He had military ambition and with the beginning of the war went
at once into the army, unfortunately for him, as major-general
and commander of a department. Could he have gone in as captain or
colonel, his fortune would probably have been different. But, sent
to command in the Shenandoah Valley, it was his fate to meet at the
outset the most formidable of adversaries, Stonewall Jackson. He
was sorely hoodwinked and humiliated, but so were several of his
successors. At Cedar Mountain, understanding that his orders were
peremptory, he threw his corps upon double their numbers and fought
with all the bravery in the world though with defective tactics.
Another corps should have been at hand, but it failed to arrive. There
was a moment when Banks, weak though he was, was near to victory, but
he failed in the end in an impossible task and was made scapegoat for
the blunders of others. He was sent to supersede Butler in Louisiana
with a force quite inadequate for the duty expected. It was here that
I came into contact with him. Interested friends had laid my case
before him, as one who might serve well in a higher position than that
of a private, and he good-naturedly sent word to me to report to
him at a certain hour in the rotunda of the St. Charles Hôtel at New
Orleans. The city was in the firm grasp of the Union, as our transport
had sailed up the evening before. The ships of Farragut, their decks
crowded with blue jackets held under their broad-sides a dense and
sullen multitude. A heavy salute reverberated from the river as the
new commander took his place, but conditions were precarious.

As I walked up the street in my soldier's dress, a handsome Southern
girl almost ran me off the sidewalk with a look in her face which, but
for fear of the calaboose, might have been backed up by words and acts
of insult, while the faces of the men were full of hate. I stood
at last in the rotunda of the St. Charles Hôtel and presently the