The first actress in the company of the American Theatre at New Orleans for the season of 1825 was Miss Jane Placide. She was born at Charleston, and was then, in her twentieth year, deservedly a great favorite with the Southern public. She was extremely beautiful in her person, sweet in her disposition, piquant in her manners, and artistically natural in her rôles. Among the many private suppliants for her smiles rumor included both Caldwell and Forrest. Where the tinder of such rivalry is lying about, flashes of jealousy, easily provoked, may at any time elicit an explosion of wrath. So it happened here, and the two men had a sharp quarrel. The young actor challenged the calmer manager. He refused to accept it, saying their altercation was an inconsiderate effervescence which had better be forgotten by them both. But the temper of Forrest, aggravated by his hot associates and the local code, was not so cheaply to be assuaged. He had the following card printed and affixed in several conspicuous places: "Whereas James H. Caldwell has wronged and insulted me, and refused me the satisfaction of a gentleman, I hereby denounce him as a scoundrel and post him as a coward. Edwin Forrest." Caldwell, so far from being enraged at this sonorous manifesto, laughed at it, quietly adding, "Like the Parthian, he wounds me as he flies." For in the afternoon of the very day of his issuing the ominous placard, Forrest had accepted an invitation from his friend Push-ma-ta-ha to spend a month with him in the wigwams and hunting-grounds of his tribe; and already, side by side, on horseback, each with a little pack at his saddle, they were scampering away towards the tents of the Choctaws, a hundred miles distant. Three reasons urged him to this interesting adventure. First, he loved his friend, the young Indian chief, and longed to see him in his glory at the head of his people. Secondly, he was poor, and there it would cost him nothing for food and lodgings. And thirdly, he desired to make a personal study of Indian character, life, and manners.