on in front of the old Cathedral, now Jackson Square. The
day was memorable by many incidents, not all in harmony with the
purposes and plans of the civil and military leaders of defense. The
entire population of the city and vicinity were present to witness the
novel scenes, men and women vying with each other in applauding and
enthusing the martial ardor of the soldiers on parade. Such an army,
hastily improvised in a few brief days from city, country, and towns,
made up of a composite of divergent race elements, as was that of the
Louisiana contingent with the command of Jackson at New Orleans, was
perhaps never paralleled in the history of warfare before. Major
Plauche's battalion of uniformed companies was made up mainly of French
and Spanish Creoles, with some of American blood, enlisted from the
city; and from the same source came Captain Beale's Rifle Company,
mostly American residents. The Louisiana militia, under General Morgan,
were of the best element of the country parishes, of much the same
race-types as Plauche's men, of newer material, and without uniforms.
Then came the battalion of Louisiana free men of color, nearly three
hundred strong, led by Major Lacoste, and another battalion of men of
color, two hundred and fifty in number, commanded by Major Daquin,
recruited from the refugees in New Orleans from St. Domingo, who had
taken part in the bloody strifes in that island, and who bore like
traditional hatred to the English, with all who spoke the French tongue.
Add to the above a small detachment of Choctaw Indians; and lastly, the
loyal pirates of Lafitte, who were patriotic enough to scorn the gold of
England, and brave enough to offer their services and their lives, if
need be, to the cause of our country; and together, these give us a
picture of the men under review, whom Jackson was to lead to battle in a
few days against the best-trained troops of Europe. Though of new
material, and suddenly called into service, this provincial contingent
of twelve hundred men, animated with the spirit of battle against an
invading foe, proved themselves, when ably officered, the equals of the
best troops in the field.

JACKSON DECLARES MARTIAL LAW.

On the sixteenth, two days before the review, General Jackson issued
from his headquarters an order declaring "the city and environs of New
Orleans under martial law." This imperious edict was resorted to in the
firm belief that only the exercise of supreme milit