New Orleans, 7 April, 1861.
My Dear Wife, This is Sunday in New Orleans. I have just strolled “solitary and alone” through some of the streets and found here and there a French store open, but most generally the store doors were closed and things bore the appearance of Sunday in a well regulated Christian town.
This morning however my ears were saluted at an early hour with martial music and the volunteer companies soon appeared in full dress parade, and for some time the streets wore the appearance of a gala day. At the Catholic cathedral there was a most imposing and affecting ceremony. The church was filled with the volunteer companies, who had gone there to have their flags (the flag of the Confederate States) blessed by the Archbishop. The fathers, mothers and daughters of the soldiers were gathered around and there were few dry eyes during the solemn ceremony. Every heart seem[ed] to beat responsive to the patriotism of the occasion, as the solemn ceremony bound the hearts of all in iron bonds to the cause of our new Confederacy. It was a day not soon to be forgotten in this city.
I hear that the races are continued today but I have not become sufficiently acclimated to New Orleans morality to attend. . . . My Masonic business is closed, and after devoting a day to my female friends here I shall commence my homeward march. My present programme is to go with Slidell and a party of friends to visit a friend on Red Eiver, where I shall remain only a day, and then I propose to go to Oxford, Miss, and thence on the most direct route to Macon. . . .
This morning I met our old friend Maj. McCulloch of Texas who is here busily engaged in forwarding arms to Texas. I think the Major is anxious for a fight and would regret to see our present difficulties settled in a peaceable way.
I have been gratified to find a universal feeling here against reconstruction. Without exception every one I meet responds most cordially to the sentiment that our separation from the North is “perfect, complete and perpetual.”
We had our dinner yesterday at the Lake, and it was a most delightful retreat for a day from the dust and turmoil of the city. I enclose you an envelop with some letter stamps of our Confederate flag. I think they are beautiful. . . .
From Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911.
Howell Cobb was an American political figure. A southern Democrat, Cobb was a five-term member of the United States House of Representatives and Speaker of the House from 1849 to 1851. He also served as the 40th Governor of Georgia and as a Secretary of the Treasury under President James Buchanan. Cobb is, however, probably best known as one of the founders of the Confederacy, having served as the President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States.