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General Beauregard had called on the people to bring to him all their plantation and church bells to be cast into cannon, and those and some old rejected guns were everything I had with which to ballast all those ships.
There was nothing to be found in New Orleans with which to ballast a vessel, as they never had occasion to ballast ships upon the outward voyage, because they always went out with cargo.
The only other thing that could be had with which to ballast a vessel was white sand, and that would have to be brought in boats from Ship Island, more than one hundred miles off. The demurrage which the government must then pay by its charter for the delay in ballasting with sand would be many thousand dollars.
My first purchases of sugar were to the amount of $60,000. This gave such confidence to the merchants that they made application to my brother, who was my agent in carrying on these transactions, to allow them to put their own sugar on board the vessels as ballast, paying a reasonable freight, consigned to New York.
This I agreed to and established the freight at ten dollars a hogshead.
One half of this was his commission for doing the business, he not being an officer of the government.
It would have been better to have paid ten dollars a hogshead for leave to carry it than to have to ballast.
I sent both the church bells and the old cannon, but they were only a flea bite of what was wanted.
Nothing could have done as much for the pacification of the merchants of New Orleans as did these transactions.
Some of the northern journals of that day will show articles which would have deterred a fainter-hearted man than myself from continuing.
Yet I got all my ships off with just freight enough for ballast, and then, upon my recommendation, on the 1st of June the port of New Orleans was opened, postal communication with the rest of the country reestablished, and a collector of customs appointed for my department.
Meantime I reported to the War Department as follows:--
1 War Records, Series I., Vol. XV., page 423.
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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