EVENING DELTA NEWSPAPER DATED APRIL 30, 1862

Crowley Signal April 12, 1922

Excerpts from an 1862 newspaper owned by L.P. Gaudin, loaned to Signal. The newspaper was published by John Maginnis.  The size of the newspaper is two pages, one sheet printed on both sides.  The Signal comments on some of the articles contains quotes from the paper.

Let us read from the Delta the account of the fall of Forts Jackson and St. Phillip:

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“The fall of Forts Jackson and St. Phillip.---Suspense was at an end yesterday when the rumor was confirmed of the fall of Forts Jackson and St. Phillips by the arrival, in the city, of General Duncan and staff as prisoners of war on parole. The heroic Duncan had resolved to defend the forts while there was a soldier to man a gun, and felt able to hold them for months if his garrison should prove true.  Unfortunately, however, on Sunday night last, about twelve o’clock, some three hundred and eighty of the men of Fort Jackson, after hearing of the city being taken, rose in mutiny against their officers, spiked the greater parts of the heaviest guns, threatened the lives of the officers and afterwards marched off to the enemy.

“One company only --- The St. Mary’s Cannoniers ---- stood firm. Longer resistance was in vain, and on Monday morning General Duncan capitulated to Commodore Porter, after one of the bloodiest, bombardments and most heroic resistances on record.”

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Booze in those days, as it is today for various crimes.  Witness the following account, headed “Furious Bridget.”

“Yesterday in the Second District, Bridget Fahe got on a bender, and become so ‘ enthused’ that she concluded to let off steam by insulting Mrs. P. Oraposa. Not content with this, she threw a chair at that individual and hit Mrs. Ragan. Naughty Bridget, you should not have behaved so rudely. But is was not you, but that great destroyer of reason – alcohol.”

Under the headline “Home Department,” from which the above account was taken, we find, first and account of a meeting of the Common Council at which resolutions of commendation for General Duncan were passed. Next we read where a man was stabbed and killed the night before.  The next item tells of the attempted murder of one Kate Johnson by John Glonson, who also, it was alleged, had tried to tear down Kate’s house.  Then we read abut Furious Bridget, whose antics were related in detail above, and then comes the report of finding a dead man in the Carondelet Canal.  Last comes the arrest of a man, and his confinement in the hospital, on account of serious wounds in the head.  On the other page there is an article on the capture of New Orleans:

THE GREAT AGONY OVER

The Mayor did not haul down the flag of Louisiana, which floated from the dome of the City Hall, the women and children were not removed from the city, and Captain Farragut did not execute his threat to bombard it. But the Captain did send two hundred armed marines ashore, yesterday, with two howitzers to protect the individuals who were to perform the feat of hauling down our state flag and hoisting the Federal flag over the customhouse”

A notice inviting sealed proposals for the construction of the road now known as the Southern Pacific reads in part:

NEW ORLEANS AND TEXAS RAILROAD CO.

This Company is now prepared to receive proposals for the grading, bridging, and superstructure of their entire railroad, from New Iberia, on the Bayou Teche, to Orange, on the Sabine River, one hundred and seventeen miles.  The road passes through the prairies of Calcasieu a region of country perfectly healthy, and abundantly supplied with provisions, being adjacent to the great stock and grain growing region of Texas; and save from invasion, the coast of the Gulf being lined by an impassable marsh.  Communications must be addressed to Col. A.M. Gentry, Preisident.

All through the paper runs a line of news, interesting in its day, because of its timelines, and interesting now, as it shows that progress made by the country, contrasting it with its present state, and gives us a view of the time that otherwise would only be given only by word of mouth.