It is said that curses, like chickens, come home to roost.

The predictions of Dr. W. H. Russell seem to have a like tendency to recoil on their author. In a letter of March 31st, to the London Times, he said he was going to Fortress Monroe. He didn’t go, because Secretary Stanton refused to let him. He stated that the attack on Island No. 10 was an admitted failure, which wasn’t true, and also that New Orleans would probably prove as formidable as the Island, which was correct in a different sense from that which the writer wished to convey.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2