Library of Congress

Repairing the Levee at New Orleans at the Expense of the United States Government.—sketched by an occasional correspondent.

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WE publish on page 181 an illustration which represents the work of REPAIRING THE LEVEE AT NEW ORLEANS. Our picture shows a force of four or five hundred workmen, all Union men, employed by direction of the military authorities.

They are building new bulk-heads to protect this portion of the city front from the danger of inundation, threatened by the steady encroachments of the Mississippi, the current sweeping into the sharp curve with great velocity, gradually wearing away and undermining the levee. The new levee, the process of construction of which is shown in the sketch, is probably but temporary, as a new one will be erected against the new bulk-head when the flood has subsided sufficiently to permit it. The large Gothic building in the back-ground is in an unfinished condition. Built for charitable purposes from a fund bequeathed for that object by a citizen of New Orleans named Touro, from whom it derives its name, “Touro Building,” it is used at present as the head-quarters of the Fourth Louisiana Native Guard (colored), which regiment is in process of formation.

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Published in Harper’s Weekly, March 21, 1863