The only officer of the army that I can recall, as being there at
the time, who was faithful, was Colonel C. L. Kilburn, of the
Commissary Department, and he was preparing to escape North.

Everybody regarded the change of Government as final; that
Louisiana, by a mere declaration, was a free and independent State,
and could enter into any new alliance or combination she chose.

Men were being enlisted and armed, to defend the State, and there
was not the least evidence that the national Administration
designed to make any effort, by force, to vindicate the national
authority. I therefore bade adieu to all my friends, and about the
25th of February took my departure by railroad, for Lancaster, via
Cairo and Cincinnati.

Before leaving this subject, I will simply record the fate of some
of my associates. The seminary was dispersed by the war, and all
the professors and cadets took service in the Confederacy, except
Yallas, St. Ange, and Cadet Taliaferro. The latter joined a Union
regiment, as a lieutenant, after New Orleans was retaken by the
United States fleet under Farragut. I think that both Yallas and
St. Ange have died in poverty since the war. Major Smith joined
the rebel army in Virginia, and was killed in April, 1865, as he
was withdrawing his garrison, by night, from the batteries at
Drury's Bluff, at the time General Lee began his final retreat from
Richmond. Boyd became a captain of engineers on the staff of
General Richard Taylor, was captured, and was in jail at Natchez,
Mississippi, when I was on my Meridian expedition. He succeeded in
getting a letter to me on my arrival at Vicksburg, and, on my way