30 Southern Historical Society Papers.
whom are still of you, to point your way in emulation, to recount to eager sons and daughters the story of the rule of a Butler and of a Banks; to tell of humiliations, insults and taunts so often inflicted upon them, of sacrifices made, of risks incurred, of methods resorted to to aid and cheer the many Confederate prisoners in our city; to de- scribe the memorable "battle of the handkerchiefs" and other thril- ling episodes of the federal occupation. Theirs were years of tears and of prayer, of hope and of gloom, but never of despair. The presence of no beloved Confederate generals and soldiers from the glorious battle-field of Virginia or of Tennessee illumed any hour of their long vigil, but daily was paraded before them the "pomp and circumstance" of a vaunting foe, marshaled in hosts, whose numbers and equipment made their hearts beat sadly, when contrasting them in thought, with that " thin gray line," whose deeds, in the far away southland, as it indomitably faced the foe at every point, were brought to them on the wings of fame. And when all hope was crushed, and returning survivors of the great armies of the Confederacy brought attestation that " all was lost save honor," with what courage those women met the blow, with what love they received the bearers of the sad tidings, with what tenderness they soothed the anguish of their souls, chafing under their utter helplessness in that terrible reality, grappling with the desolation and ruin of home and of State, peering into a future that loomed up black as Erebus and as unread- able as chaos. What lessons of fortitude they taught those dear ones, soldiers no longer, but heroes seeking now the touch of woman's hand and soul, to face together the unknown dangers and trials of that somber future with hearts shaken by a cataclysm of woe, but still undismayed and undaunted. What examples of en- ergy, of thrift, of adaptability to changed circumstances those dear women set to husbands and to children; what resourcefulness, what ingenuity, what enthusiasm they displayed in providing assistance for their own Louisianians, and for the many other Confederates thrown into the city by the disbandment of the Confederacy's armies. Superbly their heroism sustained itself in those days of defeat, of ruin, of uncertainty, of desolation, of upheaval of society, of government of satraps, of official plundering, of reconstruction saturnalia, of pinching poverty, and until the gradual reassertion of the South to which we have arrived.
Such is the heritage handed down to you, Daughters of the Con- federacy, by those sublime women the proudest that one generation can pass over to another! Thus consecrated by your mothers and
