he derived
consolation from this view.

The day passed with much talk of a less disturbing character, and in the
evening I returned to Baltimore and Washington. After some delay Mr.
Davis's family was permitted to join him, and he speedily recovered
strength. Later I made a journey or two to Richmond, Virginia, on
business connected with his trial, then supposed to be impending.

The slight service, if simple discharge of duty can be so called, I was
enabled to render Mr. Davis, was repaid ten thousand fold. In the month
of March, 1875, my devoted wife was released from suffering, long and
patiently endured, originating in grief for the loss of her children and
exposure during the war. Smitten by this calamity, to which all that had
gone before seemed as blessings, I stood by her coffin, ere it was
closed, to look for the last time upon features that death had respected
and restored to their girlish beauty. Mr. Davis came to my side, and
stooped reverently to touch the fair brow, when the tenderness of his
heart overcame him and he burst into tears. His example completely
unnerved me for the time, but was of service in the end. For many
succeeding days he came to me, and was as gentle as a young mother with
her suffering infant. Memory will ever recall Jefferson Davis as he
stood with me by the coffin.

Duty to imprisoned friends and associates discharged, I returned to New
Orleans, and remained for some weeks, when an untoward event occurred,
productive of grave consequences. The saints and martyrs who have
attained worldly success have rarely declined to employ the temporal
means of sinners. While calling on Hercules, they put their own
shoulders to the wheel, and, in the midst of prayer, keep their powder
dry. To prepare for the reelection of President Lincoln in 1864,
pretended State governments had been set up by the Federal military in
several Southern States, where fragments of territory were occupied. In
the event of a close election in the North, the electoral votes in these
manufactured States would be under the control of the executive
authority, and serve to determine the result. For some years the
Southern States were used as thimble-riggers use peas: now they were
under the cup of the Union, and now they were out. During his reign in
New Orleans the Federal General Banks had prepared a Louisiana pea for
the above purpose.

At this time negro suffrage, as yet an unaccomplished purpose, was in
the air,