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true, but not in the way it was supposed.
The negroes all came and told me anything they thought I wanted to know.
I never let it be known that one of them spoke to me upon any subject.
I had nobody else hear that class of informers.
They would tell me the exact truth, so far as they understood it, and if it was anything of worth, they received from my hands some small compensation.
Let me give two examples of the manner in which that system worked.
Early in June I was informed that there was a sewing “bee” in the house of one of the first ladies of New Orleans and that they were making a flag to send to a New Orleans regiment in Beauregard's army at Corinth.
This flag was of the finest embroidered silk, trimmed with gold fringe and very handsomely ornamented.
After I got the information I waited quietly until the flag was finished and a nice canvas case made for it. This case was also embroidered, as one doesn't want an unfinished flag.
Then I sent an orderly with my carriage to the house of the lady.
He was instructed to present General Butler's compliments to her, with the message that the general's carriage was at the door and he desired to see her at once.
No harsher demand for the appearance of a person was ever sent by me, except in the case of an immediate arrest.
I held that the invitation of the sovereign was equivalent to a command.
A handsomely dressed lady, who seemed forty but might have been fifty, was shown into the office and handed a seat.
I took a paper in my hand and looking at it said:--
“Is this Mrs.----?”
“Yes, General.”
“Living at no.--,----Street?”
“Yes.”
“Well, madam, my information is that you have been having a series of sewing ‘bees ’ at your house by a party of young secession girls, making a flag to be sent to Beauregard's army.
I have occasion for such a flag on the Fourth of July.
I hear there is to be a Sabbath school celebration of the children of my town and I want to send a Confederate flag up there to please them, for they have never seen one.
Won't you please go with my orderly and get that flag and bring it here?”
Her look of astonishment was ludicrous.
She gasped out:--
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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