Then there was again the shaking of hands, and another half-hour was spent in overflowing manifestations, as at the opening of their meeting. This long-oppressed people realized their great change beyond our conceptions. At the Christian Commission rooms, No. 69 Carondelet Street, Dr. F. B. Smith, agent, we met brother Merrifield, of Baton Rouge, and brother Horton, who took us to visit a school of sixty pupils, taught by two colored men, Baptist ministers. They had opened it before the government or missionaries opened a school in this city for colored children. We had visited and addressed a number of other schools among these people of this city, one of which numbered over four hundred scholars, in a confiscated college; but this in interest surpassed them all. Here in an old slave-pen, where hundreds and thousands had been cried off to the highest bidder, where the cries of parting mother and child had been heard and unheeded, where the pleadings of husbands and fathers were only answered by the lash, those many tears, sighs, and groans were exchanged for intellectual culture and religious instruction. Here were sundry Union flags waving and a large portrait of Abraham Lincoln hung on the wall behind the desk. The scene was inspiring. After returning, two colored women, genteelly dressed, and quite intelligent, called on us and gave us a thrilling history of the past. They gave us some startling facts of the efforts made to return slaves, who had come within our lines to their masters, by making friends of our officers and soldiers. Men had enlisted from this State (Louisiana) and Mississippi as Union soldiers from selfish motives. Their sole object was to assist in getting their slaves back, by taking them out of houses when employed by colored people, and from the street when sent to market, and placing them in jail. After orders were passed to give rations to the families of colored soldiers, one young girl, whose name was Rhoda, was doing well until she was overtaken with chills. Her brother gave her a paper certifying he was a soldier, and requested rations for her, but she was arrested on the street, and lodged in jail, where she remained three months, sick with chills and fever, and without change of clothing, although her female friends made many efforts to get food and clothing to her. At length a deliverer came, who found three hundred miserable, vermin-eaten prisoners, and set them _free_. A more grateful company was never found. Find fault who will with Benjamin F. Butler, this was just the work he did; and many lives were saved, and much suffering relieved, under his administration.