_or

I hope I was hollering loud enough for them to hear me all the way across Lake Pontchartrain." He strode over and resumed his seat, clasping his hands on the desk.
"Here's how it stands. New Orleans has a large number of free Negroes. I'm not talking about the usual run of freedmen, either, but people who've been free for generations. The Spanish and French are lax about such things, you know. For all practical purposes, many of the freedmen here are black Creoles to match the white ones. Some of them are wealthy—some are even slave owners themselves."
Sam had never been to New Orleans before, but he already knew that much. The black Creole population of the city was rather notorious among southerners in the United States.
Jackson's eyes were now on Driscol. "The point's this, Major. The two battalions I've got are made up of such soldiers. One of them is a battalion of native-born men—that's under Major Pierre