up a stock of glorious reminiscences, upon which to
fall back when bad news reached them. Only the bare facts of these
rapid and terrible blows reached the camps; and stubborn, hard-fisted
"Johnny Reb," looked upon them smilingly as reverses to be made up
to-morrow, or the next time he caught "Mr. Yank."

To the Louisiana soldiers, the news of the fall of their beautiful city
had a far deeper and more bitter import. Some of the business men of
New Orleans, who remained in the city, yielded to the promptings of
interest and fell to worshipping the brazen calf, the Washington high
priest had set up for them. Some refused to degrade themselves and
remained to be taught that might is right; and that handcuffs are for
the conquered. Others collected what little they could and fled to
Europe; while nobler spirits eluded the vigilance of their captors and
came by scores into the Confederate camps.

But the women of New Orleans were left behind. They could not come; and
against them the Pontiff of Brutality fulminated that bull, which
extorted even from the calm and imperturbable British Premier the
exclamation--"Infamous!"

The intended insult fell dead before the purity of southern womanhood;
but the malignancy that prompted it seared deep into their hearts.
Though their defenders were away, the women of New Orleans rose in
their majesty of sex; and, "clothed on with chastity," defied the
oppressor and called on manhood everywhere to judge between him and
them. As

"When the face of Sextus was seen amid the foes"--

in those earlier days when Roman womanhood was roused to defy that
elder traducer--

"No women on the housetops
But spat toward him and hiss'd;
No child but scream'd out curses
And shook its little fist!"

And the cry echoed in the hearts of the Louisianians in the battle's
front. It mattered not so much to them if the defenses had been
neglected; if the proper precautions had not been taken, and their
firesides and families sacrificed, while they were battling so nobly
far away. They only felt that those dear homes--their wives, and
sisters, and sweethearts--were now in the relentless grasp of a hero
who burned to war against women.

And deep in their souls they swore a bitter oath to fight in the
future, not only for the cause they loved, but for themselves; to
strike each blow, nerved by the thought that it was for the redemption
of their homes and their loved ones; or, if n