of hostilities, and the blockade of the Mississippi at its mouth and at Cairo, the prosperity of New Orleans disappeared. The steamers ceased to bring cotton and sugar to its wharves, and its levee presented a picture of inactivity. Many of the wealthy found themselves in straitened circumstances, and many of the poor suffered and died for want of food. For a whole year, while the Rebel flag floated over the city, the business of New Orleans was utterly suspended.

With the passage of the forts and the capture of New Orleans by Admiral Farragut, the Rebel rule was ended. Very slowly the business of the city revived, but in its revival it fell into the hands of Northern men, who had accompanied our armies in their advance. The old merchants found themselves crowded aside by the ubiquitous Yankees. With the end of the war, the glory of the city will soon return, but it will not return to its old channels. More than any other city of the South, New Orleans will be controlled by men of Northern birth and sentiments. The day of slave-auctions in the rotunda of the St. Charles has passed away forever.

New Orleans has a class of men peculiar to the South, whose business it is to sell cotton for the planters. These gentlemen are known as "factors," and, in former times, were numerous and successful. Whatever a planter needed, from a quire of paper to a steam-engine, he ordered his factor to purchase and forward. The factor obeyed the order and charged the amount to the planter, adding two and a half per cent, for commission.

If the planter wanted money, he drew upon the factor, and that individual honored the draft. At the end of the season, it often occurred that the planter was largely in debt to the factor. But the cotton crop, when gathered, being consigned to the factor, canceled this indebtedness, and generally left a balance in the planter's favor.

The factor charged a good commission for selling the cotton, and sometimes required interest upon the money he advanced. In the happy days before the war, the factor's business was highly lucrative. The advances to the planters, before the maturity of the cotton crop, often required a heavy capital, but the risk was not great. Nearly every planter was considerably indebted to his factor before his cotton went forward. In many cases the proceeds of the entire crop would but little more than cover the advances which had been made.

In New Orleans nearly all cotton is sold "by sample." Certain men are licensed to "sample" cotton, for which they charge a specified sum per bale. A hole is cut in the covering of each bale, and from this hole a handful of cotton is pulled. Every bale is thus "sampled," without regard to the size of the lot. The samples are taken to the sales-room of the commission house, where they are open to the inspection of buyers. The quality of the cotton is carefully noted, the length of the fiber or staple, the whiteness of the sample, and its freedom from dust or fragments of cotton-stalks. Not one bale in twenty is ever seen by the buyers until after its purchase. Frequently the buyers transfer their cotton to other parties without once looking upon it Sometimes cotton is sold at auction instead of being offered at private sale, but the process of "sampling" is carried out in either case.

In '63 and '64, New Orleans could boast of more cotton factors than cotton. The principal business was in the hands of merchants from the North, who had established themselves in the city soon after its occupation by the National forces. Nearly all cotton sent to market was from plantations leased by Northern men, or from purchases made of planters by Northern speculators. The patronage naturally fell into the hands of the new possessors of the soil, and left the old merchants to pine in solitude. The old cotton factors, most of them Southern men, who could boast of ten or twenty years' experience, saw their business pass into the hands of men whose arrival in New Orleans was subsequent to that of General Butler. Nearly all the old factors were Secessionists, who religiously believed no government could exist unless founded on raw cotton and slavery. They continually asserted that none but themselves could sell cotton to advantage, and wondered why those who had that article to dispose of should employ men unaccustomed to its sale. They were doomed to find themselves false prophets. The new and enterprising merchants monopolized the cotton traffic, and left the slavery-worshiping factors of the olden time to mourn the loss of their occupation.

At the time I visited New Orleans, cotton was falling. It had been ninety cents per pound. I could only obtain a small fraction above seventy cents, and within a week the same quality sold for sixty. Three months afterward, it readily brought a dollar and a quarter per pound. The advices from New York were the springs by which the market in New Orleans was controlled. A good demand in New York made a good demand in New Orleans, and vice versâ. The New York market was governed by the Liverpool market, and that in turn by the demand at Manchester. Thus the Old World and the New had a common interest in the production of cotton. While one watched the demand, the other closely observed the supply.