As I walked up the street in my soldier’s dress, a handsome Southern girl almost ran me off the sidewalk with a look in her face which, but for fear of the calaboose, might have been backed up by words and acts of insult, while the faces of the men were full of hate.  I stood at last in the rotunda of the St. Charles Hotel and presently the commander-in-chief, threading his way through a throng of officers, was at my side.  I was much dishevelled and still ill after a stormy passage in a crowded ship, but the General was very courteous to the private.  He had heard of my enlistment and indicated that he would be glad to utilise me, as he desired to utilise every man, for the best welfare of the service.  What did I desire?  I told him I had no thought but to do my duty as well as I could wherever I might be put.  He discussed the situation reasonably, then offered me a clerkship at headquarters, where I might escape the chief perils of the campaign and where perhaps my education would serve the public.  For a moment I hesitated and he passed on, leaving me to decide.  My friends felt that I had not the physical strength for work in the field; should I accept the snug place back of the firing-line or risk it at the front?  By the next day, I had fully determined to stick to my regiment.  I sought the General again at headquarters.  Colonel Irwin of his staff at the moment was arranging around his shoulders the yellow sash of the major-general for the formal ceremony of taking command, which was close at hand.  But the General had a kindly recognition of the private, assented to my decision, and gave me a pass to the regiment, which had already been hurried onward to the front.  I laid my knapsack down by the side of that of my young brother in the camp, which was then at the front.

Banks was a kindly man who meant and did the best he could for the humblest soldier in his army.  His further military career I can only briefly sketch.  He planned two fierce and calamitous assaults upon Port Hudson; errors no doubt, but Grant and Lee at the moment were making just such errors.  The Red River campaign was a disastrous failure, but Banks had every handicap which a general could suffer:  an insufficient force, a demand from the Administration that he should attend to a civil reordering when only fighting was in place, subordinates insolent and disobedient.  And finally nature herself took arms against him, for the Red River fell when, by all precedents, it should have risen.  It was an enterprise which his judgment utterly disapproved, the difficulties of which he faced with good resolution.  It ended his career, for though once at a later time he went to Congress, he ever afterwards stood a discredited figure, dying, as I have heard, poor and broken-hearted in obscurity.  His State has tried to render him a late justice by setting him up in bronze on Beacon Hill.  It was done through opposition and the statue is sneered at more often than admired.  He was an able man I believe and meant well, and I for one find it pathetic that the lines of my old commander did not fall more pleasantly.