These people were not always outcasts. Under the great Napoleon they were citizens of the French Empire. It was only when the flag of the free came to cover them that they were disfranchised; only when they were transferred to a republic that they lost their political rights. Hitherto they have held themselves aloof from the slaves, and particularly from the plantation negroes; have plumed themselves upon their French descent, and thus isolated from both races, have transferred to Paris an allegiance that was rejected at Washington.
“But now,” as one of them very frankly said during the evening, “we see that our future is indissolubly bound up with that of the negro race in this country; and we have resolved to make common cause, and rise or fall with them. We have no rights which we can reckon safe while the same are denied to the fieldhands on the sugar plantations.”
Among the negro men present were several who, whether in complexion, clothes or conversation, would never have been suspected in any mixed company at the North of being other than intelligent and polished ornaments of the Anglo-Saxon race. Mingled with these were others of darker hues, ranging down to mulattoes, and even darker still; and among them were several negro officers whose behavior Generals Butler and Banks had highly praised. A group of beautiful ladies, apparently white, was suddenly invaded by a quaint old chocolate-colored dame, with high bandana wound about her head, subscription-book in hand, and the most extraordinary squeaking tones, calling for the taking of shares in her raffle. She was the grandmother of two of the young ladies! Madame Mottier, a mulatto, or quadroon, in whose education I think Boston had some hand, seemed to be the inspiring divinity of the fair, to whom all looked for direction or advice. She is teacher in a colored school.
By and by Mr. Pierre Soulé’s piano, under quadroon fingers, began a march, and manly voices—albeit not from Rebel throats—swelled the chorus. And so we left them: negroes raffling fans and picture-frames and sets of jewelry in the Soulé parlors; negroes selling ice-cream in the Soulé dining-room; negroes at his piano; negroes in his library; negroes swarming amid his shrubbery; and yet as handsome, as elegantly dressed, and in many respects almost as brilliant a party as he himself ever gathered beneath his hospitable roof.
Remembering how eagerly they had been buying portraits of Mr. Lincoln, I could not fail to recall, as we drove back, what I had seen in a picture gallery during the day, where there were no obnoxious “niggers” about. A picture of Lincoln hung side by side with one of Wilkes Booth, and above the two was a large, handsomely finished portrait of Robert E. Lee!
[31]. And who subsequently thought it in good taste for him, of all men, to refer, in a public speech, to the Chief Justice of the United States, as “the political adventurer who has recently been among us!” A very intelligent correspondent (“V. H.”) of the Cincinnati Commercial, writing from the Governor’s home, gives the following account of him: “Governor Wells does not seem to have much honor in his own parish. He was sheriff here once, and defaulter to a large amount. His brother, Montford Wells, has since been sued as one of the securities upon the forfeited bond. Montford and Jeff., both brothers of J. Madison (the Governor), married sisters—heiresses. The joint weddings—runaway matches—were a ‘spree,’ the gay young couples chartering a steamboat, and with a large party of merry guests, setting off from Alexandria, firing a salute, as a note of defiance to the grim, gray old guardian, who had presumed to threaten the course of true love (despite the adage, about to run so smooth down Red River), with vain opposition. Jeff.’s wife has been for some time in the Insane Asylum, and, since the death of Jeff. himself, Montford has been trying to get possession of the estate, in his wife’s name, and for the interest of his insane sister-in-law. J. Madison (the Governor), however, had interfered, as the representative of his brother Jeff. Why, I can’t understand, for Montford is older than the Governor.”
[32]. Bankrupt in all but honor, the paroled soldiers of the Confederacy can only tender to the ladies of New Orleans their undying gratitude for the cordial welcome which has greeted their advent in the city, and pray that God will bless the “ministering angels,” who have lifted from their hearts the dark cloud of gloom and despondency, and turned its “silver lining” outward, brightened with their smiles. Congregated here only for a brief space, they will soon be widely scattered, perhaps never to meet again. They are returning home with blighted hopes and ruined fortunes; all but honor, and the will which can never be conquered, lost in the terrible struggle through which they have passed. Many of them will be voluntary exiles from the fair Southern land which gave them birth; but wherever their wandering fate may lead, they will bear with them, among treasured relics of the past, a remembrance ever more dear and sacred of the noble women of New Orleans, who have had courage to believe that misfortune may exist without guilt, and, refusing to worship the rising sun, have turned aside from the prosperous and the powerful, to bestow their prayers, their tears, and their smiles upon them.—N. O. Picayune, June 17.
CHAPTER XXV.
Among the Negro Schools.
In the good old times, before the advent of Farragut and Butler, the statutes of Louisiana declared teaching slaves to read and write a “crime, having a tendency to excite insubordination among the servile class, and punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for not more than twenty-one years, or by death, at the discretion of the court.” When asked, therefore, to visit the negro schools of New Orleans, I was not unduly sanguine in my expectations. Reverend and Lieutenant Wheelock, a keen, practical Yankee preacher, acting as secretary to the “Board of Education for Freedmen,” instituted by General Banks, was guide.