That day was destined to be one among the most memorable in the annals of human wickedness since the famous St. Bartholomew's. The members of the Union Convention had looked forward to it with apprehension. They knew that the spirit of the late rebellion still survived in New Orleans, and they could not hope that they should be permitted to assemble without some molestation from disorderly individuals, but they had no suspicions that the masses of the city would rise against them, _organized_ for deliberate bloodshed. They did not know that all the arms had been bought up, till the gun-shops contained not so much as a pocket-pistol. They did not know that the Mayor had telegraphed to the President that there would certainly be a riot, and had received the assurance that the military would not interfere with the civil power. They did not know that the police force had been increased by the addition of a gang of blood-thirsty men, and that the municipal authorities had agreed upon signals, and arranged to begin the riot themselves. Watched by no suspicion, and awed by no Butler's strong right hand, the conspirators were suffered to perfect their preparations, and when the morning of the 30th of July dawned, the treacherous officials appeared at the station-house fully armed, and waiting the opportunity for their bloody work. The pastor of the Colleseum Baptist Church, Rev. Jotham W. Horton, had been requested to open the Convention with prayer. Moved by the warmest Christian sympathy for the freedmen, this young New England minister had gone to the South with his wife, to give his best energies to their welfare. He was a man of sincere piety and a large heart; pure as a little child, self-denying where duty was concerned to an extent that often made him suffer, and so peaceable that though repeatedly insulted, and even once fired upon, and though conscious that he was fatally marked by malignant disloyalists, he would never go armed. After taking leave of his wife, Mr. Horton proceeded in the cars from his residence in Carrolton to the city. Ever apt to look hopefully on the worst prospects, and slow to suspect evil of his fellow-men, he had felt no fears of injury for this day, beyond perhaps a forcible seizure and commitment to the parish prison.