New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-12-03


RICHMOND, November 49, 1861
IAr. Editor Last spring, when cadet Of the
Virginia Military Institute young personof great
breyity of coat.tail and gravity of demeanor-was
chasing your correspondent round the race-traek
at the New Fair Grounds, to the soul-and- body
trying tune of " right shoulder shift double quick,
he, the correspondent not the cadet little thought
that breath enough would be left him to write
again to the Crescent. But here he is, as spared
monument Of the Lords mercy, pen in hand, and
with the same old foreign correspondence pa
per- doing the same old work he began when
Buchanan came in, and left off when Buchanan
went out. He is no longer at the Hotel de Riley,
corner of Sixth street and Louisiana avenue, in
Washington, but in much better place, in some
respects, for take it all in ALL Washington is the
proper habitat of q correspondence wit, in the
Confederate metropolis, in snug little room not
far from the American Hotel His body is in an
easy chair of the University pattern, Powhatan
pipe in his mouth his gastric tube is pleasantly
distended with an inordinate supper, fire of
Clever Hill coal is blazing in his CRATE, his soul is
in commercial steel pen, and eager for the--no,
not the fray, nor yet the scri1nmage, but, let us
see yes-eager for the scrbble. Let him rip al
low him to propel while he may for verify say
unto you. the spring will not have returned to the
earth and the voice of the swapping turtle be heard
in the land ere he will again, in much tribuaton
of spirit, be compelled once more to "right shoul-
der shift, double quick he and every other able
bodied man in yirgnia-for by that time, if things
| go on as they are now going, the Yankees will be
in fair way of using us up in toto. But g sufti.
cient unto the day is the evil thereof Maou"
will do his best this winter to entertain the readers
of the Crescent, and dpres moi e deIuge e., al
ter this winter, AK Malou will defy the lightning.
Suffer him. therefore, in this letter, % the first of
the season." to be a little egotistcal and Just
| foolish as he-peases .a
| When came down from Manassas, some three
or four mouths ago, and went into the Spotswood
| Hotel, saw there a gentleman whose volume of
person and i1ssostciance of air filed me with ad-
| mration and awe. His equa or of the most
opulent and Alderman7like circumference--his
| Panama hat must have cost at least fifty dollars
his gait told Of the wealth of all the Incas (no Ink
cuss) and his demeanor was as that Of one having
much Indian corn to dispose of. i located him at
| once on the biggest estate on Red river, and set
him down, at moderate calculation, at ten thous-
| and bales of cotton per annum. AS he appeared
| to be of that age when wellto-do planters have
marriageable daughters in the market, began to
adjust my neckcloth with view to an early intro
duction, and the rapid procuration Of father-in-
| law who could compose a few chronic misunder-
| standings which have, during the last fifteen or
| twenty years, existed between me and my credit
ors-marring regret to say, much of the pleas
ure which we might otherwise find in each other
locality, and that too in spite of the most earnest
desire on my part to overlook these misunderstand-
ings entirely. What was my astonishment to learn
that this szeabe gentleman was 3 contributor to
the columns of the Crescent, and what my
chagrn and Jealousy to find that he wrote deuced
sight better than could. -
j am thus tedious and personal solely because
wish to prepare the minds of your readers for let
ters far less interesting than those of " Chicot =
and to eXGulpate myself from all blame in not be
ing able to do half as well as he. You see, in the
first place, don't know every Loulsiapian in the
| universe, he does in the next place, can't rur
around to the hotels and other news centres, be
/. cause all my spare time is taken up in counting
| four or five sWeethearts; in the third place. it il
impossible for me TO visit the camps, because my
business keeps me steadily in the city and lastly
but not leastly, if Chicotn y were to give me al
the facts he gathered, could mt put them togethe
as well as he, because, to tell the plain truth,
| amt got the sense. But promise to do my best
and heartily believe that could mt do better thai
| my best, even if I we're to try, which will not.
My mind, and by that mean everybody's mini
in this CITY, is exercised at present about Masoi
. and Slidell-about Pensacola-where we heart
yesterday they were fighting, and since have no
heard a word about Memphis which some peo
pie fear will fall into the hands of the Yankees
about Pound Gap, on which 10000 Hoosiers ar
! said to be advancing; about Beaufort, which Lee
will never defend, because, unlike old Uncle Ned
n he can never be induced to clay down the shove
and the hoe " and trust to the bayonet; and abou
= the war generally, which has not been conducte
with that rln1, elan, dash, daring and goa Aea
! | spirit that becomes SOutherners. We sec the w
cams net (f may be allowed the bull, for the ne
| Of the heavenly blacksmith was invisible, if m
. | neurological reading serves me rightly in Whlc
the Yankees enYelOping US day by day, an
= we are mad because we cannot fight. We kno
we could have gone ahead after the battle OF Mai
- assas, we know we ought to have gone ahea
Il aud, utterly unable as We now are to advance
O. any direction, we are compelled in spite of on
: selves aud the evident uuwsdom of the thing,
= spend our time in vain regrets over what is pa
N' beyonl recall, Enraged 2l this puerile but col