In the Spring of 1865, when I had last seen Mobile, it was a city of ruins; warehouses ruined by “the great explosion,” merchants ruined by the war, politicians ruined by the abject defeat, women bankrupt in heart and hope. Emerging from the chaotic interior, in November, one rubbed his eyes, as he was whirled through the bustling streets, to be assured that he was not deceived by an unsubstantial vision. Warehouses were rising, torpedoes had been removed from the harbor, and a fleet of sail and steam vessels lined the repaired wharves. The main thoroughfares resounded with the rush of business. The hotels were overflowing. The “new blood of the South” was, of a truth, leaping in right riotous pulsations through the veins of the last captured city of the coast. Everywhere, in the throng of cotton buyers, around the reeking bars, at the public tables, in the crowded places of amusement—two classes, crowded and commingled—Northern speculators and Rebel soldiers. These last come on you in every guise. Single rooms at the hotel were out of the question, and I received a jolly fellow, who looked as if he might be magnificent in a charge—on the breakfast table—as my room mate. He turned out to have been chief of staff to a conspicuous Southern General. I fell into a conversation with my neighbor at dinner, which soon drifted from requests for the mustard into a discussion of the claims of Southern “members” to seats in Congress. By and by he casually admitted that he had been in the Rebel service, which might interfere with his taking the test oath! Nothing could exceed the general cordiality. Formerly a Southerner was moody, and resentful of approaches from Yankee-speaking strangers, unless they came properly introduced. Now he was as warm and unrestrained without the introduction as he used to be after it. That was about the most marked change one noticed on the social surface. But there was no abatement in the old ambitious pretensions. The North, we were told, must have the Southern trade; and with that trade it was to be corrupted. The North would be politically a power divided against itself; the South would be a unit, and it would rule again as it always had ruled. “Which side will we take?” answered an adept in political shuffling, whose presence graced many a caucus in Washington in the old times, “Why, the side that bids the highest for us, of course. And you need’nt be at any loss to know which side that is. You’ve been whipping us right soundly. We acknowledge the whipping, but we don’t kiss the hand that gave it—not by a d——d sight! We’ll unite with the opposition up North, and between us we’ll make a majority. _Then_ we’ll show you who’s going to govern this country.”