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The Surrender of New Orleans
Confederate Military History
Volume 10
Chapter VI
Pages 49-61
THE STATE FLAG ON CITY HALL - FARRAGUT’S DEMAND FOR SURRENDER—THE NEGOTIATIONS—HOISTING OF THE UNITED STATES FLAG ON CITY HALL—THE ADVENT OF THE MEN OF TWO ORDERS—MILITARY RULE UNDER BUTLER—EXECUTION OF WILLIAM B. MUMFORD—BUTLER’S DEEPEST DEPTH.
The echoes of the fight at Chalmette had become silent. Smith, at the interior line as already known, had done his duty in making a last stand at the works intrusted to him. The fleet was steaming from Chalmette to the city. At that moment, when the guns grew still and the fleet came in sight, Marion A. Baker* was standing on the roof of the city hall. It was a supreme moment in the history of New Orleans. Under orders from the mayor, Baker had gone upon the roof to hoist the flag of Louisiana on the city’s flagstaff. He was to hoist it the moment the fleet was seen coming up from Chalmette. It was a crisis, unlike any known to the city, in its broad experience of dramatic interplay—a crisis in which the mayor had prudently sought counsel from Hon. Pierre Soule, former senator and minister, and from Durant de Ponte, editor of the New Orleans Delta. By this time the fleet had already anchored in front of the city. The mob was still on the levee, proclaiming its unlicensed law higher than the fleet’s loaded guns.
*Marion A. Baker was at that time a rising young journalist of the city. He discharged with zeal and ability the duties of a post then of peculiar difficulty. Being Mayor Monroe’s representative, he was in fact the real agent of New Orleans throughout all the negotiations leading to the surrender. Mr. Baker is, as he has been for several years, the brilliant literary editor of the Times-Democrat of that city.
At 1:30 p.m. two officers came as bearers of a triple demand from Flag-officer Farragut. This included a demand for the surrender of the city; for the lowering of the State flag from the city hall; for the hoisting of the flag of the United States over the post office, the custom house and the mint. In the interview which followed, General Lovell was called in. That officer resolutely refused to surrender the city, himself or his troops. Reorganizing the futility of resistance, however, he declared that he would retire with his forces, leaving the city authorities full discretion to represent the citizens in the crisis. In this, Lovell acted with judgment. The Mayor’s action, in replying to the demand, was firmly negative. To the first clause, he gave General Lovell as the proper person for the surrender; to the second, an unqualified refusal; to the third, a polite declination.
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Was Secession Treason?
Memoirs
Of
Service Afloat
During the
War Between the States
By: Admiral Raphael Semmes
Chapter IV
Pages 45-51
A few more words, and we shall be in condition to answer the question which stands at the head of this chapter. Being a legal question, it will depend entirely upon the constitutional right the Southern States may have had to withdraw from the Union, without reference to considerations of expediency, or of moral right; these latter will be more appropriately considered, when we come to speak of the causes which impelled the Southern States to the step. I have combated many of the arguments presented by the other side, but a few others remain to be noticed.
It has been said, that, admitting that the Constitution was a federal compact, yet the States did in fact cede away part of their sovereignty, and from this the inference has been deduced, that they no longer remained sovereign for the purpose of recalling the part, which had been ceded away. This is a question which arises wholly under the laws of nations. It is admitted, that the States were independent Sovereignties, before they formed the Constitution. We have only, therefore, to consult the international code, to ascertain to what extent the granting away of a portion of their sovereignty affected the remainder. Battle, treating of this identical point, speaks as follows: “Several sovereign and independent States may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect State. They will, together, constitute a federal republic; their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint upon the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements.” That was just what the American States did, when they formed the Federal Constitution; they put some voluntary restraint upon their sovereignty, for the furtherance of a common object.
If they are restrained, by the Constitution, from doing certain things, the restraint was self-imposed, for it was they who ordained, and established the instrument, and not a common superior. They, each, agreed that they would forbear to do certain things, if their copartners would forbear to do the same things. As plain as this seems, no less an authority than that of Mr. Webster has denied it; for, in his celebrated argument against Mr. Calhoun, already referred to, he triumphantly exclaimed, that the States were not sovereign, because they were restrained of a portion of their liberty by the Constitution. See how he perverts the whole tenor of the instrument, in his endeavor to build up those manufactories of which we spoke in the last chapter. He says: “However men may think this ought to be, the fact is, that the people of the United States have chosen to impose more.....
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Louisiana History
Published quarterly by the
Louisiana Historical Association
In cooperation with
The Center for Louisiana Studies
Of
The University of Southwestern Louisiana
(The following article is reprinted by the Young-Sanders Center with
Permission granted by the Louisiana Historical Association and
The Center for Louisiana Studies)
_________
Volume XVI, No. 1
Winter 1975
Pages 5-37
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The United Confederate
Veterans in Louisiana
By: Herman Hattaway
Department of History
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
The Youthful experiences of a generation may remain forever in a whole people’s memory, poignantly recalled touchstones that determine thereafter the entire course and shape of their lives. So it was with those Southerners who fought the Civil War; “in youth a fire touched upon their hearts,” and for them the conflict became an epic. During their mature and later years, old men in gray—the former Confederate soldiers—moved by their nostalgia, banded together to share wartime recollections and to work toward certain goals. In 1889 they formed a fraternal organization, The United Confederate Veterans (UCV). Thus in their lives did the war last for nearly one hundred years, reminding one of the popular 1918 saying which predicted for World War I a few years of fighting and more than ninety of “rolling up the barbed wire.”1
The UCV came into being at New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 10, 1889. That the veterans waited for nearly a quarter of a century to form this organization has intrigued historians. (The Northern Grand Army of the Republic sprang up in Illinois in 1866 and, although it remained small until the 1880s, it spread rapidly throughout the country.)2 Varied theories explain the long Southern delay; the consensus emphasizes real or feared Northern intimidation, introspection and timidity, and widespread difficult more
1 Dixon Wecter, When Johnny comes Marching Home (Cambridge, 1944), 3.
2 Mary R. Dearing, Veterans in Politics: The Story of the G.A.R. (Baton Rouge, 1952).
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