hen to superintend some domestic
affairs, as she pretended, she became very angry without a word being
passed, and said--"I think it has come to a pretty pass, that old
Lincoln, with his long legs, an old rail splitter, wishes to put the
Niggers on an equality with the whites; that her children should never
be on an equal footing with a Nigger. She had rather see them dead."
As my mother made no reply to her remarks, she stopped talking, and
commenced venting her spite on my companion servant. On one occasion
Mr. Lewis searched my mother's room and found a picture of President
Lincoln, cut from a newspaper, hanging in her room. He asked her what
she was doing with old Lincoln's picture. She replied it was there
because she liked it. He then knocked her down three times, and sent
her to the trader's yard for a month as punishment. My mistress
indulged some hopes till the victory of New Orleans, when she heard
the famous Union song sang to the tune of Yankee Doodle:

The rebels swore that New Orleans never should be taken,
But if the Yankees came so near they should not save their bacon.
That's the way they blustered when they thought they were so handy,
But Farragut steamed up one day and gave them Doodle Dandy.

Ben Butler then was ordered down to regulate the city;
He made the rebels walk a chalk, and was not that a pity?
That's the way to serve them out--that's the way to treat them,
They must not go and put on airs after we have beat them.

He made the rebel banks shell out and pay the loyal people,
He made them keep the city clean from pig's sty to church steeple.
That's the way Columbia speaks, let all men believe her;
That's the way Columbia speaks instead of yellow fever.

He sent the saucy women up and made them treat us well
He helped the poor and snubbed the rich; they thought he was the devil,
Bully for Ben. Butler, then, they thought he was so handy;
Bully for Ben Butler then,--Yankee Doodle Dandy.

The days of sadness for mistress were days of joy for us. We shouted
and laughed to the top of our voices. My mistress was more enraged
than ever--nothing pleased her. One evening, after I had attended to
my usual duties, and I supposed all was complete, she, in a terrible
range, declared I should be punished that night. I did not know the
cause, neither did she. She went immediately and selected a switch.
She placed it in the corner of the room