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 versa.  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.

Some of the factors in New Orleans were fearful lest the attention paid to cotton-culture in other parts of the world would prove injurious to the South after the war should be ended.  They had abandoned their early belief that their cotton was king, and dreaded the crash that was to announce the overthrow of all their hopes.

In their theory that cotton-culture was unprofitable, unless prosecuted by slave labor, these men could only see a gloomy picture for years to come.  Not so the new occupants of the land.  Believing that slavery was not necessary to the production of sugar and cotton; believing that the country could show far more prosperity under the new system of labor than was ever seen under the old; and believing that commerce would find new and enlarged channels with the return of peace, they combated the secession heresies of the old residents, and displayed their faith by their works.  New Orleans was throwing off its old habits and adopting the ideas and manners of Northern civilization.

Mrs. B., the owner of our plantation, was in New Orleans at the time of my arrival.  As she was to receive half the proceeds of the cotton we had gathered, I waited upon her to tell the result of our labors.  The sale being made, I exhibited the account of sales to her agent, and paid him the stipulated amount.  So far all was well; but we were destined to have a difference of opinion upon a subject touching the rights of the negro.

Early in 1863 the Rebel authorities ordered the destruction of all cotton liable to fall into the hands of the National forces.  The order was very generally carried out.  In its execution, some four hundred bales belonging to Mrs. B. were burned.  The officer who superintended the destruction, permitted the negroes on the plantation to fill their beds with cotton, but not to save any in bales.  When we were making our shipment, Mr. Colburn proposed that those negroes who wished to do so, could sell us their cotton, and fill their beds with moss or husks.  As we paid them a liberal price, they accepted our offer, and we made up three bales from our purchase.  We never imagined that Mrs. B. would lay any claim to this lot, and did not include it in the quantity for which we paid her half the proceeds.