with orders from Governor Moore to
receipt for and account for them. Thus I was made the receiver of
stolen goods, and these goods the property of the United States.
This grated hard on my feelings as an ex-army-officer, and on
counting the arms I noticed that they were packed in the old
familiar boxes, with the "U. S." simply scratched off. General G.
Mason Graham had resigned as the chairman of the Executive
Committee, and Dr. S. A. Smith, of Alexandria, then a member of the
State Senate, had succeeded him as chairman, and acted as head of
the Board of Supervisors. At the time I was in most intimate
correspondence with all of these parties, and our letters must have
been full of politics, but I have only retained copies of a few of
the letters, which I will embody in this connection, as they will
show, better than by any thing I can now recall, the feelings of
parties at that critical period. The seizure of the arsenal at
Baton Rouge occurred January 10, 1861, and the secession ordinance
was not passed until about the 25th or 26th of the same month. At
all events, after the seizure of the arsenal, and before the
passage of the ordinance of secession, viz., on the 18th of
January, I wrote as follows:

Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy
January 18, 1861

Governor THOMAS O. MOORE, Baton, Rouge, Louisiana.

Sir: As I occupy a quasi-military position under the laws of the
State, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such
position when Louisiana was a State in the Union, and when the
motto of this seminary was inserted in marble over the main door:
"By the liberality of the General Government of the United States.
The Union--esto perpetua."

Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to
choose. If Louisiana withdraw from the Federal Union, I prefer to
maintain my allegiance to the Constitution as long as a fragment of
it survives; and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense
of the word.

In that event, I beg you will send or appoint some authorized agent
to take charge of the arms and munitions of war belonging to the
State, or advise me what disposition to make of them.

And furthermore, as president of the Board of Supervisors, I beg
you to take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent, the
moment the State determines to secede, for on no earthly account
will I do any act or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of
the old Go