Progress of the war.
Sad condition of Affairs in New Orleans — Mistaken Leniency of the Yankee authorities.
A correspondent of the New York Tribune writes from New Orleans an indignant protest against the "carrying on" of Federal officers in that city. It is quite enough, he thinks, to reinstate Secessia in that city, and will do it, if the "firmer measures" he calls so loudly for are not initiated. He says:‘ One of the great merits of Gen. Butler's rule here was, that if he issued an order it was a settled thing; there was no getting away from it; if he said Ship Island, Ship Island it was. But this putting out a peremptory order, and a few days after qualifying it, excepting some, is no way to win the respect of either loyal or rebel.
I have before mentioned the course of Judge Peabody here. One of the latest causes is worthy of some of the New York Aldermen a few years ago, who used to release notorious criminals a few hours after their conviction. Several of the most violent and rabid secesh women in the city, who had been sentenced to thirty days imprisonment by Judge Hughes for the most unwarranted and unprovoked insults to Union people, have been released by Judge Peabody after about seven days confinement.
Major Carr, of the New York has been "relieved from all blame, " without any inquiry, in the Opera-House affair, although "it is to be regretted he pulled down the United States flag."
The order of the Provost Marshal regarding the departure of registered enemies says they will "be allowed to take provisions for ten days." I don't know how the amount was determined, but this I do know: Either the days must have been considered as arctic, when the sun is above the horizon for six months, or else the appetites have been reckoned as elephantine, for I know of one case where a small family were allowed two casks of hams and ten barrels of flour, besides a number of knick knacks, such as coffee, tea, sugar, &c. After which, of course, a lot of registered enemies unite in a card thanking the officers for their kindness.
It will avail them but little, however, for when they reached the other side of the lake and wanted to go to Mobile and elsewhere, money was in many cases refused for their conveyance — pay in provisions was demanded. Where money was accepted, such prices were gone as are beyond all conception--$1,000 for carrying a family of seven persons about fifty miles.
Those who have gone have mostly left everything in the shape of furniture, merely walking out of their houses and leaving all, sometimes without looking the door. The Quartermaster, Capt. McClure, with a numerous corps of aids at his elbow, is seizing everything, by order of Gen. Banks. Where the houses are also the property of rebels, inventories are taken, and the houses and furniture held for the use of offices, or let to those who require them at a moderate rent. In other cases the furniture is moved to the Quartermaster's store-room and sold.
Last week Gov. Shepley invited a number of citizens to meet him in his parlor, to consult with him as to the propriety of holding an election for city officers. No announcement had or has been made respecting the matter. It was quite private, but of course "Umbra"managed to know all that was going on. It is understood that no conclusion was arrived at. The most remarkable thing about the meeting was the presence of certain men there. No wonder some good Union men peeped in, looked around and walked off, when they saw the Governor taking counsel with Jacob Barker, late editor of a paper suppressed for its rebel conduct, and a rabid pro-slavery man; the presidents of two of the banks here, whose rebel sympathies are well known. Thomas A Adams, President of the Crescent Mutual Insurance Company, who so lately testified before Judge Peabody in behalf of "his friend Tisdale," a registered enemy, and who declared on oath "his sympathies were with the South;" Dr., Kennedy, editor of The True Della et id genus omne --How think you Union men, who have passed through the fiery ordeal of the past two years, like the look of Northern man high in office, taking counsel with pro-slavery men, when all who know anything of the causes of this rebellion know that you might as well enter into a compact with the devil to make people pious, as to expect pro-slavery men to help save the Union.
You will rejoice to learn that Gen. Uilman has got to work enlisting negroes in earnest, and is recruiting them fact. But you will not rejoice to hear, from a card which he has published, that there are officers here who undertake to put themselves in opposition to the purpose of the Government in arming negroes. An officer engaged in recruiting negroes under Gen. Uilman has been arrested, and the negroes spirited away.
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The condition of the slaves Working under Yankee rule — their wages.
We have conversed with a gentleman from Louisiana whose slaves were taken from him and pout to work on a plantation some distance off. He was permitted to go among them once after they were taken away, and was told by them of their situation. Their wages were $2 per month for good field hands, which was invariably swallowed up by the fines imposed on them by the Yankee masters. What they received for clothing was generally swindled out of them by the Yankee sutler of the "post," who would make a complaint to the commandant if any of the negroes objected to his exorbitant prices. The results of this complaint would be a fine of from 25 to 50 cents imposed on the negro, and a reduction of his nations. Every hand on the place was in debt to the commandant and the sutler, and three had been sold to a neighboring Union man to pay their indebtedness. The following list of rules, fines, and prices, was stuck up around the plantation:
- 1. We agree to work on this — plantation for one year and to do such a day's work as was done in former years.
- 2. We will obey the manager in all things, and assist him to enforce these rules against all offenders.
- 3. Lost time will be deducted. Lazy work will cause a deduction of wages. Tasks will be given when possible.
- 4. We will go to work at daylight, and will work until dark, taking the usual number of hours for meals. For being too late at getting out, ten minutes after the last tap of the bell, a fine of ten cents. Habitual laziness, stealing, quarrelling, or breaking any other rule, expulsion from the place, with loss of all back wages to hospital fund. All fines go to this fund.
- 5. All hands will be in their cabins at the last tap of the bell, and to remain there till the first bell in the morning, under a fine of ten cents for each offence.
- 6. The wages are one dollar per month for women and boys; two dollars for field hands, and three dollars for mechanics — or one-twentieth of the crop; with clothing and rations usually furnished.
- 7. Each hand will be responsible for the loss or damage of stock, tools, or other property.
- 8. Each family will be allowed half an acre for a garden.
- 9. No liquor will be sold or brought on the place by any one, under a due of one dollar for the first offence. Liquor will be kept in the hospital and sold for the general fund.
- 10. No one will leave the place without a written pass
- 11. We will appear in clean clothes every Sunday morning--fine, ten cents.
- 12. All disputes among ourselves will be brought before the manager, whose decision we will abide by.
- 13. During grinding, we will make our usual watch, being entitled to ten cents each night, and fifty cents for each Sunday's work.
- 14. If over five hogsheads of sugar are raised to each hand, the proprietor will divide five dollars for each hogshead over that number. The hand who has the greatest number of credit marks and the fewest number of bad marks, will be entitled to the highest prize, ($25,) with five prizes of $15 each; twenty of $10, and the balance will be divided equally among the hands.
The Louisville Democrat and the Provost Marshal.
About a month ago the Louisville Democrat received the following note from the Provost Marshal of the city.
"Headq'rs Provost Marshal K. June 6th, 1863
"Editors Louisville Democrat: "Gentlemen:
I have the honor most respectfully to request that you discontinue your attacks and reflections upon the war policy of the Administration and the war measures of the Government.
"Editors Louisville Democrat: "Gentlemen:
"Your obedient servant,
"Orlando H. Moore.
"Colonel and Provost Marshal."
Whereupon the Democrat made the following retract:
We confess that we have doubted whether the war measures of the Administration are the perfection of human wisdom; but "this eloquent bit of paper" has removed our doubts, wiped the black scruples from our soul, and convinced us that when Abraham Lincoln dies wisdom will go into the grave with him — all except one leg, which will be buried with the rest of the Cabinet. We believe that if all the departed Solomons and Solons had come back, and with all the advantages of their experience in this world and in the other, had set themselves to work, they could not have devised any means so well calculated as those of our Administration to restore our Union, and make us again a happy band of brothers. We believe in subjugation, extermination, ruination, and botheration generally. Give us any believing to do and the job shall be done at this office with the utmost neatness and dispatch.
Ask us to believe that two and three make seventy-nine; that the earth is flat, and that the Provost-Marshal of the city of Louisville is not, and see if we don't do it. If anybody finds any believing hard to do, let him call on us, and we promise to do it to his satisfaction, and much cheaper than he could do it himself. Like the old Saint, who complained that what the Church required him to believe was too easy, we want something to try our powers. Oh, for something hard to believe! And after believing all possible and all impossible things, with Oliver Twist, we will cry for more!
We are indebted for so much enlightenment to the illustrious Col. Moore, of the 25th Michigan, Provost Marshal of Louisville, etc.
But it unaccountably happened that the Provost Marshal was superseded directly afterwards, whether because Gen. Boyle disapproved of his intermeddling, or for some other cause, does not appear.
The extravagance of the Yankee contractors
The New Orleans Picayune has the following, about as much, by-the-bye, as it dare say, about the extravagance at the North during the war. It is not altogether confined to the North. At the South we can discern the under crust rapidly hopping to the surface, laden with native vulgarity and acquired plunder.-- The Picayune says:‘ Nearly all the lately received Northern papers contain the following:
"Two daughters of John Bell, of Tenn, in Philadelphia, express themselves amazed at the indications of abundance and prosperity every where evident."
’ The paragraph seems to be very popular, for it is going the rounds of the entire press. --Its presumed object is to make manifest the intense astonishment of two young ladies suddenly called upon the contrast the (reported) impoverished condition of their massive State with the unbounded "abundance and prosperity everywhere evident" in localities which have furnished everything but battle fields during the present war. There is, no doubt a marked difference in the degree of prosperity which obtains in States that are the said of war and those that are only the seal of contract; and people who retain the primitive and once almost universal opinion that war time necessarily induces some limitation in luxuries, much privation and even a want of the necessities of life, may well be amazed at the abundance and prosperity not only "evident," but actually arising from and produced by war."
These things have amazed many persons besides "the two daughters of John Bell, of Tennessee," They have amazed New York, Boston, and Philadelphia editors, engaged from day to day in chronicling the extravagance of Shoddymites, who are purchasing diamonds by the pint almost, and who are offering Church and Bierstadt thousands of dollars for paintings which before the war would scarcely have brought so many hundreds. The operas and theatres in Northern cities never saw so successful seasons as the last. Lorgnettes were actually needed to make known to old theatergoers the new and strange forms and faces of the owners of the expensive and elaborate toilettes which nightly filled the private boxes and dress circle. Carriage builders, milliners, dry goods dealers, furniture makers jewelers, the butcher, the baker, and candlestick maker, can complain of no lack of custom, and prosperity and abundance are in deed everywhere evident.
We fail to find in our late Northern exchanges the news which justifies the frequent issue of triple sheets by the Herald, World and other leading New York dailies; but a glance at the advertising columns tells the story. There never was a time in the history of New York city when all articles of luxury were sold more rapidly or at better prices — The latest commercial accounts note that imports, especially of silks, and like articles, are larger far for the past two months than during the corresponding periods of the last two years; and this, too, when a large market is cut off, not only at the South, but to a considerable extent in other sections. Yet the retail dry goods stores, the large jewelry establishments, and fancy stores generally, are crowded with customers. The streets display a rainbow like splendor of magnificent, dresses, which literally sweep the pavements. Balls, weddings and parties are gotten up regardless of expense, and in their splendid appointments surpass those of the most prosperous times of peace. Newport and Saratoga, thus early, are beginning to fill, and the season at the watering places promises to exceed all previous ones in extravagance, in gaiety and display.
A gentleman lately at the North, while in New York went into one of the largest jewelry stores on Broadway. That well-known house had added to its usual business an extensive military goods store, furnishing everything from swords to shoulder straps. "I suppose," said the gentleman, "that in these depressing times your military business has in some degree lessened your losses by the nonsale of articles in your jewelry store." "On the contrary," was the reply, "our sales of military goods, large as they are, are actually nothing in comparison with our regular business, particularly in plate and diamonds. We are supplying contractors, their wives, and sons and daughters."
Persons who may have arrived recently from the moon, or even from Tennessee, and who are verdant enough to suppose that a protracted war must necessarily almost drain the entire resources of the people to carry on the war itself, may well be "amazed" to find that it is only with many a source of unbounded wealth — that the war has actually produced a new race of rich men, so numerous that they are prominent in the Northern cities as the leading buyers of real estate, pictures, horses, fine furniture, diamonds, plate, and all that is necessary to furnish out a new sprung aristocracy, and who are notorious for extravagances which astonish old millionaires who were years in accumulating wealth which, is now heaped up in a few months or even weeks.
To the student of history, however, there is nothing new, nothing amazing in these things. It was so in Venice, in old Rome, and the same sumptuous splendor, desire for display, and reckless extravagance, distinguished other cities, which are now remembered and remarkable for what they were once, rather than for what they are to-day.
An Invitation accepted.
The following "hit" at the peace party of the North is taken from the New York TimesThe frank and cordial manner in which our Southern brethren are responding to the offer of the Ohio Democrats, to "cooperate with them in the restoration of peace," fully justifies the anticipations which we ventured to express on this head a few days ago. We conjectured that as soon as the South heard for the first time that the Democracy of the North would "hail with delight" its return to the Union, it would take immediate steps for coming back. It is now evident that the leaders of the rebellion are desirous of meeting as many of their Northern follow citizens as can be got together in Convention at either Harrisburg or Philadelphia; at the date of the last accounts it had not been decided which it was to be.--And we may guess how hearty and zealous they are in this great movement from the enormous size of the delegation which they are sending forward. There is no peace Democrat who can avoid feeling a glow of satisfaction at the thought that 90,000 or 100,000 of the bone and sinew of the South should have started North ward, to confer and discuss, the minute that they heard the great peace party would be pleased to see "them return to their allegiance." We doubt if the South has ever yet been so well represented in any of the conferences which she has held with the Northern Democracy. The delegation comprises man of all ranks and parties, from the wealthiest planters down to the negro slave, and there is not one of them who is not desirous of staying at the North as long as it will be convenient for us to keep him.
We greatly fear, however, that our reception of them will not be in all respects what it ought to be. Every effort is being used to bring together an equally large number of our population to argue our various differences with them, and we understand that several regiments of volunteers leave this city for Harrisburg this morning. As far as dress and appearance go these gentlemen will do very well; but we cast no imputation on our citizen soldiery when we say that they are scarcely the best persons to select to discuss with Southerners the various points of difference between us and the misguided secessionists. They can, of course, add to the splendor and eclat of the ceremonial; but when it comes to satisfy our friends of our desire to live in peace and harmony with them and of our willingness to do anything under heaven to keep them in good humor, our readers will, we think, agree with us that we might find better persons to represent us than the State militia. The men for this work are unquestionably the peace promoters. We think Mr. Fernando Wood and Dr. Brandford, and as large a portion of the recent great gathering at the Cooper Institute as can get away, ought to hurry on as fast as possible to the seat of peace. The Ohio democracy ought also to send forward as large as number of their leading orators and writers as they can spare, and we would suggest that Mr. Vallandigham ought to head the list. Mr. Lincoln cannot in decency refuse to grant him permission to return for this great occasion. We may remark, however, that the Southern delegates are all bringing muskets with them, and several rounds of ball cartridge. This, we presume, is partly for target practice in the intervals of the sittings of the Convention, and for a grand jue de jore when the debates are over and the Union is restored as there is no reason to doubt it will be.
It would seem, therefore, to be only proper and courteous that our representative should be similarly equipped, and, in fact, we have reason to believe that our Southern friends confidently expect they will be. The carrying of arms to a Peace Convention is a novelty, and to some persons it may seem an alarming novelty; but the explanation of it is simple. Several Southern gentlemen are anxious, as far as possible, to adopt the customs of those great European aristocracies whose confreres and successors they believe themselves to be, and amongst others that of Poland, which always assembled in the National Diet with lance and sabre, and on horseback. We can not, although our pretensions are much more moderate, refuse to follow their example.
There is already a good deal of intriguing, we are sorry to say as to who is to preside at the Convention. Robert Lee, of Virginia, and Joseph Hooker, of California, are both talked of, and both are manœavring with all their might in aid of their respective claims. Ewell has come on already to canvass for Lee, and his appearance has led to a good deal of wire pulling; but we doubt if anything decisive will take place before the appearance of Wood and Judge McCunn upon the scene. We hardly think it likely that the Constitution will open before these two great apostles of peace are ready to take part in it; though it these days it is dangerous to count upon either the modesty or scrupulousness of such notorious intriguers as both Hooker and Lee.
The New Yankee currency.
The designs for the new "national" currency or the Yankee Government are out. It is painful to see that in the vignettes the irrepressible nigger is entirely ignored, though he has shouldered arms and is being killed daily for the benefit of this nation of pedlar. A Washington letter says:‘ The back of each note will contain, in a large central vignette, a copy of one of the national pictures in the rotunda of the Capitol, which will be surrounded by; legends showing the uses of the note and the penalties for counterfeiting. The face of the note will con original vignettes, one at each left hand and representing some the one at the with that it important event upon the lustrated by the national a design back, and the one at the right hand ther symbolic of the event represented by the vignettes. The painting designated for the back of the smallest denomination (five dollars) is Vanderiyn's great work of the "Landing of Columbus. " The left hand vignette on the face will illustrate the discovery of America by Columbus; and the symbolic design for the right-hand and will be Columbus introducing the New World to the Old. America being typified by a female figure, led by the hand of Columbus into the presence of Europe and Asia, who are reclining in the foreground, while Africa stands in the background, absorbed by the ceremony.
The back of the ten dollar notes will contain a copy of Power's painting in the Capitol of "De Soto Discovering the Mississippi;" and the left hand vignette on the face will illustrate a great event of the same epoch, viz: Franklin discovering the identity of lightning and electricity, while the symbolic design at the right-hand end is a spirited figure representing America, with an eagle's flight, grasping the lightning. Between the two vignettes on the face of all the notes there will be two legends, the upper one showing the national character of the note, and the lower one containing the name and obligation of the association issuing it.
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