headquarters Department of the Gulf, New Orleans, October, 1862.Sir:--I have the honor to report the facts and circumstances of my General Order No. 55, in answer to the complaints of the Prussian and French legations, as to the enforcement of that order upon certain inhabitants of New Orleans, claimed to be the subjects of these respective governments. Before discussing the specialty and personal relations of the several complaints, it will be necessary, in a general way, to give an account of the state of things which I found had existed, and was then existing at New Orleans upon its capture by the federal troops, to show the status of the several classes upon which General Order No. 55 takes effect. In October, 1861, about the time Mason and Slidell left the city upon their mission to Europe, to obtain the intervention of foreign powers, great hopes were entertained by the rebels, that the European governments would be induced to interfere from want of a supply of cotton. This supply was being had, to a degree, through the agency of the small vessels shooting out by the numerous bayous, lagoons, and creeks, with which the southern part of Louisiana is penetrated. They eluded the blockade, and conveyed very considerable amounts of cotton to Havana and other foreign ports, where arms and munitions of war were largely imported through the same channels in exchange. Indeed, as I have before had the honor to inform the Department of State, it was made a condition of the very passes given by Governor Moore, that a quantity of arms and powder should be returned in proportion to the cotton shipped. The very high price of the outward as well as the inward cargoes, made these ventures profitable, although but one in three got through with safety. Nor does the fact that so considerable quantities of cotton escaped the blockading force at all impugn the efficiency of the blockading squadron, when it is taken into consideration, that without using either of the principal water communications with the city through the “Rigolets” or the “passes” at the Delta of the river, there are at least fifty-three distinct
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War:
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behalf of “neutral” forsworn rebels.
I do not know now that I can put the whole matter of this highly beneficial order, its cause, execution, and results, in better form than that in which I explained it to the Secretary of War officially in answer to those protests, on the application of the Secretary of State:--
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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