The Mockingbird's Ballad

We've exchanged letters since Fort Delaware. The last time was from N. O. awhile back. Then he said his 'expanding' family was well situated in New Orleans and that the spring high water and summer fever season had not proved difficult for him and his. The general seems to have adapted to the business world well enough. It's a long way from New Orleans finery and high tone to the fields and hills we ranged in the AOT. The only thing the carriage business and a field cavalry have in common is horses - don't you think?

New Orleans has a bunch of CSA brass. The general says he met up with John Bell Hood one day in his carriage. Our general says Hood is real sickly and that his disabilities plague him, he has aged terribly and that he is a shadow of himself. 'Cajun' Beauregard is in high cotton back home in Louisiana and doing fine. New Orleans is his hometown. He's president of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern RR and goes to Europe for the RR. Raising money, I guess. Our general reports that Beauregard is helping a group called the 'Reform Party' that's trying to integrate freed slaves into southern politics. Maybe he's a better man than he was a general. He really was good at impossible operations and offenses. I'm not hopeful that his political efforts will be much better. It is a pity about General Bragg. He was civil, but bitter, the general said. He thinks our old CO carries his lack of success with the AOT as a burden even today, over six years later.

James Longstreet, our comrade in the Knoxville adventure, has become a Republican. 'Old Pete' is making a success and is active in politics. Looks like he doesn't venerate Massa Lee like some. He's in a fight about Gettysburg and who should have done what. I expect Longstreet is right, a shift to new ground might have worked, but that's a fruitless business. Why can't we honor our dead, forgive ourselves and others in the past and move on to some new living unclouded by old troubles?

J. N. ought to be able to make a go at business. I'll send you names of companies in Cincinnati for him in the next letter.

Tennessee, from what I read and hear, is better off than Alabama and lots of the south. Word from Cincinnati is that Kentucky and Tennessee are prime targets for northern dollars and new businesses. RR's expanding all over up there. Investments and such ought to spread and affect lots of people. New Orleans and upper south are recovering but those in the middle - south Alabama, all of Mississippi, south Georgia and north Florida - are really suffering. Alabama is a mess - divisions and hate - poor, rich, colored, white, towns and country. Poor always at the wrong end of everything - white or colored. Shame.