then existing, at New Orleans upon its capture by the Federal troops, to show the status of the several classes upon which General Orders, No. 55, take effect. In October, 1861, about the time Mason and Slidell left the city upon their mission to Europe to obtain the intervention of foreign powers, great hopes were entertained by the rebels that the European governments would be induced to interfere from the want of a supply of cotton. This supply was being had to a degree through the agency of the small vessels, which, shooting out by the numerous bayous, lagoons, and creeks with which the southern part of Louisiana is permeated, eluded the blockade and conveyed very considerable amounts of cotton to Havana and other foreign ports, where arms and munitions of war were largely imported through the same channels in exchange. Indeed, as I have before had the honor to inform the Department of State, it was made a condition of the very passes given by Governor Moore that a quantity of arms and powder should be returned in proportion to the cotton shipped. The very high prices of the outward as well as the inward cargoes made the ventures profitable, although but one in three got through with safety. Nor does the fact that so considerable quantities of cotton escaped the blockading force at all impugn the efficiency of the blockading squadron when it is taken into consideration that without using either of the principal water communications with the city through the Rigolets, or the passes at the delta of the river, there are at least fifty-three distinct outlets to the Gulf from New Orleans by water communication for light-draft vessels.

Of course, not a pound of the cotton that went through these channels found its way North, unless it was purchased at a foreign port.

To prevent even this supply of the European manufacturer became an object of the greatest interest to the rebels, and prior to October, 1861, all the principal cotton factors of New Orleans, to the number of about a hundred, united in an address, signed with their arms, to the planters advising them not to send their cotton to New Orleans, for the avowed reason that if it was sent the cotton "will find its way to foreign ports and furnish the interest of Europe and the United States with the product of which they are most in need, * * * and thus contribute to the maintenance of that quasi neutrality which European nations have thought proper to avow."

This address proving ineffectual to maintain the policy we had determined upon, and which not only received the sanction of public opinion here, but which has been so promptly and cheerfully followed by the planters and factors of the other States of the Confederacy, the same cotton factors made a petition to Governor Moore and General Twiggs to " devise means to prevent any shipment of cotton to New Orleans whatever."

In answer to this petition Governor Moore issued a proclamation forbidding the bringing of cotton within the limits of the city under the penalties therein prescribed. This action was concurred in by General Twiggs, then in command of the Confederate forces, and enforced by newspaper articles published in the leading journals.

I have appended exhibits of proclamation of the Governor, the order of General Twiggs, the petition of the cotton factors, and an article on the subject from one of the most widely circulated journals in papers marked A and B, wherein the whole matter is fuller set forth.

This was one of the series of offensive measures which were undertaken by the mercantile community of New Orleans, of which a large

46 R R-SERIES III, VOL II