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Richard Biddle Irwin


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Title: History of the Nineteenth Army Corps


Author: Richard Biddle Irwin



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Language: English

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Transcriber's note:

  Footnotes in the main text are at the end of each chapter.

  19th-century spellings, in particular the use of double-l, have
  been retained.

  Chapter XI:  "flag-ships" plural in original.
  Chapter XII _et seq._:  "St. Martinsville" corrected to
    "St. Martinville"
  Chapter XXI:  "Brownville", Texas, corrected to "Brownsville".
  Chapter XXXIV:  the Grant in temporary command of Getty's division
    is Brigadier-General Lewis Grant, not U. S. Grant as in the rest
    of the book.

  The following changes have been made in the Appendix:

  Military ranks have been abbreviated.

  Footnotes have been re-numbered and headings repeated by section
  instead of page.  The footnotes were all italics.

  The box rules and period leaders have been removed from the Losses
  in Battle tables and the headings "Officers" and "Enlisted men",
  set vertically in the original, have been abbreviated "O" and "E".
  Text has been extended across columns for legibility.





HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS

by

RICHARD B. IRWIN

Formerly Lieutenant-Colonel U. S. Volunteers,
Assistant Adjutant-General of the Corps and of the
Department of the Gulf







G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York
27 West Twenty-Third Street
London
24 Bedford Street, Strand
The Knickerbocker Press
1892

Copyright, 1892
by
G. P. Putnam's Sons

Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
G. P. Putnam's Sons




IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF THEIR LATE COMMANDER
MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM HEMSLEY EMORY
AND OF THE MANY COMRADES WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES IN THE SERVICE
OF THEIR COUNTRY THIS HISTORY IS INSCRIBED BY THE SURVIVING MEMBERS
OF THE SOCIETY OF THE NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS


CONTENTS.

Chapter.
Introductory
     I.  New Orleans
    II.  The First Attempt on Vicksburg
   III.  Baton Rouge
    IV.  La Fourche
     V.  Banks in Command
    VI.  Organizing the Corps
   VII.  More Ways than One
  VIII.  Farragut Passes Port Hudson
    IX.  The Teche
     X.  Bisland
    XI.  Irish Bend
   XII.  Opelousas
  XIII.  Banks and Grant
   XIV.  Alexandria
    XV.  Back to Port Hudson
   XVI.  The Twenty-Seventh of May
  XVII.  The Fourteenth of June
 XVIII.  Unvexed to the Sea
   XIX.  Harrowing La Fourche
    XX.  In Summer Quarters
   XXI.  A Foothold in Texas
  XXII.  Winter Quarters
 XXIII.  The Red River
  XXIV.  Sabine Cross-Roads
   XXV.  Pleasant Hill
  XXVI.  Grand Ecore
 XXVII.  The Crossing of Cane River
XXVIII.  The Dam
  XXIX.  Last Days in Louisiana
   XXX.  On the Potomac
  XXXI.  In the Shenandoah
 XXXII.  The Opequon
XXXIII.  Fisher's Hill
 XXXIV.  Cedar Creek
  XXXV.  Victory and Home

Appendix:
  Rosters
  Losses in Battle
  Officers Killed or Mortally Wounded
  Port Hudson Forlorn Hope
  Articles of Capitulation
  Note on Early's Strength
  Index


MAPS AND PLANS.

Map of Louisiana.  Sheet I.
 "  "      "         "   II.
 "  "      "         "   III.
Battle Plan of Bisland, April 12-13, 1863
Battle Plan of Irish Bend, April 14, 1863
Battle Plan of Port Hudson
Map of Louisiana.  Sheet IV.
Battle Plan of Sabine Cross-Roads, April 8, 1864.  From General
  Emory's Map
Battle Plan of Pleasant Hill, April 9, 1864.  From General Emory's
  Map
Battle Plan of Cane River Crossing or Monett's Bluff, April 23,
  1864.  From General Emory's Map
The Red River Dam
Map of Shenandoah Valley Campaign.  From Major W. F. Tiemann's
  "History of the 159th New York"
Battle Plan of Opequon, September 19, 1864.  From the Official Map,
  1873
Battle Plan of Fisher's Hill, September 22, 1864.  From the Official
  Map
Battle Plan of Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864.  From the Official
  Map of 1873


INTRODUCTORY

The history of the Nineteenth Army Corps, like that of by far the
greater number of the organizations of like character, in which
were arrayed the great armies of volunteers that took up arms to
maintain the Union, is properly the history of all the troops that
at any time belonged to the corps or served within its geographical
limits.

To be complete, then, the narrative my comrades have asked me to
write must go back to the earliest service of these troops, at a
period before the corps itself was formally established, and must
continue on past the time when the earlier territorial organization
became merged or lost and the main body of the corps was sent into
the Shenandoah, down to the peace, and the final muster of the last
regiment.

If hitherto less known and thus less considered than the proud
record of those great corps of the Armies of the Potomac, of the
Tennessee, and of the Cumberland, on whom in the fortune of war
fell the heat and burthen of so many pitched battles, whose colors
bear the names of so many decisive victories, yet the story of the
Nineteenth Army Corps is one whose simple facts suffice for all
that need to told or claimed of valor, of achievement, of sacrifice,
or of patient endurance.  I shall, therefore, attempt neither eulogy
nor apology, nor shall I feel called upon to undertake to criticise
the actions or the failures of the living or the dead, save where
such criticism may prove to be an essential part of the narrative.
From the brows of other soldiers, no one of us could ever wish to
pluck the wreaths so dearly won, so honorably worn; yet, since the
laurel grows wild on every hill-side in this favored land, we may
without trespass be permitted to gather a single spray or two to
decorate the sacred places where beneath the cypresses and the
magnolias of the lowlands of Louisiana, or under the green turf
among the mountains of Virginia, reposes all that was mortal of so
many thousands of our brave and beloved comrades.


THE NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS.

CHAPTER I.
NEW ORLEANS.

The opening of the Mississippi and the capture of New Orleans formed
important parts of the first comprehensive plan of campaign,
conceived and proposed by Lieutenant-General Scott soon after the
outbreak of the war.  When McClellan was called to Washington to
command the Army of the Potomac, one of his earliest communications
to the President set forth in general terms his plans for the
suppression of the Rebellion.  Of these plans, also, the capture
of New Orleans formed an integral and important part.  Both Scott
and McClellan contemplated a movement down the river by a strong
column.  However nothing had been done by either toward carrying
out this project, when, in September, 1861, the Navy Department
took up the idea of an attack on New Orleans from the sea.

At the time of the secession of Louisiana, New Orleans was not only
the first city in wealth, population, and importance in the seceded
States, but the sixth in all the Union.  With a population of nearly
170,000 souls, she carried on an export trade larger than that of
any other port in the country, and enjoyed a commerce in magnitude
and profit second only to that of New York.  The year just ended
had witnessed the production of the largest crop of cotton ever
grown in America, fully two fifths of which passed through the
presses and paid toll to the factors of New Orleans.  The receipts
of cotton at this port for the year 1860-1861 were but little less
than 2,000,000 bales, valued at nearly $100,000,000.  Of sugar,
mainly the production of the State of Louisiana, the receipts
considerably exceeded 250,000 tons, valued at more than $25,000,000;
the total receipts of products of all kinds amounted to nearly
$200,000,000.  The exports were valued at nearly $110,000,000; the
imports at nearly $23,000,000.  It is doubtful if any other crop
in any part of the world then paid profits at once so large and so
uniform to all persons interested as the cotton and sugar of
Louisiana.  If cotton were not exactly king, as it was in those
days the fashion to assert, there could be no doubt that cotton
was a banker, and a generous banker for New Orleans.  The factors
of Carondelet Street grew rich upon the great profits that the
planters of the "coast," as the shores of the river are called,
paid them, almost without feeling it, while the planters came,
nearly every winter, to New Orleans to pass the season and to spend,
in a round of pleasure, at least a portion of the net proceeds of
the account sales.  In the transport of these products nearly two
thousand sailing ships and steamers were engaged, and in the town
itself or its suburb of Algiers, on the opposite bank, were to be
found all the appliances and facilities necessary for the conduct
of so extensive a commerce.  These, especially the work-shops and
factories, and the innumerable river and bayou steamers that thronged
the levee, were destined to prove of the greatest military value,
at first to the Confederacy, and later to the forces of the Union.
For food and fuel, however, New Orleans was largely dependent upon
the North and West.  Finally, beside her importance as the guardian
of the gates of the Mississippi, New Orleans had a direct military
value as the basis of any operations destined for the control or
defence of the Mississippi River.

About the middle of November the plan took definite shape, and on
the 23d of December Farragut received preparatory orders to take
command of the West Gulf Squadron and the naval portion of the
expedition destined for the reduction of New Orleans.  Farragut
received his final orders on the 20th of January, 1862, and
immediately afterward hoisted his flag on the sloop-of-war
_Hartford_.

The land portion of the expedition was placed under the command of
Major-General Benjamin F. Butler.  On the 10th and 12th of September,
1861, Butler had been authorized by the War Department to raise,
organize, arm, uniform, and equip, in the New England States, such
troops as he might judge fit for the purpose, to make an expedition
along the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia to Cape Charles;
but early in November, before Butler's forces were quite ready,
these objects were accomplished by a brigade under Lockwood, sent
from Baltimore by Dix.  On the 23d of November the advance of
Butler's expedition sailed from Portland, Maine, for Ship Island,
in the steamer _Constitution_, and on the 2d of December, in
reporting the sailing, Butler submitted to the War Department his
plan for invading the coast of Texas and the ultimate capture of
New Orleans.

On the 24th of January, 1862, McClellan, then commanding all the
armies of the United States, was called on by the Secretary of War
to report whether the expedition proposed by General Butler should
be prosecuted, abandoned, or modified, and in what manner.  McClellan
at once urged that the expedition be suspended.  In his opinion,
"not less than 30,000 men, and it is believed 50,000, would be
required to insure success against New Orleans in a blow to be
struck from the Gulf."  This suggestion did not meet the approval
of the government, now fully determined on the enterprise.

Brigadier-General J. G. Barnard, the chief engineer of the Army of
the Potomac, an engineer also of more than common ability, energy,
and experience, was now called into consultation.  On the 28th of
January, 1862, he submitted to the Navy Department a memorandum
describing fully the defences of Forts Jackson and St. Philip and
outlining a plan for a combined attempt on these works by the army
and navy.  The military force required for the purpose he estimated
at 20,000 men.

Meanwhile the work of transferring Butler's forces by sea to Ship
Island had been going on with vigor.  He had raised thirteen
regiments of infantry, ten batteries of light artillery, and three
troops of cavalry, numbering in all about 13,600 men.  To these
were now added from the garrison of Baltimore three regiments, the
21st Indiana, 4th Wisconsin, and 6th Michigan, and the 2d Massachusetts
battery, thus increasing his force to 14,400 infantry, 275 cavalry,
and 580 artillerists; in all, 15,255 officers and men.

On the 23d of February, 1862, Butler received his final orders:
"The object of your expedition," said McClellan, "is one of vital
importance--the capture of New Orleans.  The route selected is up
the Mississippi River, and the first obstacle to be encountered
(perhaps the only one) is in the resistance offered by Forts St.
Philip and Jackson.  It is expected that the navy can reduce these
works.  Should the navy fail to reduce the works, you will land
your forces and siege-train, and endeavor to breach the works,
silence their guns, and carry them by assault.

"The next resistance will be near the English bend, where there
are some earthen batteries.  Here it may be necessary for you to
land your troops to co-operate with the naval attack, although it
is more than probable that the navy, unassisted, can accomplish
the result.  If these works are taken, the city of New Orleans
necessarily falls."

After obtaining possession of New Orleans, the instructions went
on to say, Butler was to reduce all the works guarding the approaches,
to join with the navy in occupying Baton Rouge, and then to endeavor
to open communication with the northern column by the Mississippi,
always bearing in mind the necessity of occupying Jackson, as soon
as this could safely be done.  Mobile was to follow, then Pensacola
and Galveston.  By the time New Orleans should have fallen the
government would probably reinforce his army sufficiently to
accomplish all these objects.

On the same day a new military department was created called the
Department of the Gulf, and Butler was assigned to the command.
Its limits were to comprise all the coast of the Gulf of Mexico
west of Pensacola harbor, and so much of the Gulf States as might
be occupied by Butler's forces.  Since the middle of October he
had commanded the expeditionary forces, under the name of the
Department of New England.

Arriving at Ship Island on the 20th of March, he formally assumed
the command of the Department of the Gulf, announcing Major George
C. Strong as Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff,
Lieutenant Godfrey Weitzel as Chief Engineer, and Surgeon Thomas
Hewson Bache as Medical Director.  To these were afterward added
Colonel John Wilson Shaffer as Chief Quartermaster, Colonel John
W. Turner as Chief Commissary, and Captain George A. Kensel as
Acting Assistant Inspector-General and Chief of Artillery.

By the end of March all the troops destined for the expedition had
landed at Ship Island, with the exception of the 13th Connecticut,
15th Maine, 7th and 8th Vermont regiments, 1st Vermont and 2d
Massachusetts batteries.  Within the next fortnight all these troops
joined the force except the 2d Massachusetts battery, which being
detained more than seven weeks at Fortress Monroe, and being nearly
five weeks at sea, did not reach New Orleans until the 21st of May.
Meanwhile, of the six Maine batteries, all except the 1st had been
diverted to other fields of service.

While awaiting at Ship Island the completion of the preparations
of the navy for the final attempt on the river forts, Butler
proceeded to organize his command and to discipline and drill the
troops composing it.  Many of these were entirely without instruction
in any of the details of service.  On the 22d of March, he divided
his forces into three brigades of five or six regiments each, attaching
to each brigade one or more batteries of artillery and a troop of
cavalry.  These brigades were commanded by Brigadier-Generals John W.
Phelps and Thomas Williams, and Colonel George F. Shepley of the 12th
Maine.  When finally assembled the whole force reported about 13,500
officers and men for duty, and from that moment its strength was
destined to undergo a steady diminution by the natural attrition of
service, augmented, in this case, by climatic influences.

The fleet under Farragut consisted of seventeen vessels, mounting
154 guns.  Four were screw-sloops, one a side-wheel steamer, three
screw corvettes, and nine screw gunboats.  Each of the gunboats
carried one 11-inch smooth-bore gun, and one 30-pounder rifle; but
neither of these could be used to fire at an enemy directly ahead,
and, in the operations awaiting the fleet, it is within bounds to
say that not more than one gun in four could be brought to bear at
any given moment.  With this fleet were twenty mortar-boats, under
Porter, each carrying one 13-inch mortar, and six gunboats, assigned
for the service of the mortar-boats and armed like the gunboats of
the river fleet.  Farragut, with the _Hartford_, had reached Ship
Island on the 20th of February; the rest of the vessels assigned
to his fleet soon followed.  Then entering the delta, from that
time he conducted the blockade of the river from the head of the
passes.

The Confederacy was now being so closely pressed in every quarter
as to make it impossible, with the forces at its command, to defend
effectively and at the same moment every point menaced by the troops
and fleets of the Union.  Thus the force that might otherwise have
been employed in defending New Orleans was, under the pressure of
the emergency, so heavily drawn from to strengthen the army at
Corinth, then engaged in resisting the southward advance of the
combined armies of the Union under Halleck, as to leave New Orleans,
and indeed all Louisiana, at the mercy of any enemy that should
succeed in passing the river forts.  At this time the entire
land-force, under Major-General Mansfield Lovell, hardly exceeded
5,000 men.  Of these, 1,100 occupied Forts Jackson and St. Philip,
under the command of General Duncan; 1,200 held the Chalmette line,
under General Martin L. Smith, and about 3,000, chiefly new levies,
badly armed, were in New Orleans.  Besides this small land-force,
the floating defences consisted of four improvised vessels of the
Confederate navy, two belonging to the State of Louisiana, and six
others of what was called the Montgomery fleet.  These were boats
specially constructed for the defence of the river, but most of
them had been sent up the river to Memphis to hold off Foote and
Davis.  The twelve vessels carried in all thirty-eight guns.  Each
of the boats of the river-fleet defence had its bows shod with iron
and its engines protected with cotton.  This was also the case with
the two sea-going steamers belonging to the State.  Of this flotilla
the most powerful was the iron-clad _Louisiana_, whose armor was
found strong enough to turn an 11-inch shell at short range, and,
as her armament consisted of two 7-inch rifles, three 9-inch shell
guns, four 18-inch shell guns, and seven 6-inch rifles, she might
have proved a formidable foe had her engines been equal to their
work.

At the Plaquemine Bend, twenty miles above the head of the passes
and ninety below New Orleans, the engineers of the United States
had constructed two permanent fortifications, designed to defend
the entrance of the river against the foreign enemies of the Union.
These formidable works had now to be passed or taken before New
Orleans could be occupied.  Fort St. Philip, on the left or north
bank, was a work of brick and earth, flanked on either hand by a
water battery.  In the main work were mounted, in barbette, four
8-inch columbiads and one 24-pounder gun; the upper water battery
carried sixteen 24-pounders, the lower one one 8-inch columbiad,
one 7-inch rifle, six 42-pounders, nine 32-pounders, and four
24-pounders.  Besides these, there were seven mortars, one of 13-inch
calibre, five of 10-inch, and one of 8-inch.  Forty-two of the guns
could be brought to bear upon the fleet ascending the river.

Fort Jackson, on the south or left bank of the river, was a casemated
pentagon of brick, mounting in the casemates fourteen 24-pounder
guns, and ten 24-pounder howitzers, and in barbette in the upper
tier two 10-inch columbiads, three 8-inch columbiads, one 7-inch
rifle, six 42-pounders, fifteen 32-pounders, and eleven 24-pounders,
in all sixty-two guns.  The water battery below the main work was
armed with one 10-inch columbiad, two 8-inch columbiads, and two
rifled 32-pounders.  Fifty of these pieces were available against
the fleet, but of the whole armament of one hundred and nine guns,
fifty-six were old 24-pounder smooth-bores.

The passage of the forts had been obstructed by a raft or chain
anchored between them.  The forts once overcome, no other defence
remained to be encountered until English Turn was reached, where
earthworks had been thrown up on both banks.  Here at Chalmette,
on the left bank, it was that, in 1815, Jackson, with his handful
of raw levies, so signally defeated Wellington's veterans of the
Peninsula, under the leadership of the fearless Pakenham.

Fort St. Philip stands about 700 yards higher up the river than
Fort Jackson; the river at this point is about 800 yards wide, and
the distance between the nearest salients of the main works is
about 1,000 yards.  A vessel attempting to run the gauntlet of the
batteries would be under fire while passing over a distance of
three and a half miles.  The river was now high, and the banks,
everywhere below the river level, and only protected from inundation
by the levees, were overflowed.  There was no standing room for an
investing army; the lower guns were under water, and in the very
forts the platforms were awash.

When the fleet was ready, Butler embarked eight regiments and three
batteries under Phelps and Williams on transports, and, going to
the head of the passes, held his troops in readiness to co-operate
with the navy.  On the 16th of April the fleet took up its position.
The mortar-boats, or "bombers," as they began to be called, were
anchored between 3,000 and 4,000 yards below Fort Jackson, upon
which the attack was mainly to be directed.  From the view of those
in the fort, the boats that lay under the right bank were covered
by trees.  Those on the opposite side of the river were screened,
after a fashion, by covering their hulls with reeds and willows,
cut for the purpose.

On the 18th of April the bombardment began.  It soon became evident
that success was not to be attained in this way, and Farragut
determined upon passing the forts with his fleet.  Should he fail
in reducing them by this movement, Butler was to land in the rear
of Fort St. Philip, near Quarantine, and carry the works by storm.
Accordingly, he remained with his transports below the forts, and
waited for the hour.  Shepley occupied Ship Island with the rest
of the force.

Early in March the raft, formed of great cypress trees, forty feet
long and fifty inches through, laid lengthwise in the river about
three feet apart, anchored by heavy chains and strengthened by
massive cross-timbers, had been partly carried away by the flood.
To make good the damage, a number of large schooners had then been
anchored in the gap.  On the morning of the 21st of April this
formidable obstruction was cleverly and in a most gallant manner
broken through by the fleet.

On the night of the 23d of April, Farragut moved to the attack.
His fleet, organized in three divisions of eight, three, and six
vessels respectively, was formed in line ahead.  The first division
was led by Captain Bailey, in the _Cayuga_, followed by the
_Pensacola, Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo_, and
_Wissahickon;_ the second division followed, composed of Farragut's
flag-ship, the _Hartford_, Commander Richard Wainwright, the
_Brooklyn_, and the _Richmond;_ while the third division, forming
the rear of the column, was led by Captain Bell, in the _Sciota_,
followed by the _Iroquois, Kennebec, Pinola, Itasca,_ and _Winona_.

At half-past two o'clock on the morning of the 24th of April the
whole fleet was under way; a quarter of an hour later the batteries
of Forts Jackson and St. Philip opened simultaneously upon the
_Cayuga_.  It was some time before the navy could reply, but soon
every gun was in action.  Beset by perils on every hand, the fleet
pressed steadily up the river.  The Confederate boats were destroyed,
the fire-rafts were overcome, the gunners of the forts were driven
from their guns, and when the sun rose Farragut was above the forts
with the whole of his fleet, except the _Itasca, Winona_, and
_Kennebec_, which put back disabled, and the _Varuna_, sunk by the
Confederate gunboats.  The next afternoon, having made short work
of Chalmette, Farragut anchored off New Orleans, and held the town
at his mercy.

The casualties were 37 killed and 147 wounded, in all 184.  The
Confederate loss was 50, 11 killed and 39 wounded.  The _Louisiana,
McCrea_, and _Defiance_, sole survivors of the Confederate fleet,
escaping comparatively unhurt, took refuge under the walls of Fort
St. Philip.

Leaving Phelps, with the 30th Massachusetts and 12th Connecticut
and Manning's 4th Massachusetts battery, at the head of the passes,
in order to be prepared to occupy the works immediately on their
surrender, Butler hastened with the rest of his force to Sable
Island in the rear of Fort St. Philip.  When the transports came
to anchor on the morning of the 26th, the Confederate flags on
Forts St. Philip and Jackson were plainly visible to the men on
board, while these, in their turn, were seen from the forts.  Here
the troops received the news of Farragut's arrival at New Orleans.
On the morning of the 28th they saw the Confederate ram _Louisiana_
blown up while floating past the forts, and on the same day Jones
landed with the 26th Massachusetts and Paine with two companies of
the 4th Wisconsin and a detachment of the 21st Indiana, to work
their way through a small canal to Quarantine, six miles above Fort
St. Philip, for the purpose of seizing the narrow strip by which
the garrison must escape, if at all.  This was only accomplished
by a long and tiresome transport in boats, and finally by wading.
However, at half-past two on the afternoon of the 28th April, the
Confederate flags over Forts Jackson and St. Philip were observed
to disappear; the national ensign floated in their stead; and soon
it became known that Duncan had surrendered to Porter.

Porter immediately took possession and held it until Phelps came
up the river to relieve him.  Then Major Whittemore, of the 30th
Massachusetts, with about two hundred men of his regiment, landed
and took command at Fort St. Philip, while Manning occupied Fort
Jackson.  Almost simultaneously the frigate _Mississippi_ came down
the river, bringing Jones with the news that his regiment was at
Quarantine, holding both banks of the river, and thus effectually
sealing the last avenue of escape; for at this time the levee formed
the only pathway.  On the 29th Phelps put Deming in command of Fort
Jackson, intending to leave his regiment, the 12th Connecticut, in
garrison there, and to place Dudley, with the 30th Massachusetts,
at Fort St. Philip; but before this arrangement could be carried
out, orders came from Butler, designating the 26th Massachusetts
as the garrison of the two forts, with Jones in command.  Phelps,
with his force, was directed to New Orleans.

On the 1st of May Butler landed at New Orleans and took military
possession of the city.  Simultaneously, at five o'clock in the
afternoon, the 31st Massachusetts with a section of Everett's 6th
Massachusetts battery, and six companies of the 4th Wisconsin,
under Paine, disembarked and marched up the broad levee to the
familiar airs that announced the joint coming of "Yankee Doodle"
and of "Picayune Butler."

The outlying defences on both banks of the river and on the lakes
were abandoned by the Confederates without a struggle.  Forts Pike
and Wood, on Lake Pontchartrain, were garrisoned by detachments
from the 7th Vermont and 8th New Hampshire regiments.  The 21st
Indiana landed at Algiers, and marching to Brashear, eighty miles
distant on Berwick Bay, took possession of the New Orleans and
Opelousas railway.  New Orleans itself was occupied by the 30th
and 31st Massachusetts, the 4th Wisconsin and 6th Michigan, 9th
and 12th Connecticut, 4th and 6th Massachusetts batteries, 2d
Vermont battery, and Troops A and B of the Massachusetts cavalry.
At Farragut's approach Lovell, seeing that further resistance was
useless, abandoned New Orleans to its fate and withdrew to Camp
Moore, distant seventy-eight miles, on the line of the Jackson
railway.


CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST ATTEMPT ON VICKSBURG.

With the capture of New Orleans the first and vital object of the
expedition had been accomplished.  The occupation of Baton Rouge
by a combined land and naval force was the next point indicated in
McClellan's orders to Butler.  Then he was to endeavor to open
communication with the northern column coming down the Mississippi.
McClellan was no longer General-in-chief; but this part of his plan
represented the settled views of the government.

On the 2d of May, therefore, Farragut sent Craven with the _Brooklyn_
and six other vessels of the fleet up the river.  On the 8th, as
early as the river transports could be secured, Butler sent Williams
with the 4th Wisconsin and the 6th Michigan regiments, and two
sections of Everett's 6th Massachusetts battery, to follow and
accompany the fleet.  The next day Williams landed his force at
Bonnet Carré, on the east bank of the river, about thirty-five
miles above the town.  After wading about five miles through a
swamp, where the water and mud were about three feet deep, the
troops halted at night at Frenier, a station of the Jackson railway,
situated on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about ten miles above
Kenner.  A detachment of the 4th Wisconsin, under Major Boardman,
was sent to Pass Manchac.  The Confederates made a slight but
ineffective resistance with artillery, resulting in trivial losses
on either side.  The bridges at Pass Manchac and Frenier being then
destroyed, on the following morning, the 10th, the troops marched
back the weary ten miles along the uneven trestle-work of the
railway from Frenier to Kenner and there took transport.  After
their long confinement on shipboard, with scant rations, without
exercise or even freedom of movement, the excessive heat of the
day caused the troops to suffer severely.  The embarkation completed,
the transports, under convoy of the navy, set out for Baton Rouge.
There on the morning of the 12th of May the troops landed, the
capitol was occupied by the 4th Wisconsin, and the national colors
were hoisted over the building.  The troops then re-embarked for
Vicksburg.

Natchez surrendered on the 12th of May to Commander S. Phillips
Lee, of the _Oneida_, the advance of Farragut's fleet.  On the 18th
of May the _Oneida_ and her consorts arrived off Vicksburg, and
the same day Williams and Lee summoned "the authorities" to surrender
the town and "its defences to the lawful authority of the United
States."  To this Brigadier-General Martin L. Smith, commander of
the defences, promptly replied:  "Having been ordered here to hold
these defences, my intention is to do so as long as it is in my
power."

On the 19th the transports stopped for wood at Warrenton, about
ten miles below Vicksburg, and here a detachment of the 4th Wisconsin,
sent to guard the working party, became involved in a skirmish with
the Confederates, in which Sergeant-Major N. H. Chittenden and
Private C. E. Perry, of A Company, suffered the first wounds received
in battle by the troops of the United States in the Department of
the Gulf.  The Confederates were easily repulsed, with small loss.

Almost at the instant when Farragut was decided to run the gauntlet
of the forts, Beauregard had begun to fortify Vicksburg.  Up to
this time he had trusted the defence of the river above New Orleans
to Fort Pillow, Helena, and Memphis.

When Smith took command at Vicksburg on the 12th of May, in accordance
with the orders of Lovell, the department commander, three of the
ten batteries laid out for the defence of the position had been
nearly completed and a fourth had been begun.  These batteries were
intended for forty-eight guns from field rifles to 10-inch columbiads.
The garrison was to be 3,000 strong, but at this time the only
troops present were parts of two Louisiana regiments.  When the
fleet arrived, on the 18th, six of the ten batteries had been
completed, and two days later twenty-three heavy guns were in place
and the defenders numbered more than 2,600.

The guns of the navy could not be elevated sufficiently for their
projectiles to reach the Confederate batteries on the bluff, and
the entire land-force, under Williams, was less than 1,100 effectives.
Even had it been possible by a sudden attack to surprise and overcome
the garrison and seize the bluffs, the whole available force of
the Department of the Gulf would have been insufficient to hold
the position for a week, as things then stood.

The truth is that the northern column with which, following their
orders, Butler and Farragut were now trying to co-operate had
ceased to exist; Jackson meant Beauregard's rear; and, as for any
co-operation between Halleck and Williams, Beauregard stood solidly
between them.  On the 17th of April, the day before Porter's mortars
first opened upon Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the whole land
force of this northern column, under Pope, at that moment preparing
for the attack on Fort Pillow, had been withdrawn by imperative
orders from Halleck, and, on the very evening before the attack on
Fort Pillow was to have been made, had gone to swell the great army
assembled under Halleck at Corinth; but as yet neither Butler nor
Farragut knew anything of all this.  Save by the tedious roundabout
of Washington, New York, the Atlantic, and the Gulf, there was at
this time no regular or trustworthy means of communication between
the forces descending the Mississippi and those that had just
achieved the conquest of New Orleans and were now ascending the
river to co-operate with the northern column.  Thus it was that
a single word, daubed in a rude scrawl upon the walls of the
custom-house, meeting the eyes of Paine's men after they had made
a way into the building with their axes, gave to Butler the first
intelligence of the desperate battle of the 6th and 7th of April,
on which the fate of the whole Union campaign in the West had been
staked, if not imperilled, and which in its result was destined to
change materially the whole course of operations in the Gulf
Department.  That word was Shiloh.

By the 26th of May the _Oneida_ had been joined by the rest of the
fleet, under the personal command of the restless and energetic
flag-officer.  On the afternoon of this day the fleet opened fire.
The Confederates replied sparingly, as much to economize their
ammunition and to keep the men fresh, as to avoid giving the Union
commanders information regarding the range and effect of their fire.

The river was now falling.  The _Hartford_ in coming up had already
grounded hard, and so remained helpless for fifty hours, and had
only been got off by incredible exertions.  Provisions of all kinds
were running very low.  On the 25th of May, after a thorough
reconnoissance, Farragut and Williams decided to give up the attempt
on Vicksburg as evidently impracticable.  Farragut left Palmer with
the _Iroquois_ and six gunboats to blockade the river and to amuse
the garrison at Vicksburg by an occasional bombardment in order to
prevent Smith from sending reinforcements to Corinth.

While Williams was descending the river on the 26th, the transports
were fired into by the Confederate battery on the bluff at Grand
Gulf, sixty miles below Vicksburg.  About sixty rounds were fired
in all, many of which passed completely through the transport
_Laurel Hill_, bearing the 4th Wisconsin, part of the 6th Michigan,
and the 6th Massachusetts battery.  One private of the 6th Michigan
was killed and Captain Chauncey J. Bassett, of the same regiment,
wounded.  The _Ceres_, bearing the remainder of the 6th Michigan
and the 6th Massachusetts battery, was following the _Laurel Hill_
and was similarly treated.  After a stern chase of about twenty
miles, the convoy was overhauled, and the gunboat _Kineo_, returning,
shelled the town and caused the withdrawal of the battery.  During
the evening Williams sent four companies of the 4th Wisconsin,
under Major Boardman, to overtake the enemy's battery and break up
the camp, about one mile and a half in the rear of the town.
Boardman came upon the Confederates as they were retiring, and
shots were exchanged.  The casualties were few, but Lieutenant
George DeKay, a gallant and attractive young officer, serving as
aide-de-camp to General Williams, received a mortal wound.

On the 29th the troops under Williams once more landed and took
post at Baton Rouge.  During their absence of seventeen days, the
Confederates had improved the opportunity to remove much valuable
property that had been found stored in the arsenal on the occasion
of the first landing of the Union forces.

On his return to New Orleans Farragut received pressing orders from
the Navy Department to take Vicksburg.  He therefore returned with
his fleet, reinforced by a detachment of the mortar flotilla, and
Butler once more despatched Williams, this time with an increased
force, to co-operate.  Williams left Baton Rouge on the morning of
the 20th of June with a force composed of the 30th Massachusetts,
9th Connecticut, 7th Vermont, and 4th Wisconsin regiments, Nims's
2d Massachusetts battery and two sections of Everett's 6th
Massachusetts battery.  This time a garrison was left to hold Baton
Rouge, consisting of the 21st Indiana and 6th Michigan regiments,
the remaining section of Everett's battery and Magee's Troop C of
the Massachusetts cavalry battalion.  On the 22d of June the
transports arrived off Ellis's Cliffs, twelve miles below Natchez,
where Williams found three gunboats waiting to convoy him past the
high ground.  Here he landed a detachment consisting of the 30th
Massachusetts regiment and two guns of Nims's battery to turn the
supposed position of two field-pieces said to have been planted by
the Confederates on the bluffs, while a second force, composed of
the 4th Wisconsin, 9th Connecticut, the other two sections of Nims's
battery, and the four guns of Everett's, marched directly forward
up the cliff road.  An abandoned caisson or limber was all that
the troops found.

On the 24th, anticipating more serious resistance from the guns
said to be in position on the bluffs at Grand Gulf, Williams entered
Bayou Pierre with his whole force in the early morning, intending
to strike the crossing, about seventeen miles up the stream, of
the railway from Port Gibson to Grand Gulf, and thence to move
directly on the rear of the town.  Half-way up the bayou the boats
were stopped by obstructions and had to back down again.  Toward
noon the troops landed and marched on Grand Gulf in two detachments,
one under Paine, consisting of the 4th Wisconsin and 9th Connecticut
regiments and a section of Nims's battery; the other, under Dudley,
embracing the remainder of the force.  Paine had a short skirmish
with the enemy near Grand Gulf, and captured eight prisoners, but
their camp, a small one, was found abandoned.  The same evening
the troops re-embarked, and on the 25th arrived before Vicksburg.

The orders from Butler, under which Williams was now acting, required
him to take or burn Vicksburg at all hazards.  Here, too, we catch
the first glimpse of the famous canal upon which so much labor was
to be expended during the next year with so little result.  "You
will send up a regiment or two at once," Butler said, "and cut off
the neck of land beyond Vicksburg by means of a trench, making a
gap about four feet deep and five feet wide."

To accomplish this purpose Williams had with him four regiments
and ten guns, making an effective force in all less than three
thousand, rapidly diminished by hard work, close quarters, meagre
rations, and a bad climate nearly at its worst.

On the 24th of June the _Monarch_, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel
Alfred W. Ellet, arrived in the reach above Vicksburg.  This was
one of the nondescript fleet of rams, planned, built, equipped,
and manned, under the orders of the War Department, by Ellet's
elder brother, Colonel Charles Ellet, Jr., but now acting under
the orders of the Commander of the Mississippi fleet.  Ellet promptly
sent a party of four volunteers, led by his young nephew, Medical
Cadet Charles R. Ellet, to communicate with Farragut across the
narrow neck of land opposite Vicksburg.  This was the first direct
communication between the northern and southern columns.  By it
Farragut learned of the abandonment of Fort Pillow by the Confederates
on the 4th of June, and the capture of Memphis on the 6th, after
a hard naval fight, in which nearly the whole Confederate fleet
was taken or destroyed.  There Charles Ellet was mortally wounded.
When the _Monarch_ party went back to their vessel, they bore with
them a letter from Farragut, the contents of which being promptly
made known by Ellet to Davis, brought that officer, with his fleet,
at once to Vicksburg.  On the following day, June 25th, a detachment
of the 4th Wisconsin, sent up the river overland by Colonel Paine,
succeeded in establishing a second communication with the _Monarch_,
believing it to be the first.

Farragut's fleet, now anchored below Vicksburg, comprised the
flagship _Hartford_, the sloops-of-war _Brooklyn_ and _Richmond_,
the corvettes _Iroquois_ and _Oneida_, and six gunboats.  Porter
had joined with the _Octorara, Miami_, six other steamers, and
seventeen of the mortar schooners.  The orders of the government
were peremptory that the Mississippi should be cleared.  The
Confederates held the river by a single thread.  The fall of Memphis
and the ruin of the famous river-defence fleet left between St.
Louis and the Gulf but a solitary obstruction.  This was Vicksburg.

Vicksburg stand at an abrupt turn, where within ten miles the
winding river doubles upon itself, forming on the low ground opposite
a long finger of land, barely three quarters of a mile wide.
Opposite the extreme end of this peninsula, known as De Soto, the
bluff reaches the highest point attained along the whole course of
the river, the crest standing about 250 feet above the mean stage
of water.  Sloping slowly toward the river, the bluff follows it
with a diminished altitude for two miles.  Here stands the town of
Vicksburg, then a place of about ten thousand inhabitants.  Below
the town the bluffs draw away from the river until, about four
miles beyond the bend, their height diminishes to about 150 feet.
For the defence of this line, as has been already seen, a formidable
series of batteries had been constructed, extending from the bluff
at the mouth of Chickasaw Bayou on the north to Warrenton on the
south.  These batteries now mounted twenty-six heavy guns, served
by gunners comparatively well trained and instructed, and supported
against an attack by land by about 6,000 infantry under Lovell.
Almost simultaneously with the arrival of Farragut and Williams,
came Breckinridge with his division, augmenting the effective force
of the defenders to not less than 10,000.  On the 30th of May
Beauregard evacuated Corinth and drew back to Tupelo; Halleck did
not follow; and so 35,000 Confederates were now set free to strengthen
Vicksburg.  Thus defended and supported Vicksburg was obviously
impregnable to any attack by the combined forces of Farragut and
Williams.  On the 28th of June, Van Dorn arrived and took command
of the Confederate forces.

After some preliminary bombarding and reconnoitring Farragut, who
was well informed as to the condition of the defences, determined
upon repeating before Vicksburg his exploit below New Orleans.
Accordingly, on the 28th of July, in the darkness of the early
morning, under cover of the fire of Porter's mortar flotilla,
Farragut got under way with his fleet to pass the batteries of
Vicksburg.  The fleet was formed in two columns, with wide intervals,
the starboard column led by the _Hartford_, the port column by the
_Iroquois_.  The battle was opened by the mortars at four o'clock,
the enemy replying instantly.  By six o'clock the _Hartford_ and
six of her consorts had successfully run the gauntlet, and lay safely
anchored above the bend, while the rest of the fleet, through some
confusion of events or misapprehension of orders, had resumed its
former position below the bend.  The losses of the navy in this
engagement were fifteen killed and thirty wounded, including many
scalded by the effect of a single shot that pierced the boiler of
the _Clifton_.  The eight rifled guns of Nims's and Everett's
batteries having been landed, were placed in position behind the
levee at Barney's Point, and replied effectively to the fire of
the heavy guns on the high bluff, at a range of about fourteen
hundred yards.  This slight service was the only form of active
co-operation by the army that the circumstances admitted; yet all the
troops stood to arms, ready to do any thing that might be required.

On the 1st of July Davis joined Farragut with four gunboats and
six mortar-boats of the Mississippi fleet.  On the 9th Farragut
received orders from the Navy Department, dated on the 5th, and
forwarded by way of Cairo, to send Porter with the _Octorara_ and
twelve mortar-boats at once to Hampton Roads.  Porter steamed down
the river on the 10th.  This was obviously one of the first-fruits
of the campaign of the Peninsula just ended by the withdrawal of
the Army of the Potomac to the James.  Indeed, at this crisis, all
occasions seemed to be informing against the Union plan of campaign,
and the same events that drew the Confederate armies together served
to draw the Union armies apart.  Just as we have seen Pope called
away from Fort Pillow on the eve of an attack that must have resulted
in its capture, and taken in haste to swell the slow march of
Halleck's army before Corinth, so now, when for a full month Corinth
had been abandoned by the Confederates, Halleck's forces were being
broken up and dispersed to all four of the winds, save that which
might have blown them to the south.  Halleck declared himself unable
to respond to Farragut's urgent appeal for help.  "I cannot," he
said, when urged by Stanton; "I am sending reinforcements to General
Curtis, in Arkansas, and to General Buell, in Tennessee and Kentucky."
Not only this, but he was being called upon by Lincoln himself for
25,000 troops to reinforce the Army of the Potomac before Richmond.
"Probably I shall be able to do so," Halleck told Farragut, "as
soon as I can get my troops more concentrated.  This may delay the
clearing of the river, but its accomplishment will be certain in
a few weeks."

Meanwhile Williams was hard at work on the canal.  In addition to
such details as could be furnished by the troops without wholly
neglecting the absolutely necessary portions of their military
duties, Williams had employed a force of about 1,200 negroes, rather
poorly provided with tools.  The work was not confined to excavation,
but involved the cutting down of the large cottonwoods and the
clearing away of the dense masses of willows that covered the low
ground and matted the heavy soil with their tangled roots.  By the
4th of July the excavation had reached a depth in the hard clay of
nearly seven feet.  The length of the canal was about one and a
half miles.  By the 11th of July the cut, originally intended to
be four feet deep and five feet wide, with a profile of twenty
square feet, had been excavated through this stiff clay to a depth
of thirteen feet and a width of eighteen feet, presenting a profile
of 234 feet.  The river, which, up to this time, had been falling
more rapidly than the utmost exertions had been able to sink the
bottom of the canal, had now begun to fall more slowly, so that at
last the grade was about eighteen inches below the river level.
In a few hours the water was to have been let in.  Suddenly the
banks began to cave, and before any thing could be done to remedy
this, the river, still falling, was once more below the bottom of
the cut.  Although with this scanty and overworked force he had
already performed nearly twelve times the amount of labor originally
contemplated, Williams does not seem to have been discouraged at
this; his orders were to make the cut, and his purpose clearly was
to make it, even if it should take, as he thought it would, the
whole of the next three months.  He set to work with vigor to
collect laborers, wheelbarrows, shovels, axes, carts, and scrapers,
and "to make a real canal," to use his own words, "to the depth of
the greatest fall of the river at this point, say some thirty-five
to forty feet."  But this was not to be.

Until toward the end of June, the _Polk_ and _Livingston_, the last
vestiges of the Confederate navy on the Mississippi spared from
the general wreck at Memphis, lay far up the Yazoo River, with a
barrier above them, designed to cover the building of the ram
_Arkansas_.  This formidable craft was approaching completion at
Yazoo City.  The Ellets, uncle and nephew, with the _Monarch_ and
_Lancaster_, steamed up the Yazoo River to reconnoitre.  The rams
carried no armament whatever, but this the Confederate naval
commander in the Yazoo did not know; so, unable to pass the barrier,
he set fire to his three gunboats immediately on perceiving Ellet's
approach.  On the 14th of July, Flag-Officers Farragut and Davis
sent the gunboats _Carondelet_ and _Tyler_, and the ram _Queen of
the West_, on a second expedition up the Yazoo to gain information
of the _Arkansas_.  This object was greatly facilitated by the fact
that the _Arkansas_ had at this very moment just got under way for
the first time, and was coming down the Yazoo to gather information
of the Federal fleet.  The _Arkansas_, which had been constructed
and was now commanded by Captain Isaac N. Brown, formerly of the
United States Navy, was, for defensive purposes, probably the most
effective of all the gunboats ever set afloat by the Confederacy
upon the western waters.  Her deck was covered by a single casemate
protected by three inches of railroad iron, set aslant like a gable
roof, and heavily backed up with timber and cotton bales.  Her
whole bow formed a powerful ram; the shield, flat on the top, was
pierced for ten guns of heavy calibre, three in each broadside,
two forward, and two aft.  Had her means of propulsion proved equal
to her power of attack and defence, it is doubtful if the whole
Union navy on the Mississippi could have stood against her
single-handed.  The situation thus strangely recalls that presented by
the _Merrimac_, or _Virginia_, in Hampton Roads before the opportune
arrival of the _Monitor_.  On board the _Tyler_ was a detachment
of twenty sharpshooters of the 4th Wisconsin regiment, under Captain
J. W. Lynn, and on the _Carondelet_ were twenty men of the 30th
Massachusetts regiment, under Lieutenant E. A. Fiske.  About six
miles above the Yazoo the Union gunboats encountered the _Arkansas_.
The unarmed ram _Queen of the West_ promptly fled.  After a hard
fight the _Carondelet_ was disabled and run ashore, and the _Tyler_
was forced to retire, with the _Arkansas_ in pursuit.  The
sharpshooters of the 4th Wisconsin suffered more severely than if
they had been engaged in an ordinary pitched battle, Captain Lynn
and six of his men being killed and six others wounded.

The _Queen of the West_, flying out of the mouth of the Yazoo under
a full head of steam, gave to the fleet at anchor the first
intimation, though perhaps a feeble one, of what was to follow.
Not one vessel of either squadron had steam.  The ram _Bragg_,
which might have been expected to do something, did nothing.  The
_Arkansas_, so seriously injured by the guns of the _Carondelet_
and _Tyler_ that the steam pressure had gone from 120 pounds to
the square inch down to 20 pounds, kept on her course, and proceeded
to run the gauntlet of the Union fleet, giving and taking blows as
she went.  Battered, but safe, she soon lay under the guns of
Vicksburg.

This decided the fate of the campaign, and extinguished in the
breast of Farragut the last vestige of the ardent hope he had
expressed to the government a few days earlier that he might soon
have the pleasure of recording the combined attack of the army and
navy, for which all so ardently longed.  The river was falling;
the canal was a failure.  Of the officers and men of the army, two
fifths, and of the effective force of the army nearly three fourths,
were on the sick-list.  There was no longer any thing to hope for
or to wait on.  The night that followed the exploit of the _Arkansas_
saw Farragut's fleet descending the river and once more running
the gauntlet of the batteries of Vicksburg.  A flying attempt was
made by each vessel in succession, but by all unsuccessfully, to
destroy the offending _Arkansas_.

On the 24th of July, Williams, with his small force, under convoy
of Farragut's fleet, sailed down the river.  So ended the second
attempt on Vicksburg, usually called the first, when remembered.
Its sudden collapse gave the Confederates the river for another
year.


CHAPTER III.
BATON ROUGE.

On the 26th of July, the troops landed at Baton Rouge.  In the five
weeks that had elapsed since their departure their effective strength
had been diminished, by privations, by severe labor, and by the
effects of a deadly climate, from 3,200 to about 800.  For more
than three months, ever since their re-embarkation at Ship Island
on the 10th of April, they had undergone hardships such as have
seldom fallen to the lot of soldiers, in a campaign whose existence
is scarcely known and whose name has been wellnigh forgotten; but
their time for rest and recreation had not yet come.

No sooner did Van Dorn see the allied fleets of Davis and Farragut
turning their backs on one another and steaming one to the north
and the other to the south, than he determined to take the initiative.
His preparations had been already made in anticipation of this
event.  He now ordered Breckinridge to hasten with his division to
the attack of Baton Rouge, and even as the fleet got under way,
the train bearing Breckinridge's troops was also in motion.

Breckinridge received his orders on the 26th, and arrived at Camp
Moore by the railway on the 28th.  At Jackson he had been told that
he would receive rations sufficient for ten days, but he could get
no more than half the quantity.  Van Dorn had estimated the Union
force to be met at Baton Rouge as about 5,000, and had calculated
that Breckinridge would find himself strong enough to dislodge the
Union army and drive it away.  In fact, Van Dorn estimated
Breckinridge's division, including 1,000 men under Brigadier-General
Ruggles that were to meet him at Camp Moore, at 6,000 men.  The
_Arkansas_ was to join in the attack, and she was justly considered
a full offset to any naval force the Union commander would be likely
to have stationed at Baton Rouge.  Breckinridge left Vicksburg with
less than 4,000.  On the 30th of July he reports his total effective
force, including Ruggles, at 3,600.  The same day he marched on
Baton Rouge, and on the 4th of August encamped at the crossing of
the Comite, distant about ten miles from his objective.  His morning
report of that day shows but 3,000 effectives, according to the
methods by which effective strength was commonly counted by the
Confederates.

The distance from Camp Moore to Baton Rouge is about sixty miles,
and the march had been thus retarded to await the co-operation of
the _Arkansas_.  This Breckinridge was finally assured he might
expect at daylight on the morning of the 5th of August.  The
_Arkansas_ had in fact left Vicksburg on the 3d.

Van Dorn's object obviously was by crushing Williams to regain
control of the Mississippi from Vicksburg to Baton Rouge, to break
the blockade of Red River and to open the way for the recapture of
New Orleans.  Williams was expecting the attack and awaited the
result with calmness.

At Baton Rouge the Mississippi washes for the last time the base
of the high and steep bluffs that for so many hundreds of miles
have followed the coasts of the great river and formed the contour
of its left bank, overlooking its swift yellow waters and the vast
lowlands of the western shore.  The bluff is lower at Baton Rouge
than it is above and slopes more gently to the water's edge; and
here the highland draws back from the river and gradually fades
away in a southeasterly direction toward the Gulf, while the surface
of the country becomes more open and less broken.  The stiff
post-tertiary clays that compose the soil of these bluffs were in
many places covered with a rich growth of timber, great magnolias
and beautiful live oaks replacing the rank cottonwood and tangled
willows of the lowlands, as well as the giant cypresses of the
impenetrable swamps, with their mournful hangings of Spanish moss,
and the wild grape binding them fast in a deadly embrace.

Six roads led out of the town in various directions.  Of these the
most northerly was the road from Bayou Sara.  Passing behind the
town its course continued toward the south along the river.  Between
these outstretched arms ran the road to Clinton, the Greenwell
Springs road, by which the Confederates had come, the Perkins road,
and the Clay Cut road.

In numbers the opposing forces were nearly equal.  The Confederates
went into action with about 2,600, without counting the partisan
rangers and militia, numbering 400 or 500 more.  Williams had about
2,500 fighting men.  He had eighteen guns, the Confederates eleven.
On both sides the men were enfeebled by malaria and exposure; yet
the Confederates had left their sick behind, while the Union force
included convalescents that came out of the hospital to take part
in the battle.  "There were not 1,200," said Weitzel after the
battle, "who could have marched five miles.  None of our men had
been in battle; very few had been under fire."  Among the Confederates
were many of the veterans of Shiloh and more of the triumphant
defenders of Vicksburg.  The advantages of position was slight on
either side.  On the one hand Williams was forced to post his left
with regard to the expected attack of the _Arkansas_, so that in
the centre his line fell behind the camps.  To offset this his
right rested securely on the gunboats.  As it turned out the
_Arkansas_ was not encountered, and the gunboats told off to meet
her were therefore able to render material assistance on the left
by their oblique fire across Williams' front.

Breckinridge commanded four picked brigades, three selected from
his own division and one of Martin L. Smith's Vicksburg brigades,
the whole organized in two divisions, under Brigadier-Generals
Charles Clark and Daniel Ruggles.  Clark had the brigades of
Brigadier-General Bernard H. Helm and Colonel Thomas B. Smith, of
the 20th Tennessee, with the Hudson battery and Cobb's battery.
Ruggles had the brigades of Colonel A. P. Thompson, of the 3d
Kentucky, and Colonel Henry W. Allen, of the 4th Louisiana, with
Semmes's battery.  From right to left the order of attack ran,
Helm, Smith, Thompson, Allen.  Clark moved on the right of the
Greenwell Springs road, and Ruggles on the left.  Scott's cavalry
was posted on the extreme left, four guns of Semmes's battery
occupied the centre of Ruggles's division, while in Clark's centre
were the four guns of the Hudson battery and one of Cobb's; the
other two having been disabled in a panic during the night march
before the battle.  On the extreme right the Clinton road was
picketed and held by a detachment of infantry and rangers and the
remaining section of Semmes's battery.

To meet the expected attack, Williams had posted his troops in rear
of the arsenal and of the town, occupying an irregular line,
generally parallel to the Bayou Sara road, and extending from the
Bayou Grosse, on the left, to and beyond the intersection of the
Perkins and Clay Cut roads, on the right.  On the extreme left,
behind the Bayou Grosse, was the 4th Wisconsin, commanded by
Lieutenant-Colonel Bean.  Next, but on the left bank of the bayou,
stood the 9th Connecticut.  Next, and on the left of the Greenwell
Springs road, the 14th Maine.  On the right of that road was posted
the 21st Indiana, under Lieutenant-Colonel Keith, with three guns
attached to the regiment, under Lieutenant J. H. Brown.  Across
the Perkins and Clay Cut roads the 6th Michigan was formed, under
command of Captain Charles E. Clarke, while in the rear of the
interval between the 6th Michigan and the 21st Indiana stood the
7th Vermont.  The extreme right and rear were covered by the 30th
Massachusetts in column, supporting Nims's battery, under Lieutenant
Trull.  On the centre and left were planted the guns of Everett's
battery, under Carruth, and of Manning's 4th Massachusetts battery.

The left flank was supported by the _Essex_, Commander William D.
Porter; the _Cayuga_, Lieutenant Harrison; and the _Sumter_,
Lieutenant Erben; the right flank by the _Kineo_, Lieutenant-Commander
Ransom, and _Katahdin_, Lieutenant Roe.

These dispositions were planned expressly to meet the expected
attack by the ram _Arkansas_, and in that view the arrangement was
probably the best that the formation of the ground permitted.  But
the fighting line was very far advanced; the camps still farther;
the reserve on the right was posted quite a mile and a half behind
the capitol, and, as at Shiloh, no portion of the line was fortified
or protected in any way, though the field was an open plain and
the converging roads gave to the attacking party a wide choice of
position.

About daylight Breckinridge moved to the attack in a summer fog so
dense that those engaged could at first distinguish neither friend
nor enemy.  The blow fell first, and heavily, upon the centre and
right, held by the 14th Maine, 21st Indiana, and 6th Michigan.  As
our troops were pressed back by the vigor of the first onset, the
exposed camps of the 14th Maine, 7th Vermont, and 21st Indiana fell
into the hands of the Confederates.  The 9th Connecticut, with
Manning's battery, moved to the support of the 14th Maine and 21st
Indiana, on the right of the former, and the 4th Wisconsin formed
on the left of the 14th.  Further to the right, the 30th Massachusetts
advanced to the support of the 21st Indiana and 6th Michigan,
covering the interval between the two battalions to replace the
7th Vermont.  In the first fighting in the darkness and the fog
this regiment had been roughly handled; its colonel fell, a momentary
confusion followed, and the regiment drifted back into a convenient
position, where it was soon reformed, under Captain Porter.  Nims
brought his guns into battery on the right of the 6th Michigan.

The battle was short, but the fighting was severe; both sides
suffered heavily, and each fell into some disorder.  At different
moments both wings of the Confederate force were broken, and fell
back in something not very unlike panic.  The colors of the 4th
Louisiana were captured by the 6th Michigan.  As the fog lifted,
under the influence of the increasing heat, it became clear to both
sides that the attack had failed.  The force of the fierce Confederate
outset was quite spent.  The Union lines, however thinned and
shattered, remained in possession of the prize.  "It was now ten
o'clock," says Breckinridge.  "We had listened in vain for the guns
of the _Arkansas_: I saw around me not more than 1,000 exhausted
men."  The battle was over.  Indeed it had been over for some hours;
these words probably indicate the period when the Confederate
commander gave up his last hope.

The _Arkansas_, disabled within sight of the goal by an accident
to her machinery, was run ashore and destroyed by her commander to
save her from capture.  The Confederate losses were about 84 killed,
313 wounded, and 56 missing; total, 453.  Clark was severely wounded
and made prisoner.  Allen was killed, and two other brigade commanders
wounded.  Helm, Hunt, and Thompson had been previously disabled by
an accident during the night panic.

The Union losses were 84 killed, 266 wounded, and 33 missing; total,
383.  The heaviest loss fell upon the 21st Indiana, which suffered
126 casualties, and upon the 14th Maine, which reported 118.  Of
the killed, 36, or nearly one half, belonged to the 14th Maine,
while more than two thirds of the killed and nearly two thirds of
the total belonged to that regiment and the 21st Indiana.  The 4th
Wisconsin, being posted quite to the left of the point of attack,
was not engaged.

Colonel G. T. Roberts, of the 7th Vermont, fell early in the action,
and near its close Williams was instantly killed while urging his
men to the attack.  In him his little brigade lost the only commander
present of experience in war; the country, a brave and accomplished
soldier.  If he was, as must be confessed, arbitrary, at times
unreasonable, and often harsh, in his treatment of his untrained
volunteers, yet many who then thought his discipline too severe to
be endured, lived to know, and by their conduct vindicate, the
value of his training.

The Confederates appear to have suffered to some extent during the
last attack, until the lines drew too near together, from the fire
of the _Essex_ and her consorts.  Ransom also speaks of having
shelled the enemy with great effect during the afternoon from the
_Kineo_ and _Katahdin_, accurately directed by signals from the
capitol; but no other account even mentions any firing at that
period of the day; the effect cannot, therefore, have been severe,
and it seems probable that the troops against whom it was directed
may have been some outlying party.

Cahill's seniority entitled him to the command after Williams fell,
yet during the remainder of the battle Dudley seems to have commanded
the troops actually engaged.  Shortly after the close of the action
Cahill assumed the command and sent word to Butler of the state of
affairs.

The Confederates were still to be seen upon the field of battle.
Their force was naturally enough over-estimated.  Another attack
was expected during the afternoon, and reinforcements were urgently
called for.  Butler had none to give without putting New Orleans
itself in peril.  However, during the evening he determined to
release from arrest a number of officers who had been deprived of
their swords by Williams at various times, and for various causes,
mainly growing out of the confused and as yet rather unsettled
policy of the government in reference to the treatment of the
negroes, and to send all these officers to Baton Rouge.  Among them
were Colonel Paine of the 4th Wisconsin and Colonel Clark of the
6th Michigan.  Since the 11th of June Paine had been in arrest; an
arrest of a character peculiar and perhaps unprecedented in the
history of armies.  Whenever danger was to be faced, or unusual
duty to be performed, he might wear his sword and command his men,
but the moment the duty or the danger was at an end he must go back
into arrest.  Paine, who was an extremely conscientious officer,
as well as a man of high character and firmness of purpose, had
from the first taken strong ground against the use of any portion
of his force in aid of the claims of the master to the service of
the slave.  Williams, strict in his idea of obedience due his
superiors, not less than in his notions of obedience due to him by
his own inferiors in rank, stood upon his construction of the law
and the orders of the War Department, as they then existed; hence
in the natural course of events inevitably arose more than one
irreconcilable difference of opinion.  Paine was now ordered to go
at once to Baton Rouge and take command.  He was told by Butler to
burn the town and the capitol.  The library, the paintings, the
statuary, and the relics were to be spared, as well as the charitable
institutions of the town.  The books, the paintings, and the statue
of Washington, he was to send to New Orleans; he was then to evacuate
Baton Rouge and retire with his whole force to New Orleans.

At midnight on the 6th of August Paine arrived at Baton Rouge.
There he found every thing quiet, with the troops in camp on an
interior and shorter line, but expecting another attack.  There
was in fact an alarm before morning came, but nothing happened.
On the 7th Paine took command and set about putting the town in
complete condition for an effective defence.  With his accustomed
care and energy he soon rectified the lines and entrenched them
with twenty-four guns in position, and, in co-operation with the
navy, concerted every measure for an effective defence, even against
large numbers.

Breckinridge, however, after continuing to menace Baton Rouge for
some days, had, by Van Dorn's orders, retired to Port Hudson, and
was now engaged in fortifying that position.  Ruggles was sent
there on the 12th of August.  The next day Breckinridge received
orders from Van Dorn, then at Jackson, to follow with his whole
force.  "Port Hudson," Van Dorn said, "must be held if possible."
"Port Hudson," remarks Breckinridge, in his report of the battle
of Baton Rouge, "is one of the strongest points on the Mississippi,
which Baton Rouge is not, and batteries there will command the
river more completely than at Vicksburg."

Meanwhile Butler had changed his mind with regard to the evacuation
of Baton Rouge, and had directed Paine to hold the place for the
present.  With an accuracy unusual at this period, Butler estimated
Breckinridge's entire force at 5,000 men and fourteen guns.  On
the 13th the defences were complete, the entrenchments forming two
sides of a triangle of which the river was the base and the cemetery
mound the apex.  The troops stood to arms at three o'clock every
morning; one fourth of the force was constantly under arms, day
and night, at its station.  At two points on each face of the
entrenchment flags were planted by day and lights by night, to
indicate to the gunboats their line of fire.

On the 16th of August Butler renewed his orders to burn and evacuate
Baton Rouge.  Its retention up to this time he had avowedly regarded
as having political rather than military importance.  Now he wrote
to Paine:  "I am constrained to come to the conclusion that it is
necessary to evacuate Baton Rouge. . . . Begin the movement quietly
and rapidly; get every thing off except your men, and then see to
it that the town is destroyed.  After mature deliberation I deem
this a military necessity of the highest order."

Against these orders Paine made an earnest appeal, based upon
considerations partly humane, partly military.  He was so far
successful that Butler was induced to countermand the order to
burn.  The movement was not to be delayed on account of the statue
of Washington.  However, the statue had been already packed.  It
is now in the Patent Office at the national capital.  All the books
and paintings were brought off, "except," to quote from Paine's
diary, "the portrait of James Buchanan, which we left hanging in
the State House for his friends."  Finally, on the 20th, Paine
evacuated Baton Rouge, and on the following day reached the lines
of Carrollton, known as Camp Parapet, and turned over his command
to Phelps.


CHAPTER IV.
LA FOURCHE.

On the 22d of August Paine was assigned to the command of what was
called the "reserve brigade" of a division under Phelps.  The
brigade was composed of the 4th Wisconsin, 21st Indiana, and 14th
Maine, with Brown's battery attached to the Indiana regiment.
But this was not to last, for the tension that had long existed
between Phelps and the department commander, on the subject of the
treatment of the negroes, as well as on the question of arming
and employing them, finally resulted in Phelps's resignation on
the 21st of August.  On the 13th of September he was succeeded by
Brigadier-General Thomas W. Sherman, himself recently relieved
from command of the Department of the South, partly, perhaps, in
consequence of differences of opinion of a like character.

On the 29th of September the division, then known as Sherman's,
was reorganized, and Paine took command of the 1st brigade, composed
of the 4th Wisconsin, 21st Indiana, and 8th New Hampshire regiments
with the 1st and 2d Vermont batteries and Brown's guns of the 21st
Indiana.  Paine's command also included Camp Parapet.  These lines
had been originally laid out by the Confederates for the defence
of New Orleans against an attack by land from the north; as, for
example, by a force approaching through Lake Pontchartrain and Pass
Manchac.  They were now put in thorough order, and the Indianians,
who had received some artillery instruction during their term of
service at Fort McHenry, completed the foundation for the future
service as heavy artillerists by going back to the big guns.  In
October and November the 8th New Hampshire and 21st Indiana were
transferred to Weitzel's brigade and were replaced in Paine's by
the 2d Louisiana and temporarily by the 12th Maine.

The official reports covering this period afford several strong
hints of a Confederate plan for the recapture of New Orleans.  With
this object, apparently, Richard Taylor, a prominent and wealthy
Louisianian, closely allied to Jefferson Davis by his first marriage
with the daughter of Zachary Taylor, was made a major-general in
the Confederate army, and on the 1st of August was assigned to
command the Confederate forces in Western Louisiana.  It seems
likely that the troops of Van Dorn's department, as well as those
at Mobile, were expected to take part.

On the 8th of August orders were issued by the War Department
transferring the district of West Florida to the Department of the
Gulf.  West Florida meant Pensacola.  Fort Pickens, on the sands
of Santa Rosa, commanding the entrance to the splendid harbor, owed
to the loyalty of a few staunch officers of the army and the navy
the proud distinction of being the one spot between the Chesapeake
and the Rio Grande over which, in spite of all hostile attempts,
the ensign of the nation had never ceased to float; for the works
at Key West and the Dry Tortugas, though likewise held, were never
menaced.  Though Bragg early gathered a large force for the capture
of the fort, the only serious attempt, made in the dawn of the 9th
of October, 1861, was repulsed with a loss to the Confederates of
87, to the Union troops of 61.  Of these, the 6th New York had 9
killed, 7 wounded, 11 missing--in all, 27.  In December the 75th
New York came down from the North to reinforce the defenders.
Finally, after learning the fate of New Orleans, Bragg evacuated
Pensacola, and burned his surplus stores, and on the 10th of May,
1862, Porter, seeing from the passes the glare of the flames, ran
over and anchored in the bay.  The advantage thus gained was held
to the end.

This transfer gave Butler two strong infantry regiments, as well
as several fine batteries and companies of the regular artillery,
but at the same time correspondingly increased the territory he
had to guard, already far too extensive and too widely scattered
for the small force at his disposal.

Toward the end of September Lieutenant Godfrey Weitzel, of the
engineers, having been made a brigadier-general on Butler's
recommendation, a promotion more than usually justified by service
and talent, a brigade was formed for him called the Reserve Brigade,
and consisting of the 12th and 13th Connecticut, 75th New York,
and 8th New Hampshire, Carruth's 6th Massachusetts battery, Thompson's
1st Maine battery, Perkins's Troop C of the Massachusetts cavalry,
and three troops of Louisiana cavalry under Williamson.  From that
time, through all the changes, which were many and frequent,
Weitzel's brigade changed less than any thing else, and its history
may almost be said to be the military history of the Department.

Taylor, with his accustomed energy and enthusiasm, had collected
and organized a force, primarily for the defence of the La Fourche
country and the Teche, ultimately for the offensive operations
already planned.  Butler at once committed to Weitzel the preparations
for dislodging Taylor and occupying La Fourche.  This object was
important, not only to secure the defence of New Orleans, but
because the territory to be occupied comprised or controlled the
fertile region between the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya.  The
country lies low and flat, and is intersected by numerous navigable
bayous, with but narrow roadways along their banks and elsewhere
none.  Without naval assistance, the operation would have been
difficult, if not impossible; and the navy had in Louisiana no
gunboats of a draught light enough for the service.  With the funds
of the army Butler caused four light gunboats, the _Estrella,
Calhoun, Kinsman,_ and _Diana,_ to be quietly built and equipped,
the navy furnishing the officers and the crews.  Under Commander
McKean Buchanan they were then sent by the gulf to Berwick Bay.

When he was ready, Weitzel took transports, under convoy of the
_Kineo, Sciota, Katahdin,_ and _Itasca_, landed below Donaldsonville,
entered the town, and on the 27th of October moved on Thibodeaux,
the heart of the district.  At Georgia Landing, about two miles
above Labadieville, he encountered the Confederates under Mouton,
consisting of the 18th and 33d Louisiana, the Crescent and Terre
Bonne regiments, with Ralston's and Semmes's batteries and the 2d
Louisiana cavalry, in all reported by Mouton as 1,392 strong.  They
had taken up a defensive position on both sides of the bayou.
Along these bayous the standing room is for the most part narrow;
and as the land, although low, is in general heavily wooded and
crossed by many ditches of considerable depth, the country affords
defensive positions at once stronger and more numerous than are to
be found in most flat regions.  Small bodies of troops, familiar
with the topography, have also this further advantage, that there
are few points from which their position and numbers can be easily
made out.

After a short but spirited engagement Mouton's force was compelled
to retreat.  Weitzel pursued for about four miles.

Mouton then called in his outlying detachments, including the La
Fourche regiment, 500 strong, 300 men of the 33d Louisiana, and
the regiments of Saint Charles and St. John Baptist, burned the
railway station of Terre Bonne and the bridges at Thibodeaux, La
Fourche Crossing, Terre Bonne, Des Allemands, and Bayou Boeuf, and
evacuated the district.  By the 30th, every thing was safely across
Berwick Bay.  For this escape, he was indebted to an opportune gale
that compelled Buchanan's gunboats to lie to in Caillou Bay on
their way to Berwick Bay, to cut off the retreat.  Mouton's report
accounts for 5 killed, 8 wounded, and 186 missing; in all 199.
Among the killed was Colonel G. P. McPheeters of the Crescent
regiment.

Weitzel followed to Thibodeaux, and went into camp beyond the town.
He claims to have taken 208 prisoners and one gun, and states his
own losses as 18 killed, and 74 wounded, agreeing with the nominal
lists, which also contain the names of 5 missing, thus bringing
the total casualties to 97.

Arriving off Brashear a day too late, Buchanan was partly consoled
by capturing the Confederate gunboat _Seger_.  On the 4th and 5th
of November he made a reconnoissance fourteen miles up the Teche
with his own boat, the _Calhoun_, and the _Estrella, Kinsman, Saint
Mary's_, and _Diana_, and meeting a portion of Mouton's forces and
the Confederate gunboat _J. A. Cotton_, received and inflicted some
damage and slight losses, yet with no material result.

Simultaneously with Weitzel's movement on La Fourche, Butler pushed
the 8th Vermont and the newly organized 1st Louisiana Native Guards
forward from Algiers along the Opelousas Railway, to act in
conjunction with Weitzel and to open the railway as they advanced.
Weitzel had already turned the enemy out of his position, but the
task committed to Thomas was slow and hard, for all the bridges
and many culverts had to be rebuilt, and from long disuse of the
line the rank grass, that in Louisiana springs up so freely in
every untrodden spot above water, had grown so tall and thick and
strongly matted that the troops had to pull it up by the roots
before the locomotive could pass.

So ended operations in Louisiana for the year.  Until the following
spring, Taylor continued to occupy the Teche region, while Weitzel
rested quietly in La Fourche, with his headquarters at Thibodeaux
and his troops so disposed as to cover and hold the country without
losing touch.  On the 9th of November, the whole of Louisiana lying
west of the Mississippi, except the delta parishes of Plaquemine
and Terre Bonne, was constituted a military district to be known
as the District of La Fourche, and Weitzel was assigned to the
command.

Meanwhile General Butler, with the consent of the War Department,
had raised, organized, and equipped, in the neighborhood of New
Orleans, two good regiments of Louisianans, the 1st Louisiana, Colonel
Richard E. Holcomb, and the 2d Louisiana, Colonel Charles J. Paine,
both regiments admirably commanded and well officered; three
excellent troops of Louisiana cavalry, under fine leaders, Captains
Henry F. Williamson, Richard Barrett, and J. F. Godfrey; and beside
these white troops, three regiments of negroes, designated as the
1st, 2d, and 3d Louisiana Native Guards.  This was the name originally
employed by Governor Moore early in 1861, to describe an organization
of the free men of color of New Orleans enrolled for the defence
of the city against the expected attack by the forces of the Union.

This action was taken by Butler of his own motion.  It was never
formally approved by the government, but it was not interfered
with.  These three regiments were the first negro troops mustered
into the service of the United States.  At least one of them, the
1st, was largely made up of men of that peculiar and exclusive
caste known to the laws of slavery as the free men of color of
Louisiana.  All the field and staff officers were white men, mainly
taken from the rolls of the troops already in service; but at first
all the company officers were negroes.  As this was the first
experiment, it was perhaps, in the state of feeling then prevailing,
inevitable, yet not the less to be regretted, that the white officers
were, with some notable exceptions, inferior men.  Fortunately,
however, courts-martial and examining boards made their career for
the most part a short one.  As for the colored officers of the
line, early in 1863 they were nearly all disqualified on the most
rudimentary examination, and then the rest resigned.  After that,
the government having determined to raise a large force of negro
troops, it became the settled policy to grant commissions as officers
to none but white men.

The 1st and 2d regiments were sent into the district of La Fourche
to guard the railway.

Then, between Butler and Weitzel, in spite of confidence on the
one hand and respect and affection on the other, began the usual
controversy about arming the negro.  To one unacquainted with the
history of this question and of those times it must seem strange
indeed to read the emphatic words in which a soldier so loyal and,
in the best sense, so subordinate as Weitzel, declared his
unwillingness to command these troops, and to reflect that in a
little more than two years he was destined to accept with alacrity
the command of a whole army corps of black men, and at last to ride
in triumph at their head into the very capital of the Confederacy.

With the exception of the levies raised by its commander, the
Department of the Gulf had so far received no access of strength
from any quarter.  From the North had come hardly a recruit.  In
the intense heat and among the poisonous swamps the effective
strength melted away day by day.  Thus the numbers present fell
3,795 during the month of July; in October, when the sickly season
had done its worst, the wastage reached a total of 5,390.  At the
time of the battle of Baton Rouge, Butler's effective force can
hardly have exceeded 7,000.  When his strength was the greatest it
probably did not exceed, if indeed it reached, the number of 13,000
effective.  The condition of affairs was therefore such that Butler
found himself with an army barely sufficient for the secure defence
of the vast territory committed to his care, and for any offensive
operation absolutely powerless.  To hold what had been gained it
was practically necessary to sit still; and to sit still then, as
always in all wars, was to invite attack.

These things Butler did not fail to represent to the government,
and to repeat.  At last, about the middle of November, he received
a few encouraging words from Halleck, dated the 3d of that month,
in which he was assured that the "delay in sending reinforcements
has not been the fault of the War Department.  It is hoped that
some will be ready to start as soon as the November elections are
over.  Brigadier-generals will be sent with these reinforcements."
With them was to be a major-general, the new commander of the
department; but this Halleck did not say.


CHAPTER V.
BANKS IN COMMAND.

When the campaigns of 1862 were drawing to an end, the government
changed all the commanders and turned to the consideration of new
plans.  With President Lincoln, as we have seen, the opening of
the Mississippi had long been a favored scheme.  His early experience
had rendered him familiar with the waters, the shores, and the vast
traffic of the great river, and had brought home to him the common
interests and the mutual dependence of the farmers, the traders,
the miners, and the manufacturers of the States bordering upon the
upper Mississippi and the Ohio on the one hand, and of the merchants
and planters of the Gulf on the other.  Thus he was fully prepared
to enter warmly into the idea that had taken possession of the
minds and hearts of the people of the Northwest.  From a vague
longing this idea had now grown into a deep and settled sentiment.
Indeed in all the West the opening of the Mississippi played a part
that can only be realized by comparing it with the prevailing
sentiment of the East, so early, so long, so loudly expressed in
the cry, "On to Richmond!"

That the President should have been in complete accord with the
popular impulse is hardly to be wondered at by any one that has
followed, with the least attention, the details of his remarkable
career.  Moreover, the popular impulse was right.  Wars take their
character from the causes that produce them and the people or the
nations by whom they are waged.  This was not a contest upon some
petty question involving the fate of a ministry, a dynasty, or even
a monarchy, to be fought out between regular armies upon well-known
plans at the convergence of the roads between two opposing capitals.
The struggle was virtually one between two peoples hitherto united
as one,--between the people of the North, who had taken up arms
for the maintenance and the restoration of the Union, and the people
of the South, who had taken up arms to destroy the Union.  Of such
an issue there could be no compromise; to such a contest there
could be no end short of exhaustion.  For four long years it was
destined to go on, and at times to rage with a fury almost unexampled
along lines whose length was measured by the thousand miles and
over a battle-ground nearly as large as the continent of Europe.
Looked at merely from the standpoint of strategy, and discarding
all considerations not directly concerning the movements of armies,
true policy might, perhaps, have dictated the concentration of all
available resources in men and material upon the great central
lines of operations, roughly indicated by the mention of Chattanooga
and Atlanta,--the road eventually followed by Sherman in his
triumphant march to the sea.  Apart, however, from considerations
strictly tactical, the importance of cutting off the trans-Mississippi
region as a source of supply for the main Confederate armies was
obvious; while from the governments of Europe, of England and France
above all, the pressure was great for cotton, partly, indeed, as
a pretext for interfering in our domestic struggle to their own
advantage, but largely, also, to enable those governments to quiet
the cry of the starving millions of their people.

Instructed, as well as warned, by the events of the previous summer,
the President now resolved on a combined attempt by two strong
columns.  On the 21st of October he sent Major-General John A.
McClernand to Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, with confidential orders,
authorizing him to raise troops for an expedition, under his command,
to move against Vicksburg from Cairo or Memphis as a place of
rendezvous, and "to clear the Mississippi River and open navigation
to New Orleans."  Perhaps because of the confidence still felt in
Grant by the President himself, although within narrowing limits,
Grant was not to share the fate of McClellan, of Buell, and of so
many others.  The secret orders were not made known to him, yet it
was settled that he was to retain the command of his department,
while the principal active operations of the army within its limits
were to be conducted by another.  Even for this consideration it
is rather more than likely he was indebted in a great degree to
the exceptional advantage he enjoyed in having at all times at the
seat of government, in the person of Washburne, a strong and devoted
party of one, upon whose assistance the government daily found it
convenient to lean.

A few days later, on the 31st of October, Major-General Nathaniel
P. Banks was sent to New York and Boston, with similar orders, to
collect in New England and New York a force for the co-operating
column from New Orleans.  On the 8th of November this was followed
by the formal order of the President assigning Banks to the command
of the Department of the Gulf, including the State of Texas.

This assignment was wholly unexpected by Banks.  It was, indeed,
unsought and unsolicited, and the first offer, from the President
himself, came as a surprise.  At the close of Pope's campaign, when
the reorganized Army of the Potomac, once more under McClellan,
was in march to meet Lee in Maryland, Banks had been forced, by
injuries received at Cedar Mountain, to give up the command of the
Twelfth Army Corps to the senior division commander, Brigadier-General
A. S. Williams.  As soon as this was reported at headquarters,
McClellan created a new organization under the name of the "Defences
of Washington," and placed Banks in command.

For some time after this Banks was unable to leave his room; yet,
within forty-eight hours, a mob of thirty thousand wounded men and
convalescents, who knew not where to go, and of stragglers, who
meant not to go where they were wanted, was cleared out of the
streets of Washington, and pandemonium was at an end.  Order was
rather created than restored, since none had existed in any direction.
The Fifth Corps was sent to join the army in the field; within a
fortnight, a full army corps of able-bodied stragglers followed;
the fortifications were completed; ample garrisons of instructed
artillerists were provided.  These became "the Heavies" of Grant's
campaigns.  Almost another full army corps was organized from the
new regiments.  Finally the whole force of the defences, about
equal in numbers to Lee's army, was so disposed that Washington
was absolutely secure.  The dispositions for the defence of the
capital and the daily operations of the command were clearly and
constantly made known to the President and Secretary of War as well
as to the General-in-chief.  Thus it was that, less than two months
later, in the closing days of October, President Lincoln sent for
Banks and said:  "You have let me sleep in peace for the first time
since I came here.  I want you to go to Louisiana and do the same
thing there."

On the 9th of November Halleck communicated to Banks the orders of
the President to proceed immediately to New Orleans with the troops
from Baltimore and elsewhere, under Emory, already assembling in
transports at Fort Monroe.  An additional force of ten thousand
men, he was told, would be sent to him from Boston and New York as
soon as possible.  Though this order was never formally revoked or
modified, yet in fact it was from the first a dead letter, and
Banks, who received it in New York, remained there to complete the
organization and to look after the collection and transport of the
additional force mentioned in Halleck's instructions.  Including
the eight regiments of Emory, but not counting four regiments of
infantry and five battalions of cavalry diverted to other fields,
the reinforcements for the Department of the Gulf finally included
thirty-nine regiments of infantry, six batteries of artillery, and
one battalion of cavalry.  Of the infantry twenty-one regiments
were composed of officers and men enlisted to serve for nine months.
Even of this brief period many weeks had, in some cases, already
elapsed.  To command the brigades and divisions, when organized,
Major-General Christopher C. Auger, and Brigadier-Generals Cuvier
Grover, William Dwight, George L. Andrews, and James Bowen were
ordered to report to Banks.

The work of chartering the immense fleet required to transport this
force, with its material of all kinds, was confided by the government
to Cornelius Vanderbilt, possibly in recognition of his recent
princely gift to the nation of the finest steamship of his fleet,
bearing his own name.  This service Vanderbilt performed with his
usual vigor, "laying hands," as he said, "upon every thing that
could float or steam," including, it must be added, more than one
vessel to which it would have been rash to ascribe either of these
qualities.

Before the embarkation each vessel was carefully inspected by a
board of officers, usually composed of the inspector-general or an
officer of his department, an experienced quartermaster, and an
officer of rank and intelligence, who was himself to sail on the
vessel.  This last was a new, but, as soon appeared, a very necessary
precaution.  When every thing was nearly ready the embarkation
began at New York, and as each vessel was loaded she was sent to
sea with sealed orders directing her master and the commanding
officer of the troops to make the best of their way to Ship Island,
and there await the further instructions of the general commanding.
Ship Island was chosen for the place of meeting because of the
great draught of water of some of the vessels.  At the same time
Emory's force, embarking at Hampton Roads, set out under convoy of
the man-of-war _Augusta_, Commander E. G. Parrott, for the same
destination with similar orders.

For three months the _Florida_ had lain at anchor in the harbor at
Mobile, only waiting for a good opportunity to enter upon her
historic career of destruction.  Since the 20th of August the
_Alabama_ was known to have been scourging our commerce in the
North Atlantic from the Azores to the Antilles.  On the 5th of
December she took a prize off the northern coast of San Domingo.
Relying on the information with which he was freely furnished,
Semmes expected to find the expedition off Galveston about the
middle of January.  In the dead of night, "after the midwatch was
set and all was quiet," he meant, in the words of his executive
officer,(1) slowly to approach the transports, "steam among them
with both batteries in action, pouring in a continuous discharge
of shell, and sink them as we went."  Fortunately Semmes's information,
though profuse and precise, was not quite accurate, for it brought
him off Galveston on the 13th of January:  the wrong port, a month
too late.  What might have happened is shown by the ease with which
he then destroyed the _Hatteras_.

To guard against these dangers, it had been the wish of the
government, and was a part of the original plan, that the transports
sailing from New York should be formed in a single fleet and proceed,
under strong convoy, to its destination.  However, it soon became
evident that as the rate of sailing of a fleet is governed by that
of its slowest ship, the expedition, thus organized, would be forced
to crawl along the coast at a speed hardly greater than five miles
an hour.  This would not only have exposed three ships out of five,
and five regiments out of six, for at least twice the necessary
time to the perils of the sea, increased by having to follow an
inshore track at this inclement season; it would not only have
introduced chances of detention and risks of collision and of
separation, but the peril from the _Alabama_ would have been
augmented in far greater degree than the security afforded by any
naval force the government could just then spare.  Therefore, the
slow ships were loaded and sent off first and the faster ones kept
back to the last; then, each making the best of its way to Ship
Island, nearly all came in together.  Thus, when the _North Star_,
bearing the flag of the commanding general and sailing from New
York on the 4th of December, arrived in the early morning of the
13th at Ship Island, nearly the whole fleet lay at anchor or in
the offing; and as soon as a hasty inspection could be completed
and fresh orders given, the expedition got under way for New Orleans.
The larger vessels, however, like the _Atlantic, Baltic_, and
_Ericsson_ being unable to cross the bar, lay at anchor at Ship
Island until they could be lightened.

Truly grand as was the spectacle afforded by the black hulls and
white sails of this great concourse of ships at anchor, in the
broad roadstead, yet a grander sight still was reserved for the
next day, a lovely Sunday, as all these steamers in line ahead,
the _North Star_ leading, flags flying, bands playing, the decks
blue with the soldiers of the Union, majestically made their way
up the Mississippi.  Most of those on board looked for the first
time, with mingled emotions, over the pleasant lowlands of Louisiana,
and all were amused at the mad antics of the pageant-loving negroes,
crowding and capering on the levee as plantation after plantation
was passed.  So closely had the secret been kept that, until the
transports got under way from Ship Island for the purpose, probably
not more than three or four officers, if so many, of all the force
really knew its destination.  Nor was it until the two generals
met at New Orleans that Butler learned that Banks was to relieve
him.

On the 15th of December Banks took the command of the Department
of the Gulf, although the formal orders were not issued until the
17th.  The officers of the department, as well as of the personal
staff of General Butler, were relieved from duty and permitted to
accompany him to the North.  The new staff of the department included
Lieutenant-Colonel Richard B. Irwin, Assistant Adjutant-General;
Lieutenant-Colonel William S. Abert, Assistant Inspector-General;
Major G. Norman Lieber, Judge-Advocate; Colonel Samuel B. Holabird,
Chief Quartermaster; Colonel Edward G. Beckwith, Chief Commissary
of Subsistence; Surgeon Richard H. Alexander, Medical Director;
Major David C. Houston, Chief Engineer; Captain Henry L. Abbot,
Chief of Topographical Engineers; First-Lieutenant Richard M. Hill,
Chief of Ordnance; Captain Richard Arnold, Chief of Artillery;
Captain William W. Rowley, Chief Signal Officer.

Banks's orders from the government were to go up the Mississippi
and open the river, in co-operation with McClernand's expedition
against Vicksburg.  "As the ranking general of the Southwest,"
Halleck's orders proceeded, "you are authorized to assume control
of any military forces from the upper Mississippi which may come
within your command.  The line of the division between your department
and that of Major-General Grant is, therefore, left undecided for
the present, and you will exercise superior authority as far north
as you may ascend the river.  The President regards the opening of
the Mississippi river as the first and most important of all our
military and naval operations, and it is hoped that you will not
lose a moment in accomplishing it."

Immediately on assuming command Banks ordered Grover to take all
the troops that were in condition for service at once to Baton
Rouge, under the protection of the fleet, and there disembark and
go into camp.  Augur was specially charged with the arrangements
for the despatch of the troops from New Orleans.  Before starting
they were carefully inspected, and all that were found to be affected
with disease of a contagious or infectious character were sent
ashore and isolated.

On the morning of the 16th the advance of Grover's expedition got
under way, under convoy of a detachment of Farragut's fleet, led
by Alden in the _Richmond_.  Grover took with him about 4,500 men,
but when all were assembled at Baton Rouge there were twelve
regiments, three batteries, and two troops of cavalry.  The
Confederates, who were in very small force, promptly evacuated
Baton Rouge, and Grover landed and occupied the place on the 17th
of December.  After sending off the last of the troops, Augur went
up and took command.  The lines constructed by Paine in August were
occupied and strengthened, and all arrangements promptly made for
the defence in view of an attack, such as might not unnaturally be
looked for from Port Hudson, whose garrison then numbered more than
12,000 effectives.  The two places are but a long day's march apart.
Since the occupation in August, the Confederate forces at Port
Hudson had been commanded by Brigadier-General William N. R. Beall.
On the 28th of December, however, he was relieved by Major-General
Frank Gardner, who retained the command thenceforward until the
end.  While the war lasted, Baton Rouge continued to be held by
the Union forces without opposition or even serious menace.

An attempt to occupy Galveston was less fortunate.  This movement
was ordered by Banks a few days after his arrival at New Orleans,
apparently under the pressure of continued importunity from Andrew
J. Hamilton, and in furtherance of the policy that had led the
government to send him with the expedition, nominally as a
brigadier-general, but under a special commission from the President
that named him as military governor of Texas.  On the 21st of
December, three companies, D, G, and I, of the 42d Massachusetts,
under Colonel Isaac S. Burrell, were sent from New Orleans without
disembarking from the little _Saxon_, on which they had made the
journey from New York.  With them went Holcomb's 2d Vermont battery,
leaving their horses to follow ten days later on the _Cambria_,
with the horses and men of troops A and B of the Texas cavalry.
Protected by the flotilla under Commander W. B. Renshaw, comprising
his own vessel, the _Westfield_, the gunboats _Harriet Lane_,
Commander J. M. Wainwright; _Clifton_, Commander Richard L. Law;
_Owasco_, Lieutenant Henry Wilson; and _Sachem_, Acting-Master Amos
Johnson; and the schooner _Corypheus_, Acting-Master Spears, Burrell
landed unopposed at Kuhn's Wharf on the 24th, and took nominal
possession of the town in accordance with his instructions.  These
were indeed rather vague, as befitted the shadowy nature of the
objects to be accomplished.  "The situation of the people of
Galveston," wrote General Banks, "makes it expedient to send a
small force there for the purpose of their protection, and also to
afford such facilities as may be possible for recruiting soldiers
for the military service of the United States."  Burrell was
cautioned not to involve himself in such difficulty as to endanger
the safety of his command, and it was rather broadly hinted that
he was not to take orders from General Hamilton.  In reality,
Burrell's small force occupied only the long wharf, protected by
barricades at the shore end, and seaward by the thirty-two guns of
the fleet, lying at anchor within 300 yards.

Magruder, who had been barely a month in command of the Confederate
forces in Texas, had given his first attention to the defenceless
condition of the coast, menaced as it was by the blockading fleet,
and thus it happened that Burrell's three companies, performing
their maiden service on picket between wind and water, found
themselves confronted by the two brigades of Scurry and Sibley,
Cook's regiment of heavy artillery, and Wilson's light battery,
with twenty-eight guns, and two armed steamboats, having their
vulnerable parts protected by cotton bales.

Long before dawn on the 1st of January, 1863, under cover of a
heavy artillery fire, the position of the 42d Massachusetts was
assaulted by two storming parties of 300 and 500 men respectively,
led by Colonels Green, Bagby, and Cook, the remainder of the troops
being formed under Scurry in support.  A brisk fight followed, but
the defenders had the concentrated fire of the fleet to protect
them; the scaling ladders proved too short to reach the wharf, and
as day began to break, the baffled assailants were about to draw
off, when, suddenly, the Confederate gunboats appeared on the scene
and in a few moments turned the defeat into a signal victory.  The
_Neptune_ was disabled and sunk by the _Harriet Lane_, the _Harriet
Lane_ was boarded and captured by the _Bayou City_, the _Westfield_
ran aground and was blown up by her gallant commander, and soon
the white flag floated from the masts of all the Union fleet.
Wainwright and Wilson had been killed; Renshaw, with his executive
officer, Zimmermann, and his chief engineer, Green, had perished
with the ship.  The survivors were given three hours to consider
terms.

When Burrell saw the flag of truce from the fleet, he too showed
the white flag and surrendered to the commander of the Confederate
troops.  The Confederates ceased firing on him as soon as they
perceived his signal, but the navy, observing that the fire on
shore went on for some time, notwithstanding the naval truce,
thought it had been violated; accordingly the _Clifton, Owasco,
Sachem_, and _Corypheus_ put out to sea, preceded by the army
transport steamers _Saxon_ and _Mary A. Boardman_.  On the latter
vessel were the military governor of Texas, with his staff, and
the men and guns of Holcomb's battery.

The Confederates lost 26 killed and 117 wounded; the Union troops
5 killed and 15 wounded, and all the survivors (probably about 250
in number) were made prisoners save the adjutant, Lieutenant Charles
A. Davis, who had been sent off to communicate with the fleet.
The navy lost 29 killed, 31 wounded, and 92 captured.  So ended
this inauspicious New Year's day.

The transports made the best of their way to New Orleans with the
news.  The _Cambria_, with the Texas cavalry and the horses of the
2d Vermont battery, arrived in the offing on the evening of the 2d
of January.  For two days a strong wind and high sea rendered
fruitless all efforts to communicate with the shore; then learning
the truth, the troops at once returned to New Orleans.

Orders had been left with the guard ship at Pilot Town to send the
transport steamers, _Charles Osgood_ and _Shetucket_, with the
remainder of the 42d, directly to Galveston.  It was now necessary
to change these orders, and to do it promptly.  The bad news reached
headquarters early in the afternoon of the 3d January:  "Stop every
thing going to Galveston," was at once telegraphed to the Pass.

(1) "Cruise and Combats of the _Alabama_," by her Executive Officer,
John Mackintosh Kell.--"Century War Book," vol. iv., p. 603.


CHAPTER VI.
ORGANIZING THE CORPS.

Meanwhile the new troops continued to come from New York, although
it was not until the 11th of February that the last detachments
landed.  The work of organizing the whole available force of the
department for the task before it was pursued with vigor.  In order
to form the moving column, as well as for the purposes of
administration, so that the one might not interfere with the other,
the main body of troops was composed of four divisions of three
brigades each.  The garrisons of the defences and the permanent
details for guard and provost duty were kept separate.  While this
was in progress orders came from the War Office dated the 5th of
January, 1863, by which all the forces in the Department of the
Gulf were designated as the Nineteenth Army Corps, to take effect
December 14, 1862, and Banks was named by the President as the
corps commander.

To Augur was assigned the First division, to Sherman the Second,
to Emory the Third, and to Grover the Fourth.  Weitzel, retaining
his old brigade, became the second in command in Augur's division.
In making up the brigades the regiments were so selected and combined
as to mingle the veterans with the raw levies, and to furnish, in
right of seniority, the more capable and experienced of the colonels
as brigade commanders.  Andrews, who had been left in New York to
bring up the rear of the expedition, became Chief-of-Staff on the
6th of March, and Bowen was made Provost-Marshal General.

To each division three batteries of artillery were given, including
at least one battery belonging to the regular army, thus furnishing,
except for the second division, an experienced regular officer as
chief of artillery of the division.  The cavalry was kept, for the
most part, unattached, mainly serving in La Fourche, at Baton Rouge,
and with the moving column.  The 21st Indiana, changed into the
1st Indiana heavy artillery, was told off to man the siege train,
for which duty it was admirably suited.  When all had joined, the
whole force available for active operations that should not uncover
New Orleans was about 25,000.  Two thirds, however, were new levies,
and of these half were nine months' men.  Some were armed with guns
that refused to go off.  Others did not know the simplest evolutions.
In one instance, afterwards handsomely redeemed, the colonel, having
to disembark his men, could think of no way save by the novel
command, "Break ranks, boys, and get ashore the best way you can."
The cavalry, except the six old companies, was poor and quite
insufficient in numbers.  Of land and water transportation, both
indispensable to any possible operation, there was barely enough
for the movement of a single division.  In Washington, Banks had
been led to expect that he might count on the depots or the country
for all the material required for moving his army; yet Butler found
New Orleans on the brink of starvation; the people had now to be
fed, as well as the army, and the provisions that formerly came
from the West by the great river had now to find their way from
the North by the Atlantic and the Gulf.  The depots were calculated,
and barely sufficed, for the old force of the department, while
the country could furnish very little at best, and nothing at all
until it should be occupied.

Again, until he reached his post, Banks was not informed that the
Confederates were in force anywhere on the river save Vicksburg,
yet, in fact, Port Hudson, 250 miles below Vicksburg and 135 miles
above New Orleans, was found strongly intrenched with twenty-nine
heavy guns in position and garrisoned by 12,000 men.  Long before
Banks could have assembled and set in motion a force sufficient to
cope with this enemy behind earthworks, the 12,000 became 16,000.
Moreover, Banks was not in communication either with Grant or with
McClernand; he knew next to nothing of the operations, the movements,
or the plans of either; he had not the least idea when the expedition
would be ready to move from Memphis; he was even uncertain who the
commander of the Northern column was to be.  On their part, not
only were Grant, the department commander; McClernand, the designated
commander of the Vicksburg expedition; and Sherman, its actual
commander, alike ignorant of every thing pertaining to the movements
of the column from the Gulf, but, at the most critical period of
the campaign, not one of the three was in communication with either
of the others.  Under these conditions, all concert between the
co-operating forces was rendered impossible from the start, and the
expectations of the government that Banks would go against Vicksburg
immediately on landing in Louisiana were doomed to sharp and sudden,
yet inevitable, disappointment.

Grant, believing himself free to dispose of McClernand's new levies,
had projected a combined movement by his own forces, marching by
Grand Junction, and Sherman's, moving by water from Memphis, on
the front and rear of Vicksburg.

Sherman set out from Memphis on the 20th of December in complete
ignorance of Halleck's telegram of the 18th, conveying the President's
positive order that McClernand was to command the expedition.
Forrest cut the wires on the morning of the 19th just in time to
intercept this telegram, as well as its counterpart, addressed to
McClernand at Springfield, Illinois.  On the 29th of December,
Sherman met with the bloody repulse of Chickasaw Bluffs.  On the
2d of January he returned to the mouth of the Yazoo, and there
found McClernand armed with the bowstring and the baton.

Where was Grant?  While his main body was still at Oxford, in march
to the Yallabusha, Forrest, the ubiquitous, irrepressible Forrest,
struck his line of communications, and, on the 20th of December,
at the instant when Sherman was giving the signal to get under way
from Memphis, Van Dorn was receiving the surrender of Holly Springs
and the keys of Grant's depots.  There seemed nothing for it but
to fall back on Memphis or starve.  Of this state of affairs Grant
sent word to Sherman on the 20th.  Eleven days later the despatch
was telegraphed to Sherman by McClernand; nor was it until the 8th
of January that Grant, at Holly Springs, learned from Washington
the bad news from Sherman, then ten days old.  As if to complete
a very cat's-cradle of cross-purposes, Washington had heard of it
only through the Richmond newspapers.

The collapse of the northern column, coupled with the Confederate
occupation of Port Hudson, had completely changed the nature of
the problem confided to Banks for solution.  If he was to execute
the letter of his instructions at all, he had now to choose between
three courses, each involving an impossibility:  to carry by assault
a strong line of works, three miles long, defended by 16,000 good
troops; to lay siege to the place, with the certainty that it would
be relieved from Mississippi, and with the reasonable prospect of
losing at least his siege train in the venture; to leave Port Hudson
in his rear and go against Vicksburg, upon the supposition, in the
last degree improbable, that he might find Grant, or McClernand,
or Sherman there to meet him and furnish him with food and ammunition.
This last alternative appears to have been the one towards which
the government leaned, as far as its intentions can be gathered,
yet Banks could only have accepted it by sacrificing his communications,
putting New Orleans in imminent peril, and creating irreparable
and almost inevitable disaster as a price of a remote chance of
achieving a great success.  In point of fact, in the early days of
January, McClernand, accompanied by Sherman as a corps commander,
was moving toward the White River and the brilliant adventure of
Arkansas Post.  After capturing this place on the 11th, McClernand
meant to go straight to Little Rock, but Grant rose to the occasion
and peremptorily recalled the troops to Milliken's Bend.  "This
wild-goose chase," as Grant not inaptly termed it, cost McClernand
his new-fledged honors as commander of "The Army of the Mississippi,"
and brought him to Sherman's side as a commander of one of his own
corps; a bitter draught of the same medicine he had so recently
administered to Sherman.

Had Banks marched against Vicksburg at the same time that McClernand
was moving on Little Rock, with Grant cut off somewhere in northern
Mississippi, the Confederate commanders must have been dull and
slow indeed had they failed to seize with promptitude so rare an
opportunity for resuming, at a sweep, the complete mastery of the
river, ruining their adversary's campaign, and eliminating 100,000
of his soldiers.

Thus, almost at the first step, the two great expeditions were
brought to a standstill.  They could neither act together nor
advance separately.  The generals began to look about them for a
new way.


CHAPTER VII.
MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

Since Port Hudson could neither be successfully attacked nor safely
disregarded, the problem now presented to Banks was to find a way
around the obstacle without sacrificing or putting in peril his
communications.  The Atchafalaya was the key to the puzzle, and to
that quarter attention was early directed, yet for a long time the
difficulties encountered in finding a way to the Atchafalaya seemed
well-nigh insuperable.  The rising waters were expected to render
the largest of the bayous that connect the Atchafalaya and the
Mississippi navigable for steamboats of small size and light draught.
Of these there were, indeed, but few, so that the work of transporting
troops from the one line to the other must have been, at the best,
slow and tedious, yet, once accomplished, the army would have found
itself, with the help of the navy, above and beyond Port Hudson,
with a sufficient line of communications open to the rear, and the
Mississippi and the Red River closed against the enemy.

The Confederates had in Western Louisiana, near the mouth of the
Teche, a small division of Taylor's troops, about 4,500 strong,
with one gunboat.  At first Banks thought to leave a brigade, with
two or three light-draught gunboats, on Berwick Bay to observe
Taylor's force, and then to disregard it as a factor in the subsequent
movements.  This, while the Atchafalaya was high and the eastern
lowlands of the Attakapas widely overflowed, might have been safely
done, but all these plans were destined to be essentially modified
by a series of unexpected events in widely different quarters.

In the second week of January, Weitzel heard that Taylor meditated
an attack on the outlying force at Berwick Bay, and that with this
view the armament of the gunboat _Cotton_ was being largely augmented.
Weitzel resolved to strike the first blow.  For this purpose he
concentrated his whole force of seven regiments, including four of
his own brigade, besides the 21st Indiana, 6th Michigan, and 23d
Connecticut, with Carruth's and Thompson's batteries, four pieces
of Bainbridge's battery, Barrett's Troop B of the Louisiana cavalry,
and Company B of the 8th New Hampshire, commanded by Lieutenant
Charles H. Camp.  The 1st Louisiana held Donaldsonville and the
114th New York guarded the railway.  To open the way, as well as
to meet the fire of the _Cotton_, there were four gunboats of the
light-draught flotilla under Buchanan--the flagship _Calhoun,
Estrella, Kinsman,_ and _Diana_.

At three o'clock on the morning of the 13th of January the crossing
of Berwick Bay began; by half-past ten the gunboats had completed
the ferriage of the cavalry and artillery; the infantry following
landed at Pattersonville; then the whole force formed in line and,
moving forward in the afternoon to the junction of the Teche with
the Atchafalaya, went into bivouac.  The next morning began the
ascent of the Teche.  The 8th Vermont was thrown over to the east
or left bank of the bayou, while the main line moved forward on
the west bank to attack the _Cotton_, now in plain sight.  The
gunboats led the movement, necessarily in line ahead, owing to the
narrowness of the bayou.  On either bank Weitzel's line of battle,
with skirmishers thrown well forward, was preceded by sixty volunteers
from the 8th Vermont and the same number from the 75th New York,
whose orders were to move directly up to the _Cotton_ and pick off
her gunners.  The line of battle moved forward steadily with the
column of gunboats.  Between the Union gunboats and the _Cotton_
the bayou had been obstructed so as to prevent any hostile vessel
from ascending the stream beyond that point.  A brisk fight followed.
Under cover of the guns of the navy and of the raking and broadside
fire of the batteries, the 8th Vermont and 75th New York first
drove off the land supports and then moving swiftly on the _Cotton_
silenced her.  In this advance the Vermonters captured one lieutenant
and forty-one men.  The _Cotton_ retreated out of range.  That
night her crew applied the match and let her swing across the bayou
to serve as an additional obstruction.  In a few moments she was
completely destroyed.

Then, having thus easily gained his object, Weitzel returned to La
Fourche.  His losses in the movement were 1 officer and 5 men
killed, and 2 officers and 25 men wounded.  Lieutenant James E.
Whiteside, of the 75th New York, who had volunteered to lead the
sharpshooters on the right bank, was killed close to the _Cotton_,
in the act of ordering the crew to haul down her flag.  Among the
killed, also, was the gallant Buchanan--a serious loss, not less
to the army than to the navy.

During a lull in the naval operations above Vicksburg, occasioned
by the want of coal, eleven steamboats that had been in use by the
Confederates on the Mississippi between Vicksburg and Port Hudson,
took advantage of Porter's absence to slip up the Yazoo for supplies.
There Porter's return caught them as in a trap.

Toward the end of January Grant landed on the long neck opposite
Vicksburg, and once more set to work on the canal.  Porter now
determined to let a detachment of his fleet run the gauntlet of
the batteries of Vicksburg for the purpose of destroying every
thing the Confederates had afloat below the town.  The ran _Queen
of the West_, Colonel Charles R. Ellet, protected by two tiers of
cotton bales, was told off to lead the adventure.  On the 2d of
February she performed the feat; then passing on down the river,
on the 3d, ran fifteen miles below the mouth of the Red River, and
the same distance up that stream, took and burned three Confederate
supply steamboats, and got safely back to Vicksburg on the 5th.
Porter was naturally jubilant, for, as it seemed, the mastery of
the great river had been the swift reward of his enterprise.

A week later Ellet again ran down the Mississippi and up the Red,
burning and destroying until, pushing his success too far, he found
himself under the guns of Fort De Russy.  A few shots sufficed to
disable the _Queen of the West_, which fell into the hands of the
Confederates, while Ellet and his men escaped in one of their
captures.

Below Natchez they met the _Indianola_ coming down the river, after
safely passing Vicksburg.  On the 24th the Confederate gunboat
_Webb_, and the ram _Queen of the West_, now also flying the
Confederate colors, came after the _Indianola_, attacked her off
Palmyra Island, and sank her.  Thus, as suddenly as it had gone
from them, the control of the long reach of the Mississippi once
more passed over to the Confederates.

At this news Farragut took fire.  Between him and the impudent
little Confederate flotilla, whose easy triumph had suddenly laid
low the hopes and plans of his brother admiral, there stood nothing
save the guns of Port Hudson.  These batteries he would pass, and
for the fourth time, yet not the last, would look the miles of
Confederate cannon in the mouth.  Banks, whose movements were
retarded and to some extent held in abeyance, from the causes
already mentioned, promptly fell in with the Admiral's plans, and
both commanders conferring freely, the details were soon arranged.


CHAPTER VIII.
FARRAGUT PASSES PORT HUDSON.

While Farragut was putting his fleet in thorough order for this
adventure, looking after all needful arrangements with minute
personal care, Banks concentrated all his disposable force at Baton
Rouge.  By the 7th of March, leaving T. W. Sherman to cover New
Orleans and Weitzel to hold strongly La Fourche, Banks had a marching
column, composed of Augur's, Emory's, and Grover's divisions, 15,000
strong.  On the 9th of March tents were struck, to be pitched no
more for five hard months, and the next morning the troops were
ready, but repairs delayed the fleet, the last vessels of which
did not reach Baton Rouge until about the 12th.  On that day, for
the first time, Banks reviewed his army, on the old battle-ground,
in the presence of the admiral, his staff, and many officers of
the fleet.  The new regiments, with some exceptions, showed plainly
the progress already attained under the energetic training and
constant work of their officers.  The degree of instruction and
care then apparent forecast the value of their actual service.
The 38th Massachusetts and 116th New York were specially commended
in orders.

To hold Baton Rouge about 3,000 men were detached, under Chickering,
including the 41st Massachusetts, 173d New York, 175th New York,
1st Indiana heavy artillery, 3d Louisiana native guards, Mack's
battery, and Troop F of the Rhode Island cavalry.

All arrangements being concerted for the passage of the batteries
on the evening of the 14th of March, Grover set out on the afternoon
of the 13th, followed, at daybreak the next morning, by Emory, with
Augur bringing up the rear.  In the afternoon Grover went into
camp, covering the intersection of the Bayou Sara road and the road
that leads from it toward the river.  Emory formed on his left,
covering the branches of this road that lead to Springfield Landing
and to Ross Landing, his main body supporting the centre at
Alexander's plantation.  Augur, on the right, held the cross-road
that leads from the Bayou Sara road by Alexander's to the Clinton
road at Vallandigham's.  At two o'clock in the afternoon the signal
officers opened communication from Springfield Landing with the
fleet at anchor near the head of Prophet Island, and a strong
detachment was posted near the landing to maintain the connection.

As the Confederates were known to have a force of about 1,200
cavalry somewhere between Clinton and Baton Rouge, strong detachments
became necessary to observe all the approaches and to hold the
roads and bridges in the rear in order to secure the withdrawal of
the army when the demonstration should be completed, as well as to
guard the operation from being inopportunely interrupted.  These
dispositions reduced the force for battle to about 12,000.

It had been intended to concentrate nearly all the artillery near
the river in the vicinity of Ross Landing in such a manner as to
engage, or at least divide, the attention of the lower batteries
of Port Hudson; but the maps were even more imperfect than usual,
and when a reconnoissance, naturally retarded by the enemy's advance
guard, showed that the road by which the guns were to have gone
into position did not exist, the daylight was already waning.  A
broken bridge also caused some delay.

At five o'clock in the afternoon Banks received a despatch from
Farragut announcing an important change in the hour fixed for the
movement of the fleet.  Instead of making the attempt "in the gray
of the morning," as had been the admiral's first plan, he now meant
to get under way at eight o'clock in the evening.  When darkness
fell, therefore, it found the troops substantially in the positions
already described, yet with their outposts well thrown forward.

About ten o'clock the fleet weighed anchor and moved up the river.
The flagship _Hartford_ took the lead, with the _Albatross_ lashed
to her port side, next the _Richmond_ with the _Genesee_, the
_Monongahela_ with the _Kineo_, and last the side-wheeler _Mississippi_
alone.  The _Essex_ and _Sachem_ remained at anchor below, with
the mortar boats, to cover the advance.  An hour later a rocket
shot up from the bluff and instantly the Confederate batteries
opened fire.  They were soon joined by long lines of sharpshooters.
To avoid the shoal that makes out widely from the western bank, as
well as to escape the worst of the enemy's fire, both of musketry
and artillery, the ships hugged closely the eastern bluff; so
closely, indeed, that the yards brushed the leaves from the
overhanging trees and the voices of men on shore could be distinctly
heard by those on board.  Watch-fires were lighted by the Confederates
to show as well the ships as the range; yet this did more harm than
good, since the smoke united with that of the guns ashore and afloat
to render the fleet invisible.  On the other hand, the pilots were
soon unable to see.

The _Hartford_, meeting the swift eddy at the bend, where the
current describes nearly a right angle, narrowly escaped being
driven ashore.  The _Richmond_, following, was disabled by a shot
through her engine-room when abreast of the upper battery at the
turn.  The _Monongahela's_ consort, the _Kineo_, lost the use of
her rudder, and the _Monongahela_ herself ran aground on the spit;
presently the _Kineo_, drifting clear, also grounded, but was soon
afloat again, and, with her assistance, the _Monongahela_ too swung
free, after nearly a half hour of imminent peril.  Then the _Kineo_,
cast loose by her consort, drifted helplessly down the stream,
while the _Monongahela_ passed up until a heated bearing brought
her engines to a stop and she too drifted with the current.

Last of the fleet, the _Mississippi_, unseen in the smoke, and
therefore safe enough from the Confederate guns, yet equally unable
to see either friend, foe, or landmark, was carried by the current
hard on the spit; then, after a half hour of ineffectual exertion,
lying alone and helpless under the concentrated aim of the Confederate
batteries, she was abandoned and set on fire by her captain.  About
three in the morning, becoming lighter, as the fire did its work,
she floated free and drifted down the stream one mass of flames,
in plain view, not merely of the fleet, but also of the army,
condemned to stand to arms in sight and sound of the distant battle
and now to look on idly as, with a mighty flash and roar, the
_Mississippi_ cast to the heavens her blazing timbers, amid a myriad
of bursting shells, in one mountain of flame:  then black silence.

Thus, when at last the gray of the morning came, the _Hartford_
and _Albatross_ rode in safety above Port Hudson, while the _Richmond,
Monongahela, Genesee_, and _Kineo_, all battered and more or less
injured, lay at anchor once more near Prophet Island, and the
_Mississippi_ had perished in a blaze of glory.

Narrowly escaping the total failure of his plans and the destruction
of his fleet, Farragut had so far succeeded in his objects that
henceforth the Confederates practically lost the control of the
Mississippi above Port Hudson, as well as the use of the Red River
as their base of supplies.  Save in skiff-loads, beef, corn, and
salt could no longer be safely carried across the Mississippi, and
the high road from Galveston and Matamoras was closed against the
valuable and sorely needed cargoes brought from Europe by the
blockade runners.

As for the army, it had gained some facility of movement, some
knowledge of its deficiencies, and some information of great future
value as to the topography of the unknown country about Port Hudson;
more than this could hardly have been expected.  Indeed, the sole
object of the presence of the army was defeated by the movement of
the fleet so many hours before the time agreed upon.  This object
was to make a diversion that might attract the enemy's attention
and thus tend to reduce the fire of musketry on the exposed decks
of the fleet, and to draw off or hold off the fire of the
field-pieces that might otherwise be massed on the river front.
The disparity between the relative strength of Banks's army and
that of the garrison was too well known to justify the thought of
an actual attack upon the works.

Such, however, was not the opinion of the government, which to the
last seems to have taken for granted that all that was needed to
insure the surrender of Port Hudson was a desire to attack it.
Even after the surrender, Halleck, in his annual report for 1863,
speaking of the position of affairs in March, said:  "Had our land
forces invested Port Hudson at this time, it could have been easily
reduced, as its garrison was weak . . . but the strength of the
place was not then known."  In truth, the place was never so strong,
before or after, as at this time; nor is it often in war that the
information tallies so nearly with the fact.  The effective strength
of the garrison was more than 16,000.  Gardner's monthly report
accounts for 1,366 officers and 14,921 men present for duty, together
16,287 out of a total present of 20,388.  Besides the twenty-two
heavy guns in position, he had thirteen light batteries.

Morning found the army alone and in a bad position, either for
attack or defence.  Nothing was to be gained by staying there, and
much was to be risked.  As soon, therefore, as word came through
the ever-active and adventurous signal-officers that all was well
with what remained of the fleet, Banks once more took up the line
of march for Baton Rouge, and went into bivouac in great discomfort
on the soggy borders of the Bayou Montesanto, about eight miles
north of the town.

Meanwhile, what had become of Farragut?  The last seen of the
_Hartford_ and _Albatross_ was on the morning of the 15th by the
signal officers at Springfield Landing.  The two vessels then lay
at anchor beyond the bend above Port Hudson.  Several attempts were
made to communicate with the Admiral across the intervening neck
of lowland.  The first was on the 16th, by Parmele, with the 174th
New York and a squadron of the 2d Rhode Island cavalry.  Next, on
the 18th, Banks, eager to advance the effort, took Dudley's brigade,
two sections of Rails's battery, and Magen's troop, and joined
Parmele.  But for a time these efforts accomplished nothing, since
it was impossible to see far over the flat and wooded country; and
the Confederates having cut the great levee at Morganza, the whole
neighborhood was under water and the bridges gone.  Finally, on
the 19th, Colonel Charles J. Paine went out with the 2d Louisiana,
the 174th New York, and a small squad of cavalry, and leaving first
the infantry and then most of the troopers behind, and riding on
almost alone, succeeded in crossing the bend and gained the levee
at the head of the old channel known as Fausse River, about three
miles above Port Hudson.  There he had a good view of the river,
yet nothing was to be seen of the _Hartford_ and _Albatross_.
Again, on the 24th, Dudley sent Magen with his troop to Hermitage
Landing.  Pushing on with a few men, Magen got a full view of the
reach above Waterloo for five miles, but he too learned nothing of
the fleet.  Farragut had in fact gone up the river on the 15th,
after vainly attempting to exchange signals with his ships below
and with the army, and was now near Vicksburg in communication with
Admiral Porter, engaged in concerting plans for the future.  Before
getting under way he had caused three guns to be fired from the
_Hartford_.  This was the signal agreed upon with Banks, but for
some reason it was either not heard or not reported.

Just before separating at Baton Rouge, Banks had handed to Farragut
a letter addressed to Grant, to be delivered by the Admiral in the
event of success.  This letter, the first direct communication
between the two generals, Grant received on the 20th of March, and
from it derived his first information of the actual state of affairs
in the Department of the Gulf.  After stating his position and
force Banks wound up by saying:  "Should the Admiral succeed in
his attempt, I shall try to open communication with him on the
other side of the river, and, in that event, trust I shall hear
from you as to your position and movements, and especially as to
your views as to the most efficient mode of co-operation upon the
part of the forces we respectively command."

With the _Hartford_ and _Albatross_ controlling the reach between
Port Hudson and Vicksburg, as well as the mouth of the Red River
and the head of the Atchafalaya, Banks might now safely disregard
the movements of the Confederate gunboats.  Accordingly, while
waiting for Grant's answer, he turned to the execution of his former
plan.


CHAPTER IX.
THE TECHE.

In effect, this plan was to turn Port Hudson by way of the Atchafalaya.
For the original conception, the credit must be given to Weitzel,
who seems indeed to have formed a very similar scheme when he first
occupied La Fourche.  However, his force was, at that time, barely
sufficient for the defence of the territory confided to his care.
Not only was there then no particular object in moving beyond the
Atchafalaya, but any advance in that direction would have exposed
his little corps to disaster on account of the great facilities
afforded by the numberless streams for a movement by detachments
of the enemy into his rear.  It was largely to prepare for an
advance into Western Louisiana, as well as to defend his occupancy
of La Fourche, that Butler, upon Weitzel's suggestion, had created
the gunboat flotilla.

Soon after Banks took the command, Weitzel, who had opinions and
the courage to enforce them, laid his ideas before his new chief.
On the 18th of January, disturbed by hearing that Admiral Farragut
meant to take one of the army gunboats, recently transferred to
the navy, away from Berwick Bay, instead of sending more, Weitzel
expressed himself strongly in a despatch to headquarters.

"With such a naval force in that bay, in co-operation with a suitable
land force, the only true campaign in this section could be made.
Look at the map.  Berwick Bay leads into Grand Lake, Grand Lake
into the Atchafalaya, the Atchafalaya into Red River.  Boats drawing
not more than four or five feet and in the force I mention [10 or
12], with a proper land force, could clear out the Atchafalaya,
Red River, and Black River.  All communications from Vicksburg and
Port Hudson cross this line indicated by me.  By taking it in the
manner I propose, Vicksburg and Port Hudson would be a cipher to
the rebels.  It would be a campaign that 100,000 men could not so
easily fight, and so successfully.  It is an operation to which
the taking of Galveston Island is a cipher and the capture of the
Mobile Bay forts a nonentity."

With these views Banks was himself in accord, yet not in their
entirety.  The pressure of time led him to desire to avoid divergences
into the Teche country.  If it were possible, he wished to gain
the Atchafalaya by some route at once speedier and more direct.
While the explorations were in progress to discover such a route,
Weitzel once more took occasion to urge his original plan.  On the
15th of February, he wrote to Augur, his division commander:

"I feel it a duty which I owe you and my country to address you at
this late hour in the night on the present proposed movement on
Butte ŕ la Rose and the Teche country. . . . In all honesty and
candor, I do not believe the present plan to be a proper one. . . .
Sibley's Texas brigade is somewhere in the Opelousas country. . . .
Mouton's main body is in rear of intrenchments on Madame Meade's
plantation, six miles below Centreville.  If we defeat these two
commands we form a junction with our forces near Vicksburg.  By
pursuing our success to Alexandria, we may capture General Mouton's
force, and with little loss, unless it form a junction with Sibley.
If it forms a junction, we will meet them near Iberia and engage
them in open field, and with a proper force can defeat them.
General Emory's whole division (moved to Brashear City) and my
brigade can do this work.  Let the light transportation, now with
General Emory, and all destined for and collected by me be collected
at Brashear City.  Let two of the brigades be moved to and landed
at Indian Bend, while the other two are crossed and attack in front.
If Mouton escapes (which I think, if properly conducted, will be
doubtful) we form a junction at Indian Bend.  We proceed to attack
and with much superior force, because I do not believe Mouton and
Sibley united will exceed 6,000 men.  We can defeat them, pursue
our success to Alexandria and of course get Butte ŕ la Rose; our
gunboats to facilitate its fall, attacking it as they cannot
accompany us farther up than Saint Martinville.  I believe this to
be the true and only correct plan of the campaign."

These views were unquestionably sound; they were such as might have
been expected of an officer of Weitzel's skill and experience and
special knowledge of the theatre of operations.  Supported by the
strong current of events, they were now to be carried into effect.

At the date of this despatch, Emory's division had been for several
weeks near the head of the Bayou Plaquemine, with headquarters at
Indian Village, endeavoring to find or force a waterway to the
Atchafalaya, while Weitzel was holding his brigade in readiness to
co-operate by a simultaneous movement against Taylor on the Teche.
Many attempts were made by Emory to carry out the object confided
to him, yet all proved failures.  Bayou Sorrel, Lake Chicot, Grand
River, and the Plaquemine itself, from both ends of the stream,
were thoroughly explored, but only to find the bayous choked with
driftwood impossible to remove, and until removed rendering the
streams impassable.  Two of these drifts in Bayou Sorrel were
carefully examined by Captain Henry Cochen, of the 173d New York.
The first he reported to be about a mile in length, "composed of
one mass of logs, roots, big and small trees, etc., jammed tightly
for thirty feet, the whole length of my pole."  The second drift,
just beyond, was found nearly as bad, and farther on lay another
even worse.  Moreover, a thorough reconnoissance showed the whole
country, between the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya above the
Plaquemine, to be impracticable at that season for all arms.  After
more than a month of this sort of work, Emory was called across
the river to Baton Rouge to take part in the events narrated in
the last chapter.

Banks returned to New Orleans on the 24th of March, and the next
day ordered Grover to embark and move down the river to Donaldsonville,
and thence march down the Bayou La Fourche to Thibodeaux.  At the
same time Emory was ordered, as soon as Grover's river transports
should be released, to embark his command for Algiers, and thence
move by the railway to Brashear.  Meanwhile, on the 18th of March,
Weitzel learned of the presence of the _Queen of the West_ and
_Webb_ in the Atchafalaya, and as this seemed to indicate an
intention to attack him, and the navy had no more light-draught
gunboats to spare for his further security, to avoid having his
hand forced and the game spoiled, he discreetly fell back on the
21st to the railway bridge over Bayou Boeuf, and took up a position
where he was not exposed, as at Brashear, to the risk of being cut
off by any sudden movement of the enemy.

On the 28th of March the _Diana_ was sent to reconnoitre the
Confederate position and strength on the lower Teche; but continuing
on down the Atchafalaya, instead of returning by Grand Lake as
intended, and thus running into the arms of the enemy, she fell an
easy prey.  The _Calhoun_ went to her relief, but ran aground,
and the _Estrella_ had to go to the assistance of the _Calhoun_.
Acting-Master James L. Peterson, commanding the _Diana_, was killed,
and Lieutenant Pickering D. Allen, aide-de-camp to General Weitzel,
was wounded.  With the _Diana_ there fell into the enemy's hands
nearly one hundred and fifty prisoners.  This gave the Confederates
three rather formidable boats in the Atchafalaya and the Teche.

The movement of the troops was necessarily slow, as well by reason
of the extremely limited facilities for transportation, as because
of the state of the roads, but by the 8th of April every thing was
well advanced, and on that day Banks moved his headquarters to
Brashear.  Weitzel, who had been reinforced by the siege-train,
manned by the 1st Indiana heavy artillery, had already re-occupied
his former front on Berwick Bay.  Emory was in bivouac at Bayou
Ramos, about five miles in the rear of Weitzel, and Grover at Bayou
Boeuf, about four miles behind Emory.  Thus the whole movement was
almost completely masked from the Confederates, who from their side
of the bay saw only Weitzel, and knew little or nothing of the
gathering forces in his rear.  So little, indeed, that Taylor, with
his usual enterprise, seems to have thought this a favorable moment
for attempting upon Weitzel the same operation that Weitzel had
been so long meditating for the discomfiture of Taylor.

Emory marched early in the morning of the 9th of April and closed
up on Weitzel, who, an hour later, about ten o'clock, began to
cross.  No enemy was seen save a small outpost, engaged in observing
the movement.  This detachment retired before Weitzel's advance,
without coming to blows.  Weitzel at once sent his Assistant
Adjutant-General, Captain John B. Hubbard, with Perkins's and
Williamson's troops of cavalry and one section of Bainbridge's
battery to discover the enemy's position.  The Confederates were
found to be in some force in front of Pattersonville, with their
cavalry pickets advanced to within a mile of Weitzel's front.

As soon as Weitzel had completed his crossing, and released the
boats, Emory followed him.  The four brigades bivouacked in front
of the landing-place that night.  The gunboats, having done the
greater share of the ferriage, went back to the east bank for
Grover.

Grover, who had marched from Bayou Boeuf at nine o'clock, just as
Emory was arriving at Brashear, came there, in his turn, early in
the afternoon.  The plan had been that Grover should embark
immediately, and, having his whole force on board by an early hour
in the night, the boats should set out at daylight, so as to place
Grover by nine o'clock on the morning of the 11th in position for
the work cut out for him.  With few pilots, and the shores unlighted,
it was out of the question to attempt the navigation of the waters
of the Grand Lake during the night.  However, it was not until the
night of the 11th that Grover was able to complete the embarkation
of his division.  To understand this it is necessary to observe
that Emory and Weitzel, in making the passage of Berwick Bay, were
merely crossing a short ferry, so that the boats engaged in the
transfer could be loaded rapidly to almost any extent, so long as
they remained afloat, and being unloaded with equal facility, were
in a few minutes ready to repeat the operation.  In Grover's case,
however, the infantry, artillery, cavalry, and stores had all to
be taken care of at once, with every provision for fighting a
battle.  For this the artillery was considered indispensable, and
it was not without great trouble and long delay that the guns and
horses were got afloat.  Fate seemed to be against Grover, for
after all had been accomplished by the greatest exertion on his
part, as well as on the part of his officers and the corps
quartermasters, a fog set in so dense that the pilots were unable
to see their way.  This continued until nine o'clock on the morning
of the 12th; then at last the movement began.

About noon, on the 11th of April, Weitzel, leading the advance of
the main column, moved forward.  At once his skirmishers felt the
skirmishers of the enemy, who retired slowly, without attempting
any serious opposition.  In the evening, Weitzel rested in line of
battle a short distance above Pattersonville.  Emory followed
closely, and went into bivouac on Weitzel's left.  The march had
not been begun earlier, and the enemy was not pressed, because it
was desired to keep him amused until Grover should have gained his
rear, and Grover had not yet started.

After the early morning of Sunday, the 12th of April, had been spent
in light skirmishing and in demonstrations of the cavalry, designed
to observe the enemy, and at the same time to attract and hold his
attention, word came that Grover was under way.  Banks knew that
the passing fleet must soon be in plain sight of the Confederates.
Therefore, it was now necessary to move promptly, and to feel the
enemy strongly, yet not too strongly, lest he should abandon his
position too soon and suddenly spoil all.  From this moment it is
important to remember that, save in the event of complete success,
no word could come from Grover for nearly two days.  The first news
from him was expected to be the sound of his guns in the enemy's
rear.

At eleven o'clock the bugle again sounded the advance.  The whole
line moved forward, continually skirmishing, until, about four
o'clock in the afternoon, the infantry came under fire of the
Confederate guns in position on the lines known as Camp Bisland.
The line of march led up the right bank of the Atchafalaya until
the mouth of the Teche was reached, thence up the Teche, partly
astride the stream, yet mainly by the right bank.  At first Weitzel
formed on the right, Emory on the left, but as the great bend of
the Teche was reached, about four miles below Bisland, and by the
nature of the ground the front became narrowed at the same time
that in following the change of direction of the bayou the line
was brought to a wheel, Weitzel took ground to the left in two
lines, while Emory advanced Paine's brigade into the front line on
Weitzel's right, placed Ingraham in his second line, and made a
third line with Godfrey.

Then finding the enemy beyond the Teche too strong for the cavalry
to manage single-handed, Banks called on Emory to reinforce the
right bank.  Emory sent Bryan across with the 175th New York and
a section of the 1st Maine battery, commanded by Lieutenant Eben
D. Haley.  They were to push the enemy back, and to conform to the
advance of the main line.

The day was hot, the air close, and the march over the fields of
young cane, across or aslant the heavy furrows and into and over
the deep ditches, was trying to the men, as yet but little accustomed
to marches.  Fortunately, however, there was no need of pressing
the advance until Grover's guns should be heard.  About half-past
five in the afternoon a brisk artillery fire began, and was kept
up until night fell; then Emory moved the 4th Wisconsin forward to
hold a grove in front of a sugar-house, near the bayou, well in
advance of his right, in order to prevent the Confederates from
occupying it, to the annoyance of the whole line.

After dark all the pickets were thrown well forward in touch with
those of the enemy, but the main lines were drawn back out of range,
for the sake of a good night's sleep before a hard day's work.


CHAPTER X.
BISLAND.

The works behind which the Confederates now stood to battle were
named Camp Bisland or Fort Bisland, in honor of the planter whose
fields were thus given over to war.  The defences consisted of
little more than a line of simple breastworks, of rather low relief,
thrown completely across the neck of dry land on either bank of
the Teche, the flanks resting securely on the swamps that border
Grand Lake on the left and on the right extend to the Gulf.  The
position was well chosen, for five miles below Centreville, where
the plantation of Mrs. Meade adjoins the Bethel Place, the neck is
at its narrowest.  The Teche, passing a little to the left of the
centre of the works, enabled the guns of the _Diana_, moving freely
around the bends, to contribute to the defence, while the obstructions
placed below the works hindered the ascent of the bayou by the
Union gunboats.  The Confederate right was also somewhat strengthened
by the embankment of the unfinished railroad to Opelousas.  On the
other hand, from the nature of the ground, low and flat as it was,
the works were in part rather commanded than commanding; yet the
difference of level was inconsiderable, and for a force as small
as Taylor's, outnumbered as his was, any slight disadvantage in
this way was more than compensated by the shortness of the line.

Along the banks of the bayou were a few live oaks; on either flank
the swamp was densely wooded, mainly with cypress, cottonwood, and
willow, with an outlying and almost impenetrable canebrake, while
between the attacking columns and the Confederate position, on
either bank of the bayou, stretched a field where the young shoots
of the sugar-cane stood knee-high.  This was crossed at right angles
with the bayou, by many of those wide and deep ditches by which
the planters of Louisiana are accustomed to drain their tilled
lowlands.

Such was the scene of the action now about to be fought, known to
the Union army as the battle of Bisland or Fort Bisland; to the
Confederates, as the battle of Bethel Place or Bayou Teche.

During the whole of the night of the 12th a dense fog prevailed,
but this lifting about eight o'clock on the morning of Monday, the
13th of April, disclosed a day as bright and beautiful as the scene
was fair.  At an early hour the whole line advanced to within short
musketry range, in substantially the same order as on the previous
day.  An attack by a detachment of Confederate cavalry upon the
skirmishers of the 4th Wisconsin, in advance of the sugar-house,
was easily thrown off, and a later demonstration by the Confederate
infantry upon Paine's position in the grove shared the same fortune.
Emory moved first the 8th New Hampshire, and afterwards the 133d
and 173d New York, to the support of the 4th Wisconsin.  At the
same time Banks ordered Emory to send the other four regiments of
Gooding's brigade and the two remaining sections of the 1st Maine
battery to reinforce Bryan with the 175th New York on the left bank
of the Teche, in order to be prepared, not only to meet a flank
movement of the Confederates from that direction, but also to carry
to works on that side, should this be thought best.  After these
dispositions had been completed the advance was steady and continuous,
yet not rapid, until toward noon the last of the Confederates
retired behind their breastworks and opened fire with musketry.
The ditches already spoken of hindered the progress of the Union
artillery, yet not seriously, while they afforded an excellent
protection for the supports of the batteries and enabled the lines
of infantry to rest at intervals:  no small gain, for the sun grew
very hot, and the march over the heavy windrows and across the deep
ditches was exhausting.

The Confederate gunboat _Diana_ took position well in front of the
works, so as to command completely the right flank of Emory and
Weitzel as they approached by a fire that, had it not been checked,
must have enfiladed the whole line.  Just as this fire was beginning
to be disturbing it was silenced by a fortunate shot from one of
the two 30-pounder Parrott guns, served by the 1st Indiana, posted
in rear of Weitzel's left and trained upon the _Diana_, under the
personal supervision of Arnold.  The third shot from this battery,
aimed at the flash of the _Diana_'s guns, exploded in her engine
room; then above the trees, whose leafage full and low hid the
vessel, was seen a flash like a puff of vapor; a rousing cheer was
heard from the sharpshooters of the 4th Wisconsin and 8th New
Hampshire, who had been told off to keep down the fire of the
gunboat; and the _Diana_ was seen to pass up the bayou and out of
the fight.

All risk of an enfilade file being thus removed, the whole Union
line quickly closed with the Confederates, and the engagement became
general with artillery and musketry.  On both sides of the bayou
the firing was brisk, at times even severe.  Save where the view
was broken here and there by the trees or became lightly clouded
by the smoke of battle, the whole field lay in plain sight.  As
the course of the Teche in ascending turned toward the left, Gooding,
on the east bank, had the wheeling flank, while Weitzel formed the
pivot.

Gooding went forward in gallant style, his men quickening their
pace at times to a run, in order to keep the alignment with the
main body on the west bank.  Perceiving on his extreme right, toward
the lake, a fine grove or copse, Gooding threw out Sharpe with the
156th New York to examine the wood with a view of attempting to
turn the left flank of the Confederate lines.  These, as it proved,
did not extend beyond the grove, but there ended in an unfinished
redoubt.  Indeed, nearly the whole of the Confederate works on the
east side of the bayou, although laid out long since, had been but
recently and hastily thrown up, after it became known to Taylor
that Banks was crossing to attack him.  In the wood, about five
hundred yards in advance of the breastworks, Mouton had posted
Bagby's 3d Texas regiment.  The Texans held their ground so stiffly
that Gooding found it necessary to send his own regiment, the 31st
Massachusetts, to the support of Sharpe.  Mouton supported Bagby
with the left wing of the 18th Louisiana and part of Fournet's and
Waller's battalions.  Gooding's men carried the rifle-pits in the
wood by a spirited charge, in which they took two officers and
eighty-four men prisoners.  His main line in the open ground between
the wood and the bayou was formed by the 38th Massachusetts, deployed
as skirmishers, covering the front and followed, at a distance of
about one hundred and fifty yards, by the 53d Massachusetts, in
like order.  Behind the 53d, two sections of the 1st Maine battery
were posted to command two parallel plantation roads leading up
the bayou, while the third section was held in reserve.  After the
31st Massachusetts had gone to the support of the right, the main
line here was composed of the 175th New York.  Shortly after five
o'clock the 53d Massachusetts relieved the 38th, which had expended
its ammunition, and was falling back under orders to replenish.
When this was done, the 38th once more advanced and formed in
support of the skirmish line.

Meanwhile on the left of the Teche the main body moved forward in
two lines of battalions deployed, Paine on the right and Weitzel
on the left, while Ingraham, in column of companies, formed the
reserve for both.  Paine's first line on the right, nearest the
bayou, was composed of the 4th Wisconsin and 8th New Hampshire,
his second line of the 133d New York and the 173d New York.  Mack's
20-pounders commanded the bayou road, and Duryea went into battery
in advance of the centre, between Paine and Weitzel.

Weitzel's front line was composed of the 8th Vermont and 114th New
York, with the 12th Connecticut, 160th New York, and 75th New York
in the second line.  The guns of Bainbridge and Carruth went into
battery near the left flank, and working slowly kept down the fire
of the Confederate artillery in their front.  When the fire of
musketry became hot, Weitzel sent the 75th New York to try to gain
the canebrake on the left, in advance of the enemy's works, with
a view of turning that flank.  Of this movement Taylor says in his
report that it was twice repulsed by the 5th Texas and Waller's
battalion, under Green, and the 28th Louisiana, Colonel Gray, aided
by the guns of Semmes's battery and the Valverde battery.  However,
the counter-movement on the part of the Confederates, being begun
in plain view, was instantly seen, and Banks sent word to Weitzel
to check it.  With this object, Weitzel ordered the 114th New York
to go to the support of the 75th.  A brisk fight followed, without
material advantage to either side.  In truth, the canebrake formed
an impenetrable obstacle to the combatants, who, when once they
had passed within the outer edge of the tangle, were unable either
to see or approach one another, although the struggle was plainly
visible from the front of both armies.

The reserve of Parrott guns, manned by the 1st Indiana and composed
of four 30-pounders and four 20-pounders, was posted under McMillan
to cover the left flank and the broken centre where it was pierced
by the bayou, as well as to watch for the return of the _Diana_ to
activity.  Toward evening the remaining guns of the 1st Indiana,
two 12-pounder rifles under Cox, after being posted in support of
the centre, were sent to the left to assist Bainbridge and Carruth,
whose ammunition was giving out.

Banks, after gaining advanced positions in contact with the enemy,
forbore to press them hard because, as has been seen, his whole
purpose was to hold the Confederates where they stood until he
could hear of Grover or from Grover.  As the day advanced without
news or the long-expected sound of Grover's guns, Banks began to
grow impatient and to fear that the adventure from which so much
had been hoped had somehow miscarried.  He therefore became even
more anxious than before lest the Confederates should move off
under cover of the coming night.  Accordingly, during the afternoon,
although it had been his previous purpose not to deliver an assault
until certain that Grover held the Confederate line of retreat,
Banks gave discretionary orders to Emory and Weitzel to form for
an attack and move upon the Confederate works if a favorable
opportunity should present itself.  The exercise of this discretion
in turn devolved upon the commanders of the front line, that is,
upon Weitzel and Paine, for Gooding, being out of communication,
except by signal, with the troops on the west bank, was occupied
in conforming to their movements.  Paine and Weitzel, after
conferring, resolved to attack, and having made every preparation,
only waited for the word from the commanding general.

The day was waning; it was already past four o'clock; and Banks
was still somewhat anxiously weighing the approach of night and
the cost of the assault against the chance of news from Grover,
when suddenly, straight up the bayou, and high above the heads of
Banks and his men, a 9-inch shell came hurtling, and as it was seen
to burst over the lines of Bisland, from far in the rear broke the
deep roar of the _Clifton_'s bow-gun.  Soon from below the obstructions
that barred her progress came a messenger bearing the long-expected
tidings of Grover.  At last he was on land and in march toward his
position.  With a sense of relief Banks recalled the orders for
the assault and drew his front line back out of fire of the
Confederate musketry so that the men might rest.  To relieve the
exhausted skirmish line, the 4th Massachusetts and the 162d New
York of Ingraham's brigade were sent forward from the reserve,
leaving him only the 110th New York.

By dawn the next morning, at all events, Banks calculated, the
turning column would be in place; accordingly during the night he
gave orders to assault along the whole front as soon as it should
be light enough to see.

However, shortly after midnight, sounds were heard on the picket
line, indicating some unusual movement behind the Confederate works.
When, at daybreak, the various skirmishers moved forward in eager
rivalry, they found the Confederates gone.  Captain Allaire, leading
his company of the 133d New York, was the first to enter the works;
the regiment itself and the 8th New Hampshire followed closely,
and the colors of the 8th were the first to mount the parapet,
where they were planted by Paine.  On the left bank, this honor
fell to the 53d Massachusetts.  But in truth the surge was so nearly
simultaneous that the whole line of entrenchments on both sides of
the bayou, from right to left, was crossed almost at the same
instant.

It was nine o'clock on Monday night when Taylor learned of Grover's
movements and position, as narrated in the next chapter.  Taylor
at once began to move out of the lines of Bisland and to direct
his attention to Grover in order to secure a retreat.  Just before
daylight Green, to whom, with his 5th Texas, Waller's battalion,
and West's section of Semmes's battery, Taylor had given the more
than usually delicate task of covering the rear, marched off the
ground, leaving nothing behind save one 24-pounder siege gun and
a disabled howitzer of Cornay's battery.

Without losing an instant the pursuit of the retreating Confederates
was begun, Weitzel leading the way, and was conducted with vigor
and with scarcely a halt, notwithstanding the energetic opposition
of the Confederate rear-guard, until early in the afternoon, just
beyond Franklin, Emory's advance guard, under Paine, following the
bayou road, ran into Grover's under Dwight, approaching from the
opposite direction.  Weitzel, having entered Franklin without
opposition, kept the left-hand or cut-off road until he came to
the burnt bridge over the Choupique, by which, as will presently
be seen, the Confederates had escaped.

Gooding, after occupying the works in his front, crossed the Teche
by a bridge to the west bank and fell into Emory's column behind
Ingraham.  The _Clifton_, as soon as the obstructions could be
removed, got under way and moved up the bayou abreast with the
advance of the army.

The losses of the Nineteenth Army Corps in this its first battle
were 3 officers and 37 men killed, 8 officers and 176 men wounded;
in all 224.  The 38th Massachusetts headed the list with 6 killed
and 29 wounded, and Gooding's brigade, to which this regiment
belonged, reported 87 casualties, or 38 per cent. of the whole.
In the six light batteries 15 horses were killed and 12 wounded,
and one caisson of the 1st Maine was upset and lost in crossing
the Teche to go into action.

The losses of the Confederates have never been reported and no
means are known to exist for estimating them.

The disparity of the forces engaged was more than enough to overcome
the Confederate advantage of position, for Banks had 10,000 men
with 38 guns, while Taylor reports but 4,000 men with four batteries,
estimated at 24 or 25 guns.  To these must be added the _Diana_,
until disabled on Monday morning, and to the Union strength the
_Clifton_, after she arrived and opened fire at long range on Monday
afternoon.

At Bisland the new headquarters flags were for the first time
carried under fire.  These distinguishing colors, as prescribed in
General Orders on the 18th of February, were guidons four feet
square attached to a lance twelve feet long, made for convenience
in two joints.  In camp or garrison they served to indicate the
quarters of the general commanding the corps, division, or brigade,
while on the march they were borne near his person by a mounted
orderly, commonly a trusty sergeant.  The flag of the Nineteenth
Army Corps was blue with a white four-pointed star in the middle,
and on the star the figures 19 in red.  From this the division
flags differed only in having a red ground and the number of the
division in black.  The brigade flags had blue, white, and blue
horizontal stripes of equal width, with the number of the brigade
in black in the white stripe.  Thenceforward these colors were
borne through every engagement in which the corps took part.  Not
one of them was ever abandoned by its bearer or taken by the enemy.


CHAPTER XI.
IRISH BEND.

Grover's instructions were to gain a landing on the shore of Grand
Lake, and then marching on Franklin, to cut off Taylor's retreat
or to attack him in the rear, as circumstances might suggest.

We have seen how, instead of being ready to move from Berwick Bay
on the morning of the 10th of April, Grover found his departure
delayed by the various causes already mentioned until the morning
of the 12th was well advanced.

The flotilla, under Lieutenant-Commander Cooke, composed of the
flag-ships _Estrella, Arizona, Clifton_, and _Calhoun_, having
completed the ferriage of Emory and Weitzel over Berwick Bay, was
now occupied in assisting the army transports to convey Grover to
his destination, besides standing ready to protect his movement
and his landing with its guns.

About noon, when off Cypress Island, the _Arizona_ ran hard and
fast aground, and four precious hours were lost in a vain attempt
to get her afloat.  If, in the light of after events, this may seem
like time wasted, it should always be remembered that all four of
the gunboats were crowded with troops, while an attack from the
_Queen of the West_ and her consorts was to be looked for at any
moment.  Finally, rather than to put the adventure in peril by a
longer delay, Cooke determined to leave the _Arizona_ to take care
of herself, and once more steaming ahead, at half-past seven o'clock,
the gunboats and transports came to anchor below Miller's Point,
off Madame Porter's plantation.  At this place, known as Oak Lawn,
Grover in the orders under which he was acting had been told he
might expect to find a good shell road leading straight to the
Teche, and crossing the bayou about the middle of the bow called
Irish Bend.  Grover at once sent Fiske with two companies of the
1st Louisiana ashore in the _Clifton_'s boats to reconnoitre.  It
was midnight when, after carefully examining the ground, Fiske
returned to the gunboat and reported the road under water, and
quite impracticable for all arms.  The fleet then got under way,
and proceeding about six miles farther up the lake, anchored beyond
Magee's Point.

Before daylight Dwight sent two of his staff officers, Captain
Denslow and Lieutenant Matthews, ashore, with a small detachment
from the 6th New York, to examine the plantation road leading from
this point to the Teche.  The road being found practicable for all
arms, the debarkation began at daybreak.

Dwight landed first.  As soon as his leading regiment, the 1st
Louisiana, reached the shore, Holcomb threw forward two companies,
under Lieutenant-Colonel Fiske, as skirmishers, and formed the
battalion in line to cover the landing.

Taylor, when he first learned that the gunboats and transports had
passed up Grand Lake, had sent Vincent, with the 2d Louisiana
cavalry and a section of Cornay's battery, to Verdun landing, about
four miles behind Camp Bisland, to observe and oppose the movement.
This was about noon on Sunday, the 12th.  In the evening, hearing
of the progress of the fleet, Taylor sent a second section of
Cornay's battery to the lake, and going himself to Vincent ordered
him to follow the movement and try to prevent a landing.  The next
morning Taylor sent Reily with the 4th Texas, to join Vincent and
aid him in retarding Grover's progress.

Taylor seems to have censured Vincent for letting Grover land, yet
in truth Vincent was not to blame.  The line he had to watch was
too long for his numbers, and the Union flotilla could and did move
more rapidly on the lake than the Confederate troops by the roads.
When he had stationed his pickets at the probable landing-places,
and taken up a central position to support them, he had done all
that lay in his power.  The range and weight of the 9-inch shells
of the navy were alone enough to put a serious opposition to the
landing out of the question, but as soon as Vincent found where
the attempt was to be made, he disposed his men and guns to retard
it.  Two of Cornay's guns even tried, ineffectually of course, to
destroy the transports:  Cooke quickly drove them off.

As Holcomb's skirmishers deployed they were met by a brisk fusillade
from Vincent's men strongly posted in ambush behind a high fence
in the thick wood that skirts the shore; but when Holcomb advanced
his battalion Vincent's men fell back on their main body and left
the wood to Holcomb, who immediately moved to the edge of the
clearing and held it, observing the enemy on the farther border.
This was Vincent with his regiment and the four guns of Corney;
and from this moment all that was happening on the lake shore passed
unseen by the Confederates.

Meanwhile the landing went on very slowly, for the transports could
not come nearer to the beach than a hundred yards, and, although
the foot-soldiers were able to jump overboard and scramble ashore,
and the horses could also take to the water, it was necessary to
make a bridge of flats for the guns and caissons of the artillery.
Thus it was four o'clock in the afternoon before the whole division
found itself assembled on the plantation of Duncan McWilliams on
the shore of the lake, with the Teche at the upper reach of Irish
Bend four miles to the southward, and Charenton in the hollow of
Indian Bend lying but two miles toward the southwest.  There were
roads in either direction, but Irish Bend was the way to Franklin,
and to Franklin Grover was under orders to go.

About nine o'clock in the morning Dwight had borrowed from Birge
his two leading regiments, the 13th Connecticut and the 159th New
York, to support the 1st Louisiana.  Grover also gave Dwight
Closson's battery and Barrett's troop of cavalry.  Toward noon,
moving a detachment by his left, Dwight seized the bridge that
crosses the Teche in approaching Madame Porter's plantation from
the northward, just in time to extinguish the flames that Vincent's
men had lighted to destroy it.  After seizing the bridge at Oak
Lawn, Barrett galloped down the left bank of the Teche and seized
the bridge a mile or two below, by which the same small plantation
is reached from the eastward; probably by the shell road that Grover
had been told to take, and at which he had tried to land.  Barrett
was in time to save the bridge from Vincent, and to hold the
advantage thus gained Dwight soon sent Holcomb with the 1st Louisiana,
131st New York, 6th New York, 22d Maine, and Closson's battery.

Meanwhile, the division being entirely without wagons, save a few
that were loaded with the reserve ammunition, still another wait
took place while the men's haversacks were being filled with hard
bread and coffee.  All these delays were now having their effect
upon Grover's own calculations.  He now knew nothing of Banks's
movements or his situation.  Of his own movements he was bound to
suppose that Taylor had received early and full information.
Moreover, the topography of the country where Grover found himself
was obscure and to him unknown.  Instead, therefore, of marching
forward as fast as his troops could land, boldly and at all hazards
to seize the roads by which Taylor must retreat, Grover now took
counsel with prudence and concealing his force behind the natural
screen of the wood, waited till his whole division should be fully
ready.

Thus it was six o'clock and the sun stood low among the tree-tops
when Grover, with Birge and Kimball, took up the line of march for
the Teche.  Crossing the upper of the two bridges, he went into
bivouac on the right bank on the plantation of Madame Porter, and
called in Dwight's detachment.  Before setting out to rejoin the
division Holcomb burned the lower bridge, under orders, and then
marching up the left bank, crossed the upper bridge at a late hour
of the night.  In Grover's front stood Vincent alone, for Reily
had not yet come; but in the darkness it was impossible for Grover
to make out the enemy's force, or even to find his exact position.

When about nine o'clock that night, as related in the last chapter,
Taylor heard the news from Reily, he supposed Grover to be already
in strong possession of the only road by which the Confederates
could make good their retreat up the Teche; yet desperate as the
situation seemed, Taylor at once made up his mind to try to extricate
himself from the toils.  Sending his wagon train ahead, soon after
midnight he silently moved out of the lines of Bisland and marched
rapidly on Franklin, leaving Green to cover the rear and retard
the pursuit.  These dispositions made, Taylor himself rode at once
to his reversed front, a mile east of Franklin.  With him were
Reily, whom he had picked up on the road below Franklin, Vincent
who with the four guns of Cornay was still watching Grover, and
Clack's Louisiana battalion, which had come in from New Iberia just
in the nick of time.  The plantation with the sugar-house, then
belonging to McKerrall, is now known as Shaffer's.  The grounds of
Oak Lawn adjoin it toward the east and north, and along its western
boundary stand Nerson's Woods, whence the coming battle takes the
name given to it in the Confederate accounts.  Here, beneath the
trees, along their eastern skirt and behind a stout fence, Taylor
formed his line of battle, facing toward the east, and waited for
the coming of Grover.  South of the bayou road stood Clack; on his
left, two pieces of Cornay's battery, next Reily, then Vincent with
a second section of Cornay's guns.  The task before them was simple
but desperate.  They were to hold off Grover until all but they
had safely passed behind the living barrier.  Then they were to
extricate themselves as best they could, and falling in the rear
of the main column of the Confederate army try to make good their
own escape.  Before this could happen, Grover might overwhelm them
or Banks might overtake them; yet there was no other way.

As early on the morning of Tuesday the 14th of April as it was
light enough to see, Grover marched on Franklin by the winding
bayou road.  Preceded by Barrett and a strong line of skirmishers,
Birge with Rodgers's battery led the column; Dwight with Closson's
battery, followed; while Kimball with Nims's battery brought up
the rear.

The head of Grover's column had gone about two miles, and in a few
moments more would have turned the sharp corner of the bayou and
faced toward Franklin, when, on the right, near the sugar-house,
Birge's skirmishers ran into those of Clack's battalion, and the
battle of Irish Bend began.

Between Birge and the concealed Confederate ranks, past which he
was in fact marching, while his line of direction gave his right
flank squarely to the hostile front, lay the broad and open fields
of McKerrall's plantation, where the young sugar-cane stood a foot
high above the deep and wide furrows.  From recent ploughing and
still more recent rains the fat soil was soft and heavy under foot,
and here and there the cross-furrows, widening and deepening into
a ditch, added to the toil and difficulty of movement, both for
men and guns.  On the left flowed the dark and sluggish Teche.  On
the right lay the swamp, thickly overgrown and nearly impassable,
whence the waters of the Choupique begin to ooze toward the Gulf.
Along the southern border of this morass ran a great transverse
ditch that carried off the gathered seepage of the lesser drains.
In front, on the western edge of the cane-field, stood Nerson's
woods, where, as yet unseen, the Confederates lay in wait; while
before them, like a screen, stretched a low fringe of brake and
undergrowth.

Birge's order of march placed the 25th Connecticut in the advance,
one wing deployed as skirmishers across the road, the other wing
in reserve.  Next came the 26th Maine with Bradley's section of
Rodgers's battery, then the 159th New York, then the remainder of
Rodgers's battery, while the 13th Connecticut brought up the rear.
When he saw his skirmishers briskly engaged and by the sound and
smoke discovered the position of the enemy, Birge made the reserved
battalion of the 25th Connecticut change front forward and move
across the field against the Confederate left.  Bissell led his
men quickly to within a hundred yards of the wood, where they lay
down under the partial cover of a ditch and began firing.  Hubbard,
with the 26th Maine, came up on Bissell's left and took up the same
tactics.  At once the enfilade fire of the Confederate line became
vigorous and annoying, until Bradley took his two guns at a gallop
to the skirt of the undergrowth opposite the interval between the
infantry battalions and, opening fire at five hundred yards' range,
engaged for a time the whole attention of the Confederate cannoneers.
Then Grover, who rode with Birge, sent in the 159th New York on
the left of the 26th Maine, with orders to take the wood, while
the 13th Connecticut, marching round the bend of the bayou, formed
on the extreme left between the stream and the road.

Molineux promptly deployed his regiment, and gallantly led it
forward at the double-quick over and beyond the left of the line
already formed, until the men were within short point-blank range
of the enemy's musketry; there, finding them exhausted by the rapid
advance over the rough and heavy ground, as well as suffering
severely from the bullets of the enemy, he made the men throw off
their blankets and overcoats, lie down, and open a vigorous fire.
Perhaps under the stress of this, but more probably in preparation
for the counter-attack, the Confederates slackened their fire, and
Molineux, perceiving his opportunity, as it seemed, was in the act
of uttering the command "Forward!" when a bullet struck him in the
mouth and he fell, painfully wounded, leaving the command of the
regiment, for the time, to Captain Dayton.  Lieutenant-Colonel
Draper had already fallen, and Major Burt was with Grover, serving
on the staff.

At the word the men sprang to their feet, but before the command
could be carried out, suddenly came the crisis of the battle.
About seven o'clock, Gray had brought up the 28th Louisiana to
Taylor's aid, and with it the news that the rest of the forces from
Bisland were close at hand and all was well with them.  Under cover
of the wood, Taylor moved Gray quietly to the left, and perceiving
that his line now overlapped Grover's right, promptly determined
to gain the brief time he still needed for the safe retreat of his
main body by a bold and vigorous attack with the whole force he
had under his hand.  The order was obeyed with spirit.  Out of the
wood beyond the right, and from the main ditch, well in the rear
of the 159th, the Confederates came charging strongly, and halting,
they poured in a hot volley.  Seeing that the situation was critical
Dayton ordered the regiment to retire.  Under a severe fire it fell
back quickly, yet in good order, to the road.  There it promptly
re-formed on its colors, and Burt rejoining took command.

In their retreat the New Yorkers swept over the position of the
26th Maine and the 25th Connecticut and carried these already shaken
regiments with them, in some natural disorder; but his lasted hardly
longer than was needed for Dwight to hear and obey the command that
now came back from Grover, to deploy the first brigade and take up
the broken battle.

Bradley held his ground stoutly to the last moment, and when finally
the choice was narrowed to retreat or capture, he retired in good
order to a fresh position, and there serving his canister with
coolness and deliberation, held off the enemy's advance.  At this
point, Rodgers, who with his centre section was in the road on the
left, engaged at 800 and 400 yards with Cornay's right section,
turned his attention to the Confederate infantry on the right, and
crossing with spherical case-shot the canister fire of his Lieutenant,
made good the check.

Almost at the moment when Taylor's left was thus roughly bearing
down the right of Birge, on his left his own 13th Connecticut,
under Lieutenant-Colonel Warner, enveloped in a grove, was moving
steadily on the Confederate right, where Clack stood and the two
guns of Cornay.  Emerging from the grove into an open field that
still lay between them and the enemy in the wood, Warner's men
instantly replied to the volleys of cannon and small-arms that
greeted their appearance and pushed on, firing as they went.  More
fortunate than their comrades in the direction and the moment of
their attack, they pressed back Clack, drove off Cornay's guns,
and took two of his caissons, a limber, and a color presented to
his battery by the ladies of Franklin.  Nearly 60 prisoners at the
same time fell into their hands.  They were still advancing when
Grover's orders recalled them to the restored line of battle of
the brigade.

As Birge's right retired, Dwight deployed in two lines, the 6th
New York and the 91st New York in front, the 22d Maine, 1st Louisiana,
and 131st New York in support, and advancing against Taylor's left
flank and overlapping it in its turn pushed it back into and beyond
the woods.  In this movement Dwight took 70 prisoners.  The resistance
he encountered was feeble compared with the vigor with which Birge
had been met and turned back, for in that effort the Confederate
line of battle had practically gained its main object and had now
only to extricate itself and make good its own withdrawal.

Birge, at the same time that he drew back the 13th Connecticut,
once more moved forward his three other regiments and re-formed
the brigade in two lines on Dwight's left.

Kimball, whose brigade was in two lines in reserve, brought up the
12th Maine to the support of the 13th Connecticut.

This done, Grover advanced the whole division through the woods to
the open fields on their farther or western verge, and seeing the
Confederates in force on the knoll beyond, to which they had retired,
halted and began to observe and reconnoitre.

To cover the right flank of the last Confederate position Semmes
brought up the _Diana_, whose injuries of the day before he had
during the night partly made good by repairs.  Her 30-pounder
Parrott now opened a slow fire without great effect other than to
add to Grover's caution.

Shortly after eight o'clock Mouton rode up.  To him Taylor turned
over the command of the force confronting Grover, and then rode
into Franklin to direct the retreat.  By half-past nine Green with
the rear-guard moved out on the direct road toward New Iberia.
The last of Green's troopers had not quitted the little town at
the upper end when the first of Weitzel's entered at the lower end.

Some time passed before Mouton knew of this.  Then for a brief
space his peril was great; but fortunately for him the unlooked-for
situation of affairs raised a momentary doubt in the minds of
Green's pursuers.  Should they go to the right or to the left?
And where was Grover?  After questioning prisoners and townspeople,
Banks directed Weitzel to follow by the cut-off road and Emory to
move up the bayou.  The interval, short as it was, enabled Mouton
to fall back quickly, and taking a by-way across country to strike
into the cut-off road beyond the northern outskirts of Franklin.
Not an instant too soon, for in the confusion Sibley had fired the
bridge over the Choupique and across the blazing timbers lay Mouton's
last hope of escape.  Hardly had his men reached the north bank in
safety when Weitzel's advance guard came in sight down the road.
They galloped to the bridge only to find it impassable.

Before retiring the Confederates blew up the _Diana_ and applied
the match to all their transport steamers on the Teche save the
hospital boat, the _Cornie_, which loaded with the sick and wounded
of Bisland fell into the hands of the Union forces.  Captain Semmes,
who had but the day before left his battery to command the _Diana_,
was taken prisoner, with all his crew.  He and Weitzel had been
friends and classmates at West Point; he now refused the offered
courtesies of his captor, and a few hours later, finding himself
rather loosely guarded, cleverly managed to regain his liberty.

To return to Grover.  The situation of the enemy's force in his
front, the vigorous resistance encountered in his advance, and
lastly, the information gathered from the prisoners he had taken,
had convinced him that he had to deal with Taylor's whole force,
save a small rear-guard, and that Taylor had already succeeded in
passing him, so that it was no longer possible to cut the Confederate
line of retreat.  Indeed, Grover seems rather to have thought that
Taylor meant to attack him.  It was while careful reconnoissances
were being conducted to develop the true facts that Taylor slipped
away, as we have seen, having thus adroitly extricated himself from
the net spread in his sight.

About two o'clock, however, as Taylor did not attack, Grover moved
forward, and as he marched down the bayou road soon met Emory coming
up, as related in the last chapter.

Banks, seeing that the bridge could not be made passable before
morning, and that nothing was to be gained by marching his tired
troops over the long roundabout of the bayou road, went into bivouac
early in the afternoon, covering the northern approaches of Franklin.
Grover occupied his battle-field of the morning, Emory held the
bayou road between Grover and the town, and Weitzel the cut-off
road.

Taylor crossed the Cypremort and having marched fifteen miles since
quitting Franklin, or twenty-five since midnight, rested near
Jeannerette.

Grover reported his loss during the 13th, 14th, and 17th as 53
killed, 270 wounded, and 30 captured or missing; in all 353.  In
the battle of Irish Bend, according to the nominal lists as complied
in the Official Records, his loss was 6 officers and 43 men killed,
17 officers and 257 men wounded, and 30 men missing; in all 353;
agreeing with the first statement covering the three days, yet
differing slightly in the details.  Of this total Dwight's brigade
lost 3 killed and 9 wounded on the 13th, 1 killed and 5 wounded on
the 17th, and only 2 killed and 13 wounded in the battle.  Both
statements seem to leave out the 1st Louisiana, which had 2 men
killed and the lieutenant-colonel and 2 men wounded on the 13th.
In Birge's brigade the loss in the battle, according to Grover's
report, was 46 killed, 236 wounded, 49 missing; in all 312.  The
official reports show 16 less in the columns of wounded and in the
total:  these are probably the 16 wounded officers accounted for
in the nominal lists.  Of the regiments engaged the heaviest loss
fell upon the 159th New York, in which the nominal lists show 4
officers and 15 men killed, 5 officers and 73 men wounded, and 20
men captured or missing; in all 117.(1)  But this fine regiment
suffered even more severely than these figures indicate, for besides
having to mourn the death of the gallant and promising Draper,
Molineux received a grievous wound that for many weeks deprived
the regiment of one of the best colonels in the service, while of
the wounded officers two were mortally hurt and died soon afterward.
Birge's loss was nearly one man in four or five, for his strength
did not exceed 1,500, and it is probable that his fighting line
numbered not more than 1,200.

The Confederate loss is not reported.  They left on the field, to
be cared for by their adversary, 21 of their dead and 35 of their
wounded.  Among these were Gray, Vincent, and Reily.

Taylor gives the number of his infantry engaged in the charge on
Birge's right as less than 1,000.  The disparity of the opposing
forces in that affair was, therefore, not important, and Birge's
somewhat greater numbers may fairly be considered as off-set by
the advantages of Taylor's position and the familiarity with the
country common to nearly all the Confederate soldiers there engaged,
while to their antagonists it was an unknown land.  Grover's whole
force was about 5,000, of all arms, but of these, though all are
to be taken into account, nearly a third were in reserve, neither
firing nor under fire, while another third met a resistance so
light that its loss was no more than one per cent. of its numbers
--hardly more than it had suffered in the skirmishes of the day
before.  Grover had eighteen pieces of artillery, of which but four
were in action; Taylor also had four guns of which he made good
use, and these, toward the close of the battle, were reinforced by
the five heavy guns of the _Diana_, of which, however, it is probable
that but one, or at most two, could be brought to bear.

The field of battle was so contracted that Taylor's strength sufficed
to occupy its front, while Grover was hindered or prevented from
deploying a force large enough to outflank and crush his antagonist
at a blow.

Viewed from a Confederate standpoint, the issue forms an instructive
example of the great results that may be achieved by a right use
of small forces.  If, on the other hand, one turns to consider the
lost opportunity of Grover, two things stand out in strong relief:
the one, the positive disadvantage of employing forces, too large
for the affair in hand or for the scene of operations; the other,
that bold adventures must be carried boldly to the end.

Instead of making the campaign with four brigades and twenty-four
guns, as Weitzel's original plan had contemplated, Banks, for
greater security, set out with seven brigades and fifty-six guns.
So far as concerned the main body ascending the Teche, this excess
of strength could do no harm, but it was otherwise with the turning
column by the lake; for to the needless augmentation of the artillery
were directly due not only the day and night first lost, but also
the still more precious hours of daylight consumed in landing guns
that were not to fire a shot.  Two brigades of infantry, with six
guns at most, landing at Indian Bend, and marching directly toward
the Cypremort, and quickly entrenching across both roads at or near
their upper fork, would have been enough to hold the position
against the best efforts of the whole of Taylor's army, with Emory
close on their heels; and thus Taylor must have been lost and the
war in Western Louisiana brought to an end.  Consequences many and
far-reaching would have followed.  Moreover, when it was determined
to use more than two divisions one of these was naturally Grover's,
and thus it happened that to Grover, who knew nothing of the country,
was assigned the delicate duty first cut out for Weitzel, while
Weitzel, who had studied to the last point every detail of the
topography and of the plan, stayed behind as the third in command
of the column destined to butt its nose against the breastworks of
Bisland and wait for the real work to be done a day's march on
their farther side.

Grover has been often criticised and much misunderstood for alleged
over-caution and for taking the wrong direction after quitting the
borders of the lake.  Both criticisms are unjust.  Generals, like
other men, act according to their temperaments.  In the whole war
no braver man than Grover ever rode at the head of a division, nor
any more zealous, more alert, more untiring in his duty.  No troops
of his ever went into battle but he was with them.  But he was by
nature cautious, and the adventure was essentially one that called
for boldness.  Moreover, he was by nature conscientious.  That his
orders, based as they were on misinformation of a date much later
than Weitzel's intelligence, required him to land at Irish Bend
instead of at Indian Bend, as first arranged, and to march on
Franklin instead of toward the Cypremort, was not his affair.
Surely no soldier is to be blamed, least of all in combined and
complex operations, for choosing to obey the clearly expressed
orders of those set over him, rather than to follow the illusory
inspirations of the will-o'-the-wisp commonly mistaken for genius.

As for the orders themselves, they were correct upon the information
at hand when they were given and the state of affairs then existing.
To land at Madame Porter's and to seize the roads at Franklin was
better than to go farther afield to gain the same end; for the
distance was less, and while on the march Grover was enabled to
offer his front instead of his flank to the enemy.  But the
information proved inexact; when Madame Porter's road was tried it
was found impassable, and with this and the unforeseen delays it
happened that the orders became inapplicable.

(1) According to the regimental history (MS.), 4 officers and 22
men killed; 5 officers and 76 men wounded; 11 men missing; in all,
118: of the wounded, 2 officers and 10 men mortally.


CHAPTER XII.
OPELOUSAS.

Cooke, after detaching the _Clifton_ to go up the Teche after the
_Diana_, as already related, remained at anchor in Grand Lake
opposite Grover's landing-place and awaited developments.  He had
not long to wait.  The first news of Banks's movement across Berwick
Bay had overtaken and recalled Taylor on his way up the Atchafalaya
to bring down the _Queen of the West_ and her consorts, the _Grand
Duke_ and _Mary T_, to join in the intended operations against
Weitzel.  Although Taylor at once sent a staff officer to urge
despatch, yet from some cause more than two full days had passed
before, on the afternoon of the 13th, the distant smoke of the
Confederate gun-boats coming down Lake Chicot was seen by the
lookouts of the Union navy in Grand Lake.  At daylight the _Queen
of the West_ and the _Mary T_, were seen approaching from Chicot
Pass.  Cooke at once got the _Estrella, Calhoun_, and _Arizona_
under way, opened fire at long range, and forming his boats in a
crescent began to close with the enemy.  Soon, however, the _Queen
of the West_ was seen to be in flames, from the explosion of the
Union shells, and, her consort having promptly taken to flight,
Cooke ceased firing and lowered all his boats to save the crew of
the burning vessel from drowning.  Captain Fuller, who had formerly
commanded the _Cotton_, was rescued with 90 of his men, but nearly
30 were lost.  Then with a loud explosion the eventful career of
the _Queen of the West_ came to an end, leaving her five guns,
however, once more in the hands of the Union navy.  This fortunate
stroke gave the mastery of the Atchafalaya into Cooke's hands with
nothing save Butte-ŕ-la-Rose and two feeble gunboats to hinder his
taking possession.

Once safely across the Cypremort, Taylor's army began to melt away
and his men, as they passed their homes, to fall out without
hindrance.  Many were of the simple class called Acadians, with
scant sympathy for either side of the great war into which they
found themselves drawn, and in all the regiments there were many
conscripts.

On the 15th of April, Taylor marched ten miles to New Iberia.
While there, he had the unfinished ironclad gunboat _Stevens_,
previously known as the _Hart_, floated two miles down the Teche,
destroyed by fire, and the wreck sunk in the channel.

On the 16th he marched twenty miles, crossed the Vermilion River,
went into camp on high ground on the north bank, and burned the
bridges behind him.

Early in the morning of the 15th of April, Banks took up the pursuit
with his united force, now outnumbering Taylor's as three to one.
Weitzel led the advance of the main column on the direct road.
Emory followed him, and Grover marching at first on the bayou road
fell in the rear after passing the fork.  The army halted for the
night at Jeannerette.

On the following afternoon Banks entered New Iberia.  Here the ways
parted, the right-hand road by Saint Martinville following for
many miles the windings of the Teche, while the left-hand road
leads almost directly to Opelousas, by way of Vermilionville, now
called Lafayette.

Beyond Indian Bend the lowlands, in many places below and nowhere
much above the level of the adjacent waters, may be said to end
and the plains to begin; and soon after leaving New Iberia and
Saint Martinville the troops found themselves on the broad prairies
of Western Louisiana, where the rich grasses that flourish in the
light soil sustain almost in a wild state vast herds of small yet
fat beeves and of small yet strong horses; where in favored spots
the cotton plant is cultivated to advantage; where the ground,
gently undulating, gradually rises as one travels northward; where
the streams become small rivers that drain the land upon their
borders, instead of merely bayous taking the back waters of the
Mississippi and the Red.  Near the right bank of the Teche runs
even a narrow ribbon of bluffs that may be said to form the western
margin of the great swamps of the Atchafalaya.  Along the streams
live-oaks, magnolias, pecans, and other trees grow luxuriantly;
but, for the most part, the prairies are open to the horizon, and
at this time, though the gin-houses were full of cotton, the fields
were mainly given over to the raising of corn for the armies and
the people of the Confederacy.

From New Iberia Banks ordered Grover to send a detachment to destroy
the famous Avery salt-works, on Petit Anse Island, distant about
twelve miles toward the southwest.  On the 17th of April, Grover
accordingly dispatched Kimball on this errand, with his 12th Maine,
the 41st Massachusetts, one company of the 24th Connecticut, and
Snow's section of Nims's battery.  The extremely rich natural
deposit of rock salt was, at that time, in the hands of the
Confederate government, being, indeed, the main source of supply
of this indispensable article for the whole Confederacy, especially
for the region between the Mississippi and the Atlantic.  The works
required for its extraction are, however, very simple, for the
deposit lies close to the surface, and has only to be quarried in
blocks of convenient size.  These, always as clear and beautiful
as crystal, have only to be crushed or broken to be ready to use
for common purposes, and when pulverized, however rudely, yield
the finest table salt.  Kimball burned all the buildings, destroyed
the engines and implements, with six hundred barrels of salt, and
marched back to New Iberia, and, on the 19th, rejoined Grover on
the Vermilion.  The Confederates having drawn off the detachment
and the guns previously posted to guard the works, Kimball met with
no opposition.

On the 17th of April, Grover, with the main body of his division,
reinforced by Gooding's brigade, temporarily commanded by Colonel
John W. Kimball, of the 53d Massachusetts, continued the pursuit
toward Vermilion, while Banks, with Weitzel and Emory, marched to
Saint Martinville, on the Teche.

Early in the afternoon Grover caught sight of Green's rear-guard
of Taylor's retreating forces, then about two miles distant, and
in the act of crossing the Vermilion.  Before Grover could overtake
them, the bridges were in flames.  Dwight's skirmishers deployed
on the right and left of the road, and, with the help of the guns
of Closson and Nims, drove off the enemy, posted to hinder or
prevent the work of reconstruction.  In this affair Dwight lost
one killed and five wounded.  The next day, the 18th of April, was
spent by Grover in rebuilding the main bridge.

Then began to be felt the need of such a force of mounted troops
as on these plains formed the main strength of Taylor's little
army, and the source of its safety; for Banks's cavalry, taken as
a whole, with some splendid exceptions, was at this time greatly
inferior, not only in numbers but in fitness for the work at hand,
to the rough riders led by the restless and indomitable Green.  A
few more horsemen, under leaders like Barrett, Williamson, and
Perkins, would have saved the bridge and insured the dispersion or
the destruction of Taylor's force.

Weitzel, who, as far as Saint Martinville, had led the advance of
the main column, followed by Emory with Paine and Ingraham, there
took the road to the left and halted on the evening of the 17th of
April at Côte Geleé, four miles in the rear of Grover.  The next
morning Weitzel moved up to Grover's support, while Banks, with
Emory, rested at Côte Geleé to await the rebuilding of the bridge.

From St. Martinville, Emory sent the 173d New York, under Major
Gallway, with Norris's section of Duryea's battery, to follow the
Teche road to Breaux Bridge and endeavor to capture the bayou
steamboats, five in number, that were still left to the Confederates.
Five miles below the village of that name, Gallway met a small
Confederate picket, and pushing it aside, soon afterward found the
bridge over the bayou in flames.  On the morning of the 18th he
learned that four of the boats had been burned by the Confederates,
and about the same time his farther advance was stopped by orders
from Banks, despatched as soon as it was known that Grover had been
brought to a stand.  A courier from headquarters having lost his
way in the night of the 18th, on the following morning Gallway
found himself in the air without any apparent object.  He accordingly
marched along the banks of the Teche and the Bayou Fusilier, and
taking the road to Opelousas, there rejoined Paine on the 1st.

On the 19th of April the army crossed the Vermilion and the Carencro,
and marched unopposed sixteen miles over the prairie to Grand
Coteau.  Gooding's brigade rejoined Emory during the day.

On the 20th the march was continued about eight miles to Opelousas.
Just outside the town the Corps went into bivouac, after throwing
forward all the cavalry, the 13th Connecticut, and a section of
Rodgers's battery, to Washington, on the Courtableau.

On the same day, after a brief engagement, Cooke, with the gunboats
_Estrella, Arizona_, and _Calhoun_, and a detachment of four
companies of the 16th New Hampshire from Brashear, captured Fort
Burton at Butte-ŕ-la-Rose, with its garrison of 60 men of the
Crescent regiment and its armament of two 32-pounders; thus at last
gaining the complete control of the Atchafalaya, and at the same
time opening communication with Banks by way of Port Barré or
Barré's Landing on the Courtableau, distant about nine miles
northeasterly from Opelousas.  Then Cooke steamed up the Atchafalaya
to make his report to Farragut, lying in the Mississippi off the
mouth of the Red River, and to seek fresh orders.

At the outset of the campaign the 16th New Hampshire had been
detached from Ingraham's brigade of Emory and left at Brashear to
guard the main depots and the surplus baggage.  After the battle
of Bisland, the 4th Massachusetts was turned back to Brashear to
relieve the 16th New Hampshire.  This regiment having assisted in
the capture of Butte-ŕ-la-Rose, now formed the garrison of that
desolate and deadly hummock.

While at Opelousas the army could draw its supplies from Brashear
by the Atchafalaya and the Courtableau, but so long as the direction
of the future operations remained uncertain, it was necessary to
keep a firm hold of the communications by the Teche.  Accordingly,
the 175th New York took post at Franklin and the 22d Maine at New
Iberia.

On the 22d of April the 162d New York, under Blanchard, with a
section of the 1st Maine battery and one troop of the 2d Rhode
Island cavalry, marched to Barré's Landing, seized the position,
and captured the little steamboat _Ellen_, the last of the Teche
fleet.

On the 23d of April the little _Cornie_ arrived at Barré's Landing
from the depot at Brashear, and the next day the first wagon-train
came into camp laden with the supplies now sadly needed.  At sight
of the white-covered wagons winding over the plain, the men gave
way to those demonstrations of delight so familiar to all who have
ever seen soldiers rejoice.  For fifteen days they had been subsisting
upon an uncertain issue of hard bread, coffee, and salt, eked out
by levies, more or less irregular, upon the countryside.  They were
sick of chickens and cornbread, and fairly loathed the very sight,
to say nothing of the smell, of fresh-killed beef; tough at best,
even in the heart of the tenderloin, the flesh had to be eaten with
the odor and the warmth of the blood still in it, under penalty of
finding it fly-blown before the next meal.  Thus it was that, as
Paine relates in his Diary, the men now "howled for salt pork and
hard tack."

Although the army had now a double line of communication with its base,
yet the long haul from New Iberia and the scarcity of light-draught
steamboats adapted to the navigation of the narrow and tortuous bayous
made the task of supplying even the urgent wants of the troops
both tedious and difficult.  The herds near Opelousas were fast
disappearing under the ravages of the foragers, authorized and
unauthorized, yet had it not been for the beef obtained from
this source and for the abundant grass of the prairie men and horses
must soon have suffered greatly.

On the 24th of April, Banks reviewed his army in the open plain,
near Opelousas.  The troops, not as yet inured to the long and hard
marches, were indeed greatly diminished in numbers by the unaccustomed
toil and exposure, as well as by the casualties of battle and the
enervating effects of the climate, yet they presented a fine
appearance, and were in the best of spirits.

On learning of Cooke's success at Butte-ŕ-la-Rose, Banks detached
Dwight, posted him at Washington in observation, and placed Grover
with his remaining brigades at Barré's Landing, to secure the
depots, while Emory and Weitzel covered Opelousas.

Having by burning the Vermilion bridge gained a day's rest for his
tired soldiers, Taylor resumed the retreat at noon on the 17th of
April, and passing through Opelousas and Washington on the 18th
and 19th, on the following day found himself with all his trains
behind the Cocodrie and the Boeuf.  On the 20th he sent Mouton,
with all the cavalry except Waller's battalion, westward over the
prairie toward Niblett's Bluff, on the Sabine.  Then, with Waller
and the frayed remnant of the infantry, day by day wearing away at
the edges, Taylor continued his retreat toward Alexandria, halting
with what may be called his main body at Lecompte.  To hinder the
pursuit he burned the bridges over the Bayou Cocodrie and the Bayou
Boeuf.

Opelousas, miles away from every thing, in the heart of a vast
prairie, presented in itself no object for an invading army.  Even
the temptation of a good position was wanting.

Banks meant merely to halt there a day or two for rest, and then,
if it should be found practicable to obtain the necessary supplies,
to push on rapidly to Alexandria, and dispose for the season of
Taylor's disordered fragments.  Whether this could have been done
will never be known, for although the army had now far outmarched
its supplies, and even from its secondary base at Brashear was
separated by nearly a hundred miles, and although the campaign had
so far been made upon less than half the regular rations for men
and animals, supplemented from farm, sugar-house, and prairie, the
country on the line of march was no longer to be counted on for
any thing save sugar in plenty and a little corn; nevertheless, it
might have been possible, by great exertions, to replenish the
trains and depots, as well as to fill up the haversacks.  Moreover,
a three days' march would find the army on the banks of Red River,
with a new and ample source of supply open to them, and within easy
reach of Grant, provided only the navy might be counted upon to
control the waters of that stream and its larger tributaries.  Of
this Banks had no doubt whatever.  To open communication with Grant
and to dispose of Taylor had been the chief ends that Banks had
proposed to himself in setting out on the campaign.  These ends he
now held almost in his hand.  But on the 21st of April an event
occurred that, slight as was its apparent importance, was destined,
in the train of consequences, vitally to affect the operations of
the Army of the Gulf.

This was the arrival at headquarters of Lieutenant Joseph T. Tenney,
one of Dudley's aides-de-camp, who had been sent by Augur to find
Banks, wherever he might be.  With him Tenney brought important
despatches from Grant and Farragut.  What the contents were and
what came of them will be related in the next chapter.

From Opelousas Bean, with the 4th Wisconsin, a section of Duryea's
battery, and a squadron of the 2d Rhode Island cavalry, went a
day's march toward the southwest, to the crossing of the Plaquemine
Brulé, and discovered that Mouton was retreating beyond the Mermentau.
From Washington, Dwight moved out twenty miles along the Bayou
Boeuf to Satcham's plantation without finding the enemy in force.
After learning these things, on the 25th of April, Banks turned
over the command of the forces to Emory and went to New Orleans to
give his attention to affairs of urgency, chiefly affecting the
civil administration of the department.  He returned to headquarters
in the field on the evening of the 1st of May.

Meanwhile Emory sent Paine, who, when crossing the Carencro, had
seen the last of the Confederates disappearing in the distance,
with his brigade and a section of Duryea's battery far out on the
Plaquemine Brulé road, in order to find and disperse some cavalry,
vaguely reported to be moving about somewhere in that quarter, a
constant menace to the long trains from New Iberia.  In fact Mouton,
with the Texans, was now on the prairie, beyond the Calcasieu eighty
miles away, in good position to retreat to Texas or to hang on the
flank and rear of the Union army, as circumstances might suggest.
On the 26th of April Paine marched sixteen miles to the Plaquemine
Brulé, and on the following day sent four companies on horseback
twenty miles farther toward the southwest across Bayou Queue de
Tortue, and another detachment to Bayou Mallet to reconnoitre.
Seeing nothing of the enemy, on the 28th Paine rejoined his division
and resumed the command of it at Opelousas.  Some time before this
orders had been given to mount the 4th Wisconsin, and when the army
finally marched from Opelousas this capital regiment made its
appearance in the new rôle of mounted infantry.  To say nothing of
the equipments, a wide divergence in the size, color, and quality
of the horses, hastily gathered from the four quarters of the
prairie, gave to these improvised dragoons rather a ludicrous
appearance it must be confessed; yet marching afoot or standing to
horse, the 4th Wisconsin was always ready and equal to the work
cut out for it.

From his advanced camp, on Shields's plantation, twenty-three miles
beyond Washington and twenty-nine from Opelousas, Dwight fell back
on the 28th of April to his bivouac at Washington and waited for
the movement of the army to begin.

In preparation for this, on the evening of the 1st of May, Bean,
with the 4th Wisconsin, mounted, was sent forward to join the main
body of the cavalry, under Major Robinson, in front of Washington.
That night Dwight, with the cavalry, his own brigade, and a section
of Nims's battery, marched out some distance to discover the position
of the Confederate outposts.  These, in the interval that elapsed,
had been advanced to the junction of the Cocodrie and the Boeuf.
After driving them in Dwight returned the next morning to
Washington.

The advance of the column from Franklin to Opelousas had been
disfigured by the twin evils of straggling and marauding.  Before
the campaign opened, Banks had taken the precaution to issue
stringent orders against pillage, yet no means adequate to the
enforcement of these orders were provided, and the marches were so
long and rapid, the heat at times so intense, and the dust so
intolerable, that comparatively few of the men were able to keep
up with the head of the column.  This contributed greatly to disorder
of the more serious kind.  One regiment, neither the best nor the
worst, halting at the end of a particularly hard day's march, found
itself with scarcely fifty men in the ranks.  Then, too, the men
were on short rations, in what they considered the enemy's country;
the whole region was sparsely populated; and the residents had,
for the most part, fled from their homes at the news of the approach
of the Union army.

With these disorders there sprang up a third, less prevalent indeed,
but to the last degree annoying and not without its share of danger,
for when the straggler chanced to find himself in easy range of
any thing, from a steer to a chicken, that he happened to fancy
for his supper, he was not always careful in his aim or accurate
in his judgment of distance; thus a number of officers and men were
wounded and the lives of many put in peril.

As if to complete the lesson so often taught in all wars, that
discipline, care, and efficiency go hand in hand, when the army
moved out from Opelousas, though but a fortnight later, a different
state of things was seen.  This must be ascribed to the fact that
immediately after entering Opelousas the most stringent and careful
orders were given for the regulation of future marches, and the
punishment of stragglers and marauders.  By these orders was provided
for the first time a system adequate to their enforcement, and
sufficiently elastic to meet without annoyance and difficulty all
those cases, of hourly and even momentary occurrence in the movement
of an army, that require officers or men to quit the column.  In
the rear of each regiment was posted a surgeon, without whose
permission no sick man was allowed to fall out.  In the rear of
each brigade and division marched a detachment of cavalry, under
the orders of the provost marshal of the brigade or division,
charged with the duty of picking up as stragglers all men found
out of the ranks without a written permit from the surgeon or the
company commander.  The vital importance of a strict enforcement
of these arrangements was personally impressed upon the division
and brigade commanders; yet this was not now necessary, for there
were but few persons in the column of any rank that did not realize,
in part at least, the evil consequences resulting from the irregular
practices that had hitherto prevailed.  Thus the march to the Red
River was made rapidly and in order, and now for the first time
the soldiers of the Nineteenth Army Corps marched with that swift
and regulated movement of the column as a unit that was to be ever
afterwards a source of comfort to the men, of satisfaction to their
officers, and of just pride to every one belonging to the corps.

Unhappily, on the 25th of April, before the result of these
arrangements had had a chance to show themselves, Dwight, while on
detached service in the advance, caught an unfortunate man of the
131st New York, Henry Hamill by name, absent from his regiment
under circumstances that pointed him out as a plunderer.  Then,
without pausing to communicate with the general commanding, Dwight
took upon himself the task of trial and judgment on the spot, and
becoming satisfied of the man's guilt, caused him to be shot to
death at sunset in front of the brigade.  This action Banks, who
was just setting out for New Orleans, sustained in special orders
as soon as he returned.  Indeed, between this course and the instant
delivery of Dwight to punishment, Banks had practically no choice.
Nevertheless, whatever may have been the excuse or how extreme the
provocation, the act was altogether wrong.  The rules and articles
of war lay down the penal code of armies in all its severity, in
terms too clear to be misunderstood and too ample to warrant an
attempt on the part of any one in the service, however exalted his
rank, to enlarge or evade them.  The offender should have been
tried by court-martial.  No emergency or exigency existed to delay
the assembling of the court.  Had he been found guilty, his death
might swiftly have followed.  Then the terrible lesson would have
been impressive.  Then none would have thought it hasty, needless,
violent, or unlawful.

As it was, the wretched man's punishment furnished chiefly matter
for regret, and an example to be avoided.


CHAPTER XIII.
BANKS AND GRANT.

The first effect of the despatches from Grant and Farragut, referred
to in the preceding chapter, was to cause Banks to reconsider his
plan of campaign, and to put the direction of his next movement in
suspense.  While waiting for fresh advices in answer to his own
communications and proposals Banks halted, and while he halted
Taylor got time to breathe and Kirby Smith to gather new strength.

This correspondence has been so much discussed, yet so little
understood, that, chronology being an essential part of history,
the narrative of the events now at hand may be rendered clearer,
if we turn aside for a moment to consider not only the substance
of what was said upon both sides, but, what was even more important,
the time at which it was heard.

Farragut's letter, written from the _Hartford_ above Port Hudson
on the 6th of April, was the first communication Banks had received
from Farragut, save a brief verbal message brought to him by the
Admiral's secretary, Mr. E. C. Gabaudan, on the 10th of April, just
before the army set out from Brashear.  Mr. Gabaudan had come
straight from the Admiral, but without any thing in writing, having
floated past Port Hudson by night in a skiff covered with twigs so
as to look like a drift log.  Farragut's letter gave assurance of
the complete control of the Red River and the Atchafalaya by the
navy of the Union.

Grant's despatch bore date the 23d of March.  It was the first
writing received from him.  It conveyed the answer to the letter
addressed to him by Banks on the 13th of March, and placed in the
hands of Farragut just before the _Hartford_ ran the batteries of
Port Hudson.  Thus on either side began a correspondence clearly
intended by both commanders to bring about an effective co-operation
between the two armies, aided by the combined fleets of Farragut
and Porter.  Yet in the end, while the consequences remained unfelt
in the Army by the Tennessee, upon the Army of the Gulf the practical
effect, after the first period of delay and doubt, was to cause
its commander to give up the thought of moving toward Grant and to
conform all his movements to the expectation that Grant would send
an army corps to Bayou Sara to join in reducing Port Hudson.  Thus,
quite apart from the confusion and the eventual disappointment,
much valuable time was lost while the matter was in suspense; and
so was demonstrated once more the impossibility, well established
by the history of war, of co-ordinating the operations of two armies
widely separated, having different objectives, while an enemy
strongly holds the country between them.

When Banks wrote his despatch of the 13th of March, he was at Baton
Rouge, about to demonstrate against Port Hudson.  When Grant received
this despatch he was on the low land opposite Vicksburg, with the
rising river between him and his enemy, laboriously seeking a
practical pathway to the rear of Vicksburg, and in the meantime
greatly troubled to find dry ground for his seventy thousand men
to stand on.  Grant's first idea, derived from Halleck's despatches,
was that Banks should join him before Vicksburg, with the whole
available force of the Army of the Gulf.  When he learned from
Banks that this would be out of the question so long as Port Hudson
should continue to be held by the Confederates, Grant took up the
same line of thought that had already attracted Banks, and began
to meditate a junction by the Atchafalaya, the Red, the Tensas,
and the Black rivers.  What Grant then needed was not more troops,
but standing-room for those he had.  Accordingly, he began by
preparing to send twenty thousand men to Banks, when the Ohio River
steamers he had asked for should come.(1)  They never came, yet even
after he had embarked upon the campaign, alike sound in conception
and splendid in execution, that was to become the corner-stone of
his great and solid fame, Grant kept to his purpose.

On the 14th of April he penned this brief telegram to Banks:

"I am concentrating my forces at Grand Gulf; will send an army
corps Bayou Sara by the 25th, to co-operate with you on Port Hudson.
Can you aid me and send troops after the reduction of Port Hudson
to assist me at Vicksburg?"

This message, although Banks and Grant were then only about two
hundred miles apart, had to travel three thousand miles to reach
its destination.  Banks received it just before marching from
Opelousas on the 5th of May, twenty-one days after it left Grant's
hands.  As received, the message was in cipher and without a date.
As the prevailing practice was, in conformity with the orders of
the Secretary of War, the only persons in the Department of the
Gulf who held the key to the cipher were the Superintendent of
Military Telegraphs and such of his assistants as he chose to trust,
and Mr. Bulkley was at New Iberia, where the wires ended.  The code
employed was the route cipher in common use in the service, and
with the help of the words "Bayou" and "Sara" as guides the meaning
was not hard to make out.  Banks did not trust to this, however,
and waited until, late at night, he received from the Superintendent
an official translation, still without date, as indeed was the
original document received at headquarters from New Orleans.  The
25th Banks naturally took to mean the 25th of May.  Grasping eagerly
at the first real chance of effective co-operation, he at once
replied:  "By the 25th probably, by the 1st, certainly, I will be
there."  This despatch was not in cipher, because he had no code.
Captain Crosby carried it to the _Hartford_ at the mouth of Red
River.  Captain Palmer, who was found in command, the Admiral having
crossed Fausse Point and joined his fleet below, at once forwarded
the despatch.  Near Natchez Crosby met Captain Uffers of Grant's
staff and turned back with him bringing Grant's despatch of the
10th of May, written at Rocky Springs.  This Banks received at
Alexandria on the 12th of May.  From it he learned that Grant was
not coming.  Having met the Confederates after landing at Grand
Gulf and followed on their heels to the Big Black, he could not
afford to retrace his steps; but he urged Banks to join him or to
send all the force he could spare "to co-operate in the great
struggle for opening the Mississippi River."  The reasons thus
assigned by Grant for his change of mind were certainly valid; yet
it must be doubted whether in these hurried lines the whole of the
matter is set forth, for three weeks earlier, on the 19th of April,
five days after the promise to send an army corps to Bayou Sara by
the 25th, Grant had reported to Halleck:  "This will now be
impossible."  Moreover, until the moment when he crossed the river
with his advance on the 30th of April he not only held firmly to
his intention to send the twenty thousand men to join Banks at
Bayou Sara as soon as the landing should have been secured, but
the corps for this service had been designated; it was to be made
up of the main body of McClernand's corps and McPherson's, and
Grant himself meant to go with it.  It was indeed the 2d of May
when Grant received at Port Gibson Banks's despatch sent from
Brashear on the 10th of April indicating his purpose of returning
to Baton Rouge by the 10th of May, and although Grant also attributes
to this despatch the change of his plans, the 10th of May had
already come before he made known the change to Banks.

All this time Banks bore with him Halleck's instructions of the
9th of November, and more than once studied with care and solicitude
these significant words:  "As the ranking general in the Southwest
you are authorized to assume the control of any military force from
the upper Mississippi which may come within your command.  The line
of division between your department and that of Major-General Grant
is, therefore, left undecided for the present, and you will exercise
superior authority as far north as you may ascend the river."  By
the articles of war, without these words, Banks would have been
entitled to the command they gave him, but the words showed him
plainly what was expected of him by his government.  To the incentives
of patriotism and duty were thus superadded one of the most powerful
motives that can affect the mind of the commander of an army,--the
hope and assurance of power and promotion.  If, then, he held back
from joining Grant in Mississippi, it was because he hesitated to
take the extraordinary risks involved in the movement.  In this he
was more than justified.

Since the miscarriage of Sherman's attempt at the beginning of the
year, Grant had been engaged in a series of tentative efforts,
steadily prosecuted in various directions, yet all having a common
object, the finding of a foothold of dry ground for a decisive
movement against Vicksburg.  Four of these experimental operations
had failed completely, and Grant was now entering upon a fifth,
destined indeed to lead to a great and glorious result, yet in
itself conveying hardly more assurance of success than the most
promising of its predecessors, while involving perils greater than
any that had been so far encountered.  Of these, the greatest danger
was that the enemy, after allowing him to land on the east bank of
the river and to penetrate, with a portion of his army, into the
heart of Mississippi, might then concentrate all the available
forces of the Confederacy in that region and fall upon him with
vigor at the moment when his supplies should be exhausted and his
communications interrupted.  In such an event the fortune of war
might have rendered it imperative for him to retire down the river;
but what would have happened then if Banks, disregarding Port Hudson
in his eagerness to join Grant before Vicksburg, should in his turn
have abandoned his communications?  Both armies would have been
caught in a trap of their own making, whence not merit but some
rare stroke of luck could alone have rescued either.

In the strong light of the great and decisive victory of Vicksburg,
it is scarcely possible to reproduce, even in the mind of the most
attentive reader, the exact state of affairs as they existed at
the moment of Grant's landing below Grand Gulf.  This phenomenal
success was not foreshadowed by any thing that had gone before it,
and it would have been the height of imprudence to stake upon it
the fate of two armies, the issue of an entire campaign, and the
mastery of the Mississippi River, if not the final result of the
war.  Nor should it be forgotten that Grant himself regarded this
movement as experimental, like its forerunners, and that up to the
moment he set foot upon the soil of Mississippi, he had formed no
conception of the brilliant campaign on which he was about presently
to embark.  But instead of concentrating and acting with instant
determination upon a single plan with a single idea, at the critical
moment the Confederates became divided in council, distracted in
purpose, and involved in a maze of divergent plans, cross purposes,
and conflicting orders.  While events caused the Confederate leaders
to shift from one plan to the other, with the chances of the day,
Grant was prompt to see and quick to profit by his advantage, and
thus the campaign was given into his hands.

But on the 4th of May these great events were as yet hidden in the
unknown future, and when, after waiting thirteen days at Opelousas,
Banks began his march on Alexandria, it was with the earnest hope
of a speedy meeting of the two Union armies on the Mississippi;
then came the cipher telegram to exalt this hope into a firm and
just expectation of finding three weeks later an entire corps from
Grant's army at Bayou Sara, and as Banks mounted his horse to ride
toward the head of his column, it was with the fixed purpose of
being with his whole force at the appointed place at the appointed
time.

(1) "I sent several weeks ago for this class of steamers, and
expected them before this.  Should they arrive and Admiral Porter
get his boats out of the Yazoo, so as to accompany the expedition,
I can send a force of say 20,000 effective men to co-operate with
General Banks on Port Hudson."--Grant to Farragut, March 23d;
received by Banks, April 21st.  The cipher message that followed
seemed to Banks a confirmation of this.


CHAPTER XIV.
ALEXANDRIA.

Every one was in high spirits at the prospect of meeting the Army
of the Tennessee, and, to add to the general good-humor, just before
quitting Opelousas two pieces of good news became known.

Grierson rode into Baton Rouge on the 2d of May at the head of his
own 6th Illinois and Prince's 7th Illinois cavalry, together 950
horse.  Leaving La Grange on the 17th of April, he had within
sixteen days ridden nearly 600 miles around the rear of Vicksburg
and Port Hudson and along the whole line of the Jackson and Great
Northern railroad.  Beside breaking up the railway and the telegraph,
and destroying for the time being their value to the Confederate
army, Grierson's ride had an indirect effect, perhaps even more
important than the direct objects Grant had in view when he gave
his orders.  That the railway should be rendered useless for the
movement of troops and supplies, and the telegraph for the transmission
of orders and intelligence, was of course the essential purpose of
the operation, yet no one could have foreseen the extent of the
confusion that followed, aided by Grierson's rapid movements, amid
the fluttering and distracted councils at Vicksburg.  Thus it
happened that, when he heard of Grant's landing below Grand Gulf,
Pemberton actually thought himself menaced by the advance of Banks,
and this misapprehension was the parent of the first of those
mistakes of his adversary of which Grant made such good use.

Lieutenant Sargent,(1) the aide-de-camp sent to communicate with
Admiral Farragut, as stated in the last chapter, found at the mouth
of the Red River Admiral Porter, with the gunboats _Benton, Lafayette,
Pittsburg_, and _Price_, the ram _Switzerland_, and the tugboat
_Ivy_, with which he had run the batteries of Vicksburg in preparation
for Grant's movement.  Porter brought, indeed, no despatches, but
he brought the great news that Grant had secured his landing at
Grand Gulf and had begun his victorious march on Vicksburg.  When
Sargent returned to headquarters at Opelousas, he brought with him
a despatch from Porter, promising to meet the army at Alexandria.

Banks had already broken up the depots at Barré's Landing and New
Iberia.  On the afternoon of the 4th of May, he set Dwight in motion
from his advance post at Washington.  Weitzel marched from Opelousas
at five o'clock the same afternoon, and Emory's division under
Paine followed on the morning of the 5th.  Emory, who had been
suffering for some weeks, had at last consented to obey his surgeon's
orders and go to New Orleans for a brief rest.  Grover followed
from Barré's Landing early in the afternoon of the same day.  Banks
himself remained at Opelousas until early in the morning of the
6th, having waited to receive and answer the translation of the
cipher telegram from Grant; then he rode forward rapidly and joined
his troops near Washington.  From this time the communications of
the army were to be by the Atchafalaya and the Red River.

On the 4th of May, while riding to the front to join the advance
commanded by his brother, Captain Howard Dwight, Assistant
Adjutant-General, was surprised and cut off at a sharp turn in the
Bayou Boeuf by a party of armed men on the opposite bank.  Having no
reason to apprehend any special danger so far in the rear of the
advance, the little party was proceeding along the road without
precaution.  At the moment of the encounter Captain Dwight was
quite alone, concealed by the turn in the road from the ambulance
and the few orderlies that were following at leisure.  Armed only
with his sword, and seeing that escape was hopeless, he instantly
declared his readiness to surrender.  "Surrender be damned!" cried
the guerillas, and, firing a volley without further parley, shot
him dead.  When the orderlies who were with the ambulance heard
the firing they galloped forward, only to find poor Dwight's lifeless
body lying in the dusty road.  The murderers had fled.

By this painful event the service lost a brave and promising young
officer and the staff a pleasant and always cheerful comrade.  The
distinguished family to which this gallant gentleman belonged had
given four brothers to the service of their country.  Of these
Howard himself most nearly resembled in character, looks, and
bearing his elder brother Wilder, who fell at Antietam, honored
and lamented by all that knew him.

Upon hearing the news, Banks instantly sent order to Brigadier-General
Dwight to arrest all the white men he might find near the
line of his march to the number of one hundred, and to send them
to New Orleans to be held as hostages for the delivery of the
murderers.  "The people of the neighborhood who harbor and feed
these lawless men," Banks wrote, "are even more directly responsible
for the crimes which they commit, and it is by punishing them that
this detestable practice will be stopped."  There were not a hundred
white men in the region through which Dwight was marching, but many
were punished by imprisonment after this order--a harsh measure,
it must be admitted, yet not without the justification that the
countryside was infested by men wearing no uniform, who acted in
turn the part of soldiers in front of the Union army, of citizens
on its line of march, and of guerillas in its rear.  When, under
a flag of truce, Dwight presently demanded from Taylor the surrender
of his brother's murderers, the Confederate officers not only
disavowed but severely condemned the crime, declaring themselves,
however, unable to pick out the criminals.

Two miles beyond Washington the Bayous Boeuf and Cocodrie unite to
form the Bayou Courtableau, out of which again, below the town,
flows the Bayou Maricoquant, forming a double connection with the
Teche at its head.  For a long distance the Boeuf and the Cocodrie
keep close company, each following a crooked channel cut deeply
into the light soil.  Crossing the Courtableau above Washington,
the line of march now lay along the east bank of the Boeuf, by
Holmesville and Cheneyville, through a country of increasing richness
and beauty, gradually rising with quickened undulations almost
until the bluffs that border the Red River draw in sight.

Banks had promised that he would be in Alexandria on the morning
of the 9th of May; but no opposition was encountered; the roads
were good, dry, and easy under foot; the weather fine, and the men
were filled with a desire to push the march, and with an eager
rivalry to be first in Alexandria.  Early on the afternoon of the
7th of May the brigades of Dwight and Weitzel, both under Weitzel's
command, arrived at the beautiful plantation of Governor Moore,
and went into bivouac.  Here the cavalry, who had ridden well
forward, returned, bringing the news that Porter, with his gunboats,
was already in the river off Alexandria, where the fleet had cast
anchor early that morning, a full day before its time.  This made
Banks desire to push on, and he at first ordered Paine to continue
the march, preceded by all the cavalry.  When Weitzel heard this,
his spirit rose for the honor of his brigade, and in emphatic yet
respectful terms he protested against being deprived at the last
moment of the post he had held almost since leaving Brashear.
Banks yielded to Weitzel's wishes, and his men, not less eager than
their commander, notwithstanding the long march of twenty miles
they had already made, at once broke camp and with a swinging stride
set out the accomplish the twelve miles that still separated them
from the river.  One of the ever-present regimental wits sought to
animate the spirits and quicken the flagging footsteps of his
comrades by offering a turkey ready trussed upon his bayonet to
the man that should get to Alexandria before him.  For a long part
of the way the men of the 8th Vermont and the 75th New York amused
themselves by taking advantage of the wide and good roadway to run
a regimental race.  As the eager rivals came swinging down the
hill, they found their progress checked by a momentary halt of the
horsemen in their front, while watering their jaded animals.  Then,
"Get out of the way with that cavalry," was the cry, "or we'll run
over you!"

It was ten o'clock at night when Weitzel's men led the way into
Alexandria.  A full ration of spirits was served out to the men,
who then threw themselves on the ground without further ceremony
and used to the full the permission to enjoy for once a long sleep
mercifully unbroken by a reveille.  Paine followed and encamped
near Alexandria on the following morning; Grover rested near
Lecompte, about twenty miles in the rear.

Beside his own vessels, Porter brought with him to Alexandria the
_Estrella_ and _Arizona_ from the flotilla that had been operating
on the Atchafalaya under Cooke.  Porter was thus fully prepared to
deal with any opposition he might encounter from the Confederate
batteries at Fort De Russy; but, although only the day before the
_Albatross, Estrella_, and _Arizona_ had been driven off after a
sharp fight of forty minutes, when, on the 5th of May, Porter
arrived at Fort De Russy, he found the place deserted and the guns
gone.(2)

On the 8th of May, finding that the river was falling, Porter,
after conferring freely with Banks, withdrew all his vessels except
the _Lafayette_, and descending the Red River, sent four of the
gunboats seventy miles up the Black and its principal affluent,
the Washita, to Harrisonburg.  This latter expedition had no
immediate result, but it served to show the ease with which the
original plan of campaign might have been followed to its end.

While Banks was still at Opelousas, Kirby Smith, taking Dwight's
approach to signify a general advance of the Union army, had arranged
to retire up the Red River and to concentrate at Shreveport.
Thither, on the 24th of April, he removed his headquarters from
Alexandria and called in not only Taylor but a division of infantry
under Walker, and three regiments of Texans already on the Red
River.  All the troops that Magruder could spare from the 8,000
serving in Eastern Texas he was at once to put in march to the
Sabine.  These orders, though too late for the emergency, brought
about the concentration that was presently to threaten the ruin of
Banks's main campaign on the Mississippi.

Weitzel, with Dwight, followed the Confederate rear-guard to Lawson's
Ferry, forty-one miles by the river beyond Alexandria, taking a
few prisoners.  Taylor himself appears to have had a narrow escape
from being among them.

During the week spent at Alexandria, Banks was for the first time
in direct and comparatively rapid communication with Grant, now in
the very heart of his Vicksburg campaign, and here, as we have
seen, the correspondence was brought to a point.  When he first
learned that Grant had given up all intention of sending to him
any portion of the Army of the Tennessee, Banks was greatly cast
down, and his plans rapidly underwent many changes and perturbations.
At first he was disposed to think that nothing remained but to
retrace his steps over the whole toilsome way by Opelousas, the
Teche, Brashear, New Orleans, and the Mississippi River to Baton
Rouge, and thence to conduct a separate attack upon Port Hudson.
This movement would probably have consumed two months, and long
before the expiration of that time it was fair to suppose the object
of such an operation would have ceased to exist.  What led Banks
to this despondent view was the fact that he had been counting upon
Grant's steamboat transportation for the crossing of the Mississippi
to Bayou Sara, and at first, he did not see how this deficiency
could now be met.

Indeed, on the 12th of May, he went so far as to issue his preparatory
orders for the retrograde movement; but the next day careful
reconnoissances by his engineers, Major Houston and Lieutenant
Harwood, led him to change his mind and to conclude that it would,
after all, be possible to march to Simmesport, and there, using
the light-draught boats of the Department of the Gulf, supplemented
by such steamers as Grant might be able to spare for this purpose,
to transfer the whole column to Grand Gulf and thence march to join
Grant in the rear of Vicksburg.  Accordingly, on the 13th of May,
Banks gave orders for the immediate movement of his whole force in
accordance with this plan, and set aside all the preparations that
had previously been made.

When the news reached Washington that Grant had gone to Jackson
and Banks to Alexandria, great was the dissatisfaction of the
Government and emphatic its expression.  On the 19th of May Halleck
wrote to Banks:

"These operations are too eccentric to be pursued.  I must again
urge that you co-operate as soon as possible with General Grant
east of the Mississippi.  Your forces must be united at the earliest
possible moment.  Otherwise the enemy will concentrate on Grant
and crush him.  Do all you can to prevent this. . . .

"We shall watch with the greatest anxiety the movements of yourself
and General Grant.  I have urged him to keep his forces concentrated
as much as possible and not to move east until he gets control of
the Mississippi River."

And again, on the 23d of May, still more pointedly:

"If these eccentric movements, with the main forces of the enemy
on the Mississippi River, do not lead to some serious disaster, it
will be because the enemy does not take full advantage of his
opportunity.  I assure you the Government is exceedingly disappointed
that you and General Grant are not acting in conjunction.  It
thought to secure that object by authorizing you to assume the
entire command as soon as you and General Grant could unite."

When the despatches were penned, Grant and Banks were already
committed to their own plans for the final campaign on the Mississippi.
When they were received, Grant was before Vicksburg, Banks before
Hudson; each had delivered his first assault and entered upon the
siege.  The censure was withdrawn as soon as, in the light of full
explanations, the circumstances came to be understood.

(1) Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, of Harvard University,
Director of the Arnold Arboretum, the distinguished author of the
great book on Forest Trees of North America.  At this time he was
serving zealously as a volunteer aide-de-camp without pay.

(2) Under orders from Kirby Smith to Taylor, dated April 22d:  "The
General is of the opinion that if a portion of the force pursuing
you should move against Fort De Russy by the road from Hauffpaur,
it would be impossible to hold it."  See also Smith to Cooper,
April 23d:  "The people at Fort De Russy cannot stand a land attack.
The advance of the enemy's column to the Hauffpaur . . . will ensure
its speedy fall, with loss of guns and garrison.  Under these
circumstances, General Taylor has ordered the removal of the
32-pounder rifle and 11-inch columbiads to a position higher up the
Red River."


CHAPTER XV.
BACK TO PORT HUDSON.

On the 7th of May Porter relived Farragut in the guardianship of
the Mississippi and its tributaries above the mouth of the Red
River.  This left Farragut free to withdraw his fleet so long
blockading and blockaded above Port Hudson.  Accordingly he gave
discretionary orders to Palmer to choose his time for once more
running the gauntlet, and Palmer was only watching his opportunity
when he yielded to the earnest entreaty of Banks, and agreed to
remain and co-operate if the General meant to go against Port
Hudson.

Grover began the movement on the 14th of May; Paine followed early
on the morning of the 15th, while Weitzel, still retaining Dwight,
was ordered to hold Alexandria until the 17th, and then to retire
to Murdock's plantation, where the east and west road along the
Bayou Hauffpaur crosses the road from Alexandria to Opelousas, and
there await further orders.

Besides the ordinary duty of a rear-guard, the object of this
disposition of Weitzel's force was to cover the withdrawal toward
Brashear of the long train of surplus wagons for which there was
now no immediate need, and which would only have encumbered the
proposed movement of the Corps by water.  All the troops took the
road by Cheneyville instead of that by Marksville, in order to
conceal from the Confederates as long as possible the true direction
of the movement.

Having given these orders, Banks embarked on one of the river
steamboats on the evening of the 15th and transferred his headquarters
to Simmes's plantation on the east bank of the Atchafalaya opposite
Simmesport.  Thence he proceeded down the Atchafalaya to Brashear,
and so by rail to New Orleans.

Grover broke camp at Stafford's plantation on the 14th of May, and
marched seventeen miles to Cheneyville; on the 15th, fourteen miles
to Enterprise; on the 16th, sixteen miles to the Bayou de Glaise;
and, on the morning of the 17th, twelve miles to Simmesport, and
immediately began to cross on large flatboats rowed by negro boatmen.
To these were presently added a little, old, slow, and very frail
stern-wheel steamboat, named the _Bee_, which, a short time
afterwards, quietly turned upside down, without any observable
cause, while lying alongside the levee; then the _Laurel Hill_,
one of the best boats in the service of the quartermaster; afterward
gradually but very slowly the other steamers began to come in.
Grover finished crossing on the morning of the 18th, and went into
camp near the Corps headquarters.

Paine, with the 6th New York added to his command for the few
remaining days of its service, followed in the footsteps of Grover.
Leaving Alexandria on the morning of the 15th, Paine marched twenty
miles and halted at Lecompte.  On the 16th, he marched twenty-five
miles to the Bayou Rouge; on the 17th, twenty miles to the Bayou
de Glaise, where the Marksville road crosses it; on the 18th, seven
miles to Simmesport, and on the following morning began to cross.

Before leaving Alexandria, Weitzel, on the 14th May, sent two
companies of cavalry to reconnoitre a small force of the enemy said
to be near Boyce's Bridge on Bayou Cotile.  The Confederates were
found in some force.  A slight skirmish followed, with trifling
loss on either side, and when, the next day, Weitzel sent the main
body of the cavalry with one piece of Nims's battery, accompanied
by the ram _Switzerland_ with a detachment of 200 men of the 75th
New York, the Confederates once more retired beyond Cane River.

Weitzel moved out of Alexandria at four o'clock on the morning of
the 17th of May, and, lengthening his march to thirty-eight miles
during the night, encamped on Murdock's plantation on the following
morning.  The gunboats _Estrella_ and _Arizona_ and the ram
_Switzerland_ stayed in the river off Alexandria until noon of the
17th to cover Weitzel's withdrawal, and then dropped down to the
mouth of Red River and the head of the Atchafalaya.  The Confederates
slowly followed Weitzel at some distance, observing his movements,
and, on the morning of the 20th, attacked his pickets.  Then Bean,
who commanded Weitzel's advanced guard, consisting of his own 4th
Wisconsin, mounted, the 12th Connecticut, and all the cavalry,
threw off the attack and pursued the Confederates nearly to
Cheneyville, where Barrett, advancing too boldly after the main
body had halted, was cut off, with a detachment of seventeen of
his troop, and, finding himself surrounded, was forced to surrender.
Barrett himself and several of his men afterwards succeeded in
making their escape.  The attacking party of the Confederates
consisted of Lane's regiment, fresh from Texas, Waller's battalion,
and a part of Sibley's brigade, with a battery of artillery.

On the morning of the 22d, Weitzel, having completed the object
of his halt at Murdock's plantation, marched at a stretch the
thirty-four miles to Simmesport without further molestation, and
arriving there on the morning of the 23d, at once began the crossing.

Chickering marched from Barré's Landing on the morning of the 21st
of May.  His force consisted of his own regiment, the 41st
Massachusetts, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Sargent and mounted
on prairie horses, the 52d Massachusetts, the 22d Maine, the
26th Maine, the 90th New York, the 114th New York, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Per Lee, Company E of the 13th Connecticut, and
Snow's section of Nims's battery.

The 90th New York, Colonel Joseph S. Morgan, was among the older
regiments in the Department of the Gulf, having been mustered into
the service in December, 1861.  In January, 1862, it went to Florida
with Brannan, on his appointment to command the Department of Key
West; and in June, 1862, it formed the garrison of Fort Jefferson
on the Dry Tortugas and of Key West; in November it was relieved
by the 47th Pennsylvania, and joined Seymour's brigade on Port
Royal Island, South Carolina.  In March, 1863, it was back at Key
West.  There both regiments remained together until May.  Meanwhile
the district, then commanded by Woodbury, had been transferred from
the Department of the South to the Department of the Gulf by orders
from the War Office dated the 16th of March.  These Banks received
on the 10th of April, just before leaving Brashear, and as soon as
he learned the condition and strength of the post, he called in
the 90th New York.  The regiment arrived at Barré's Landing just
in time to go back to Brashear with Chickering.  Morgan, though
Chickering's senior in rank, waived his claim to the command and
accepted a temporary brigade made up of all the infantry and the
artillery.

The 114th New York, after quitting the column on the 19th of April,
before passing the Vermilion, and performing the unpleasant duty
of driving before it to Brashear all the beeves within its reach,
was so unfortunate as to arrive at Cheneyville, on the return march,
on the 12th of May, at the moment when Banks had made up his mind
to retire to Brashear, and so just in time to face about and once
more retrace its weary steps.  Passing through Opelousas and Grand
Couteau, the 114th turned to the left by the Bayou Fusilier and
fell in with Chickering on the Teche.

The way was by the Teche, on either bank.  By this time Mouton,
reinforced by a brigade of three regiments under Pyron, with a
light battery, probably Nichols's, had recrossed the Calcasieu
under orders sent him by Kirby Smith on the 14th of May, before he
knew of Banks's latest movement, and was approaching the Vermilion
just in time to harry the flank and rear of Chickering's column,
scattered as it was in the effort to guard the long train that
stretched for eight miles over the prairies, with a motley band of
5,000 negroes, 2,000 horses, and 1,500 beeves for a cumbrous
accompaniment.  With the possible exception of the herd that set
out to follow Sherman's march through Georgia, this was perhaps
the most curious column ever put in motion since that which defiled
after Noah into the ark.

On the 21st of May, Chickering halted near Breaux Bridge; on the
22d, above Saint Martinville; on the 23d, above New Iberia; on
the 24th, at Jeannerette.  On the following afternoon the column
had halted five miles beyond Franklin, when a small force of the
enemy, supposed to be part of Green's command or of Fournet's
battalion, fell upon the rear-guard and a few shots were exchanged,
with slight casualties on either side, save that Lieutenant Almon
A. Wood, of the 110th New York, fell with a mortal wound.  However,
although the troops had already traversed twenty-five miles, this
decided Morgan, who seems by this time to have taken the command,
to push on, and the march being kept up throughout the night, the
wearied troops, after a short rest for breakfast arrived at Berwick
Bay at eleven o'clock on the following morning.  In the last
thirty-one hours the command had marched forty-eight miles.  In the
forty-one days that had passed since the campaign opened the 114th
New York had covered a distance of almost 500 miles, nearly every
mile of it afoot and with but three days' rest.  The same afternoon
the crossing began, and by the 28th every living thing was in safety
at Brashear.

Banks had sent his despatches of the 13th of May to Grant by the
hands of Dwight, with instructions to lay the whole case before
Grant and to urge the view held by Banks with regard to the
co-operation of the two armies.  Dwight proceeded to Grand Gulf by
steamboat, and thence riding forward, overtook Grant just in time
to witness the battle of Champion's Hill on the 16th of May.  That
night he sent a despatch by way of Grand Gulf, promising to secure
the desired co-operation, but urging Banks not to wait for it.
The message arrived at headquarters at Simmes's plantation on the
evening of the 17th, and was at once sent on to Brashear to be
telegraphed to the commanding general at New Orleans.  This assurance
sent by Dwight really conveyed no more than his own opinion, but
Banks read it as a promise from Grant, and once more convinced that
it would be futile to attempt a movement toward Grand Gulf with
the limited means of transport he had at hand, he again changed
his plan and determined to go directly to Bayou Sara, hoping and
trusting to meet there on the 25th of May a corps of 20,000 men
from Grant's army.

The effective strength of the force now assembled near the head of
the Atchafalaya was 8,400 infantry, 700 cavalry, 900 artillery; in
all, 10,000.  This great reduction was not wholly due to the effects
of the climate, hardships, and long marches, but is partly to be
ascribed to heavy detachments.  These included the six regiments
with Chickering, one at Butte-ŕ-la-Rose, and one at Brashear.

At Simmesport the Corps sustained its first loss by expiration of
service.  The 6th New York, having completed the two years' term
for which it had enlisted, went by the Atchafalaya and the railway
to New Orleans, and there presently took transport for New York to
be mustered out.

The movements of the army, though pressed as much as possible, were
greatly retarded by the scanty means of water transportation and
the pressing need of coal.  From this cause the navy was also
suffering, and urgent means had to be taken to supply the
deficiency.

Reconnoissances, conducted by Lieutenant Harwood, in the course of
which the enemy's cavalry was seen but not engaged, showed the
roads from the Atchafalaya to Waterloo to be practicable for all
arms.  A detachment of cavalry sent out on the 18th to ascertain
whether the Confederates had any force on the west bank of the
Mississippi, encountered near Waterloo about 120 men of the 1st
Alabama regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Locke, who had been sent
over the day before from Port Hudson in skiffs to prevent any
communication between the upper and the lower fleets.  A skirmish
followed, with slight loss on either side.

First placing Emory in command of the defences of New Orleans, and
ordering Sherman to take Dow and Nickerson and join Augur before
Port Hudson, Banks left the city on the 20th of May, rejoined his
headquarters on the 21st, and at once set his troops in motion
toward Bayou Sara.  At half-past eight o'clock on the morning of
the 21st of May, Paine broke up his bivouac on the Atchafalaya and
marched to Morganza, after detaching the 131st New York and the 173d
New York with a section of artillery to guard the ammunition train.
Grover followed by water as fast as the steamboats could be provided.
At two o'clock on the morning of the 22d of May, Banks and Grover,
with the advance of Grover's division, landed at Bayou Sara without
meeting any opposition from the enemy, who, up to this time, seems
not to have suspected the movement.  The other troops followed as
rapidly as the means of transport permitted.  Grover's division
was sent ashore, followed by two brigades of Paine's division from
Morganza.  The wagon train went on down the road to the landing
directly opposite Bayou Sara, under the escort of the 110th New
York, and the 162d New York, with one section of Carruth's battery,
all under the command of Benedict.

Soon after the landing at Bayou Sara, a party of cavalry rode in,
bringing the news of Augur's battle of the 21st.  Hearing that
Augur was at that moment engaged with the enemy, Banks pressed
forward his troops.  In a violent storm of wind and rain Grover
pushed on until he met Augur's outlying detachments.  Then, finding
all quiet, he went into bivouac near Thompson's Creek, north-west
of Port Hudson.  Paine followed, and rested on the Perkins plantation,
a mile in the rear of Grover.  Banks made his headquarters with
Grover.  Augur covered the front of the position taken up by the
enemy after the battle of Plains Store.  On the same day, the 22d,
Sherman came up the river, landed at Springfield, and went into
position on the Bayou Sara road on Augur's left.  Thus at night on
the 22d the garrison of Port Hudson was practically hemmed in.

On the 18th, Banks had ordered Augur to march with his whole
disposable force to the rear of Port Hudson to prevent the escape
of the garrison.  As early as the 13th of May, while yet the plan
of campaign was in suspense, Augur had sent Grierson with the
cavalry and Dudley with his brigade to Merritt's plantation, near
the junction of the Springfield Landing and Bayou Sara roads, to
threaten the enemy and discover his movements.  Dudley then took
post near White's Bayou, a branch of the Comite, and remained in
observation, covering the road to Clinton and the fork that leads
to Jackson.  On the 20th of May Augur moved the remainder of his
force up to Dudley, in order to be ready to cover T. W. Sherman's
landing at Springfield, as well as to meet the advance of the main
column under Banks from Bayou Sara, now likely to occur at any
moment.  With Augur now were Dudley, Chapin, Grierson, Godfrey's
squadron composed of troops C and E of the Louisiana cavalry, two
sections of Rawles's battery, Holcomb's battery, and one section
of Mack's commanded by Sergeant A. W. McCollin.  At six o'clock on
the morning of the 21st of May Augur marched toward the crossing
of the Plains Store and Bayou Sara roads to seize the enemy's line
of retreat and to open the way for Banks.  When Grierson came to
the edge of the wood that forms the southern boundary of the plain,
his advance fell in with a detachment of the garrison under Colonel
S. P. Powers of the 14th Arkansas regiment, and a brisk skirmish
followed.  The same afternoon Gardner sent out Miles, with his
battalion, about 400 strong, and Boone's battery, to feel Augur's
advance and perhaps to drive it away.  This brought on the action
known as the battle of Plains Store.  Unfortunately, no complete
reports of the affair were made and the regimental narratives are
meagre.

In the heavy forest that then masked the crossroads and formed the
western border of the plain, Miles met Augur moving into position;
Dudley, on the right of the road that leads from Plains Store to
Port Hudson, supporting Holcomb's guns, and Chapin on the left
supporting Rawles's guns.  For about an hour the artillery fire
was brisk.  The 48th Massachusetts, being badly posted in column
on either side of the Port Hudson road, gave way in some confusion
under the sharp attack of Miles's men coming on through the thicket,
and thus exposed the guns of Beck's section of Rails.  As the 48th
fell back through the advancing ranks of the 49th Massachusetts,
the progress of that regiment was momentarily hindered, but a brisk
charge of the 116th New York restored the battle.  On the right,
a section of Boone's battery got an enfilade fire on Rails and
Chapin, and enabled Miles to draw off and retire behind the
breastworks.  Thus the affair was really ended before Augur, whose
duty it was to act with prudence, had time to complete the proper
development of his division as for a battle with the full force of
the enemy, which he was bound to suppose was about to engage him.
Then he completed the task of making good his position, and proceeded
to open communication with Banks and with Sherman.

The main loss fell upon Chapin, Dudley's casualties numbering but
18, Grierson's but 2.  The total casualties were 15 men killed, 3
officers and 69 men wounded, and 25 men missing--in all, 102.  Miles
reports his loss as 8 killed, 23 wounded, and 58 missing,--in all,
89.

When Augur quitted Baton Rouge he placed Drew with the 4th Louisiana
Native Guards in Fort Williams to hold the place, supported by the
fleet, and ordered Nelson with the 1st and 3d Louisiana Native
Guards to be ready to follow the division to Port Hudson.


CHAPTER XVI.
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF MAY.

Port Hudson was now held by Gardner with a force of about seven
thousand of all arms.  During the interval that had elapsed since
its first occupation a formidable series of earthworks had been
thrown up, commanding not only the river but all the inland approaches
that were deemed practicable.  The first plan for land defence was
mainly against the attack expected to come from the direction of
Baton Rouge.  Accordingly, about four miles below Port Hudson a
system of works was begun that, if completed, according to the
original trace, would have involved a defensive line eight miles
in length, requiring thirty-five thousand men and seventy guns to
hold it.  As actually constructed, the lines were four and a half
miles long, and ran in a semicircular sweep from the river near
Ross Landing, below Port Hudson, to the impassable swamp above.
Following this line for thirteen hundred yards after leaving the
river on the south, the bluff is broken into irregular ridges and
deep ravines, with narrow plateaus; thence for two thousand yards
the lines crossed the broad cotton fields of Gibbons's and of
Slaughter's plantations; beyond these for four hundred yards they
were carried over difficult gullies; beyond these again for fourteen
hundred yards their course lay through fields and over hilly ground
to the ravine at the bottom of which runs Sandy Creek.  Here, on
the day of the investment, the line of Confederate earthworks
stopped, the country lying toward the northeast being considered
so difficult that no attack was looked for in that quarter.  Sandy
Creek finds its way into the marshy bottom of Foster's Creek, and
from Sandy Creek, where the earthworks ended, to the river at the
mouth of Foster's Creek, is about twenty-five hundred yards.  Save
where the axe had been busy, nearly the whole country was covered
with a heavy growth of magnolia trees of great size and beauty.
This was a line that, for its complete defence against a regular
siege, conducted according to the strict principles of military
science, as laid down in the books, should have had a force of
fifteen thousand men.  At the end of March the garrison consisted
of 1,366 officers, 14,921 men of all arms present for duty, making
a total of 16,287.  The main body was organized in 5 brigades,
commanded by Beall, Buford, Gregg, Maxey, and Rust.  The fortifications
on the river front mounted 22 heavy guns, from 10-inch columbiads
down to 24-pounder siege guns, manned by 3 battalions of heavy
artillerists, while 13 light batteries, probably numbering 78
pieces, were available for the defence of all the lines: of these
batteries only 5 were now left, with 30 guns.

When, early in May, Pemberton began to feel the weight of Grant's
pressure, he called on Gardner for reinforcements; thus Rust and
Buford marched to the relief of Vicksburg on the 4th of May, Gregg
followed on the 5th, and Maxey on the 8th.  Miles was to have
followed Maxey; in fact the preparations and orders had been given
for the evacuation of Port Hudson; but now the same uncertainty
and vacillation on the part of the Confederate chiefs that were to
seal the doom of Vicksburg began to be felt at Port Hudson.  Gardner,
who had moved out with Maxey, had hardly arrived at Clinton when
he was met by an order from Pemberton to return to Port Hudson with
a few thousand men and to hold the place to the last.  But ten days
later, on the 19th of May, Johnston, who was then engaged in carrying
out his own ideas, which differed radically from those of Davis
and Pemberton, ordered Gardner to evacuate Port Hudson and to march
on Jackson, Mississippi.  This order, sent by courier as well as
by telegraph, Gardner received just as Augur was marching from
Baton Rouge to cut him off.  Then it was too late, and when on the
23d Johnston peremptorily renewed his order for the evacuation,
even the communication was closed.

The investment was made perfect by the presence in the river, above
and below Port Hudson, of the ships and gunboats of the navy.  Just
above the place and at anchor around the bend lay the _Hartford_,
now Commodore Palmer's flagship, with the _Albatross, Sachem,
Estrella,_ and _Arizona_.  Below, at anchor off Prophet's Island,
were the _Monongahela_, bearing Farragut's flag, the _Richmond,
Genesee, Essex_, and the mortar flotilla.  Both the upper and the
lower fleets watched the river at night by means of picket-boats
in order to discover any movement and to intercept any communication
with the garrison.

At the Hermitage plantation, on the west bank of the river, Benedict
was stationed with his own regiment, the 162d New York, the 110th
New York, and a section of artillery to prevent the escape of the
Confederates by water.  As soon as Weitzel joined, on the 25th of
May, Banks began to close in his lines along the entire front.
Weitzel moved up to the sugar-house on the telegraph road near the
bridge over Foster's Creek; Paine advanced into the woods on
Weitzel's left; Grover moved forward on the north of the Clinton
Railway, crossed the ravine of Sandy Creek, and occupied the wooded
rest of the steep hill in front.  Augur prolonged the line across
the Plains Store road under cover of the woods, yet in plain view
of the Confederate entrenchments.  Sherman held the Baton Rouge
road, occupying the skirt of woods that formed the eastern edge of
Slaughter's and Gibbons's fields.

The 1st and 3d Louisiana Native Guards, under Nelson, having come
up from Baton Rouge, were posted at the sugar-house near Foster's
Creek, forming the extreme right of the line of investment.

Banks now placed Weitzel in command of the right wing of the army,
comprising his own brigade under Thomas, Dwight's brigade of Grover's
division under Van Zandt, together forming a temporary division
under Dwight, the six regiments that remained of Paine's division
after the heavy detachments, and the two colored regiments under
Nelson.  During the day of the 25th Weitzel gained the wooded slope
covering the Confederate left front.  The Confederate advanced
guard on this part of their line, composed in part of the 9th
battalion of Louisiana partisan rangers, under Lieutenant-Colonel
Wingfield, resisted Weitzel's advance stoutly, but was steadily
and without difficulty pushed back into the entrenchments.

When night fell on the 26th of May the division commanders met at
headquarters at Riley's on the Bayou Sara road to consider the
question of an assault.  No minutes of this council were kept, and
to this day its conclusions are a matter of dispute.  They may
safely be regarded as sufficiently indicated by the orders for the
following day.  By at least one of those present any immediate
movement in the nature of an assault was objected to because of
the great distance that still separated the lines of investment
from the Confederate earthworks; it was urged that the troops would
have to move to the attack over ground the precise character of
which was as yet unknown to them or to their commanders, although
it was known to be broken and naturally difficult and to be obstructed
by felled timber.  The general opinion was, however, that prompt
and decisive action was demanded in view of the unusual and precarious
nature of the campaigns on which the two armies of Grant and Banks
were now embarked, the uncertainty as to what Johnston might do,
and the certainty that a disaster at Vicksburg would bring ruin in
Louisiana.  Moreover, officers and men alike were in high spirits
and full of confidence in themselves, and they outnumbered the
Confederates rather more than two to one.  This was the view held
by Banks himself.  Upon his mind, moreover, the disapproval and
the repeated urgings of the government acted as a goad.  Accordingly,
as soon as the council broke up he gave orders for an assault on
the following morning.

All the artillery was to open upon the Confederate works at daybreak.
For this purpose the reserve artillery was placed under the immediate
orders of Arnold.  He was to open fire at six.

Weitzel was to take advantage of the attacks on the left and centre
to force his way into the works on his front, since it was natural
to expect that, whether they should prove successful or not, these
attacks would distract the attention of the enemy and serve to
relieve the pressure in Weitzel's front.

Grover was thus left with five regiments to support the left centre,
to reinforce either the right or left, and to support the right
flank of the reserve artillery, or to force his way into the works,
as occasion might require.

Augur, holding the centre, with Dudley's brigade forming his right
and Chapin his left, and Sherman, at the extreme left, separated
from Augur by a thick wood, were to begin the attack during the
cannonade by advancing their skirmishers to kill the enemy's
cannoneers and to cover the assault.  They were to place their
troops in position to take instant advantage of any favorable
opportunity, and, if possible, to force the enemy's works at the
earliest moment.

Each division commander was to provide his own means for passing
the ditch.  These, for the most part, consisted of cotton bags,
fascines, and planks borne by detachments of men, furnished by
detail or by volunteering.

It will be observed that no time was fixed for the assault of either
column nor any provision made to render the several attacks
simultaneous.  Moreover, although the order wound up with the
emphatic declaration that "Port Hudson must be taken to-morrow,"
an impression prevailed in the minds of at least two of the division
commanders that there were still to be reconnoissances by the
engineers, and that upon the results of these would depend the
selection of the points of attack.

There were no roads along the front or rear of the investing army,
and the only means by which communication was maintained between
the left, the centre, and the right was either by wide detours or
through dense and unknown woods and thickets.  It was impossible
to see the troops in front or rear or on either flank.  On no part
of the line was either division in sight of the other.

The forest approached within 250 yards at the nearest point on
Weitzel's front, within 450 yards on Grover's, within 500 yards on
Augur's, and within 1,200 yards on Sherman's front.  The field to
be passed over was partly the cleared land of the plantations,
crossed by fences and hedges, but in many places, especially on
Augur's approach, the timber had been recently felled, and, lying
thick upon the ground, made a truly formidable obstacle.

The morning of the 27th of May broke bright and beautiful.  As the
early twilight began to open out along the entire front the artillery
began a furious cannonade.  At first the Confederate guns replied
with spirit, but it soon became apparent that they were overweighted,
and, moreover, the necessity of husbanding their scanty store of
ammunition no doubt impressed itself upon the minds of the Confederate
commanders.

About six o'clock, when Weitzel judged that the movement on the
left must be well advanced, he put his columns in motion through
the dense forest in his front, forming his command, as far as the
nature of the ground admitted, in column of brigades, Dwight's
brigade under Van Zandt leading, followed by Weitzel's brigade
under Thomas.  Paine formed his division in two lines in support,
his own brigade under Fearing in front, and Gooding's in reserve.
The Confederate skirmishers and outposts continued to occupy the
forest and the ravines on this part of their front, and the first
hour was spent in pressing them back behind their entrenchments.
Then Thomas moved forward through Van Zandt's intervals, and
deploying from right to left the 160th New York, Lieutenant-Colonel
Van Petter; 8th Vermont, Lieutenant-Colonel Dillingham; 12th
Connecticut, Lieutenant-Colonel Peck; and 75th New York,
Lieutenant-Colonel Babcock, advanced to the attack.  Van Zandt,
owing to the inequalities of the ground and the difficulty of
finding the way, drifted somewhat toward the right.  Thereupon
Paine, finding his front uncovered, moved forward into the
interval.  Then began what has been aptly termed a "huge bushwack."

Until within three days a part of the Confederate lines in front
of Weitzel had not been fortified at all, the defence resting on
the great natural difficulties of the approaches no less than of
the ground to be held; but in the interval Gardner had taken notice
of the indications that pointed to an advance in this quarter, and
had caused light breastworks to be constructed in all haste.  This
the great trees that covered the hill rendered an easy task.  On
the morning of the 27th of May, therefore, the works that Weitzel
was called upon to attack consisted mainly of big logs on the crest
and following the contour of the hill, rendered almost unapproachable
by the felled timber that choked the ravines.  Thus, while Weitzel's
men could not even see their enemy, they were themselves unable to
move beyond the cover of the hollows and the timber without offering
an easy mark for a destructive fire of small-arms, as well as of
grape, shell, shrapnel, and canister.  When finally, after climbing
over hills, logs, and fallen trees, and forcing the ravines filled
with tangled brush and branches, Weitzel had driven the Confederates
into their works, he held the ridge about two hundred yards distant
from the position to be attacked.

Paine's position at this time was to the right and rear of battery
No. 6, as shown on the map; Weitzel and Dwight were on the same
crest near batteries 3, 4, and 5.  The pioneers worked like beavers
to open the roads as fast as the infantry advanced, and with such
skill and zeal that hardly had the infantry formed upon the crest
than the guns of Duryea, Bainbridge, Nims, Haley, and Carruth
unlimbered and opened fire by their side.

At length Thomas succeeded in making his way across the rivulet
known as Little Sandy Creek, and, working gradually forward, began
to fortify with logs the hill on the right, afterward known as Fort
Babcock, in honor of the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 75th New York.

To support Weitzel's movement, Grover sent the 159th New York,
Lieutenant-Colonel Burt, and the 25th Connecticut by a wide detour
to the right to make their way in on Paine's left.  Taking advantage
of the protection afforded by the ravine, at the bottom of which
ran or rather trickled Sandy Creek, these regiments, after the most
difficult and exhausting scramble through the brush and over the
fallen timber, came to the base of a steep bluff, near the position
afterward occupied by siege battery No. 6.  This, although the works
directly opposite were as yet light, was naturally one of the
ugliest approaches on the whole front.  In spite of every exertion,
it took the 159th an hour to move half a mile.  Just before reaching
the foot of the hill over which they were to charge, they captured
a Confederate captain and six skirmishers, who lay concealed in
the ravine, cut off by the advance and unable to retire.  So crooked
and obscure was the path and so difficult was it to see any thing,
even a few feet ahead, that the officers had to stand at every
little turning to tell the men which way to go.  At last the regiment
formed, and, with a rush, began the assault of the bluff, but they
could get no farther than the crest, where they were met by a
destructive flank fire from the Confederate riflemen.  There, within
thirty yards of the works, the men sought shelter.

To try the effect of a diversion, Grover put in the 12th Maine,
supported by the remaining fragment of his division, reduced to
the 13th and 25th Connecticut, against the partly exposed west face
of the bastion that formed the left of the finished portion of the
Confederate earthworks.  The point of attack is shown at X. and
XI., and the position whence Grover moved at 1 and 7.

After the first attack on the right had wellnigh spent itself, and
when its renewal, in conjunction with an advance on the centre and
left, was momentarily expected, Dwight thought to create a diversion
and at the same time to develop the strength and position of the
Confederates toward their extreme left, where their lines bent back
to rest on the river, and to this end he ordered Nelson to put in
his two colored regiments.  This portion of the Confederate line
occupied the nearly level crest of a steep bluff that completely
dominates the low ground by the sugar-house, where the telegraph
road crosses Foster's Creek.  Over this ground the colored troops
had to advance unsupported to receive their first fire.  The bridge
had been burned when the Confederates retired to their works.
Directly in front of the crest, and somewhat below it, a rugged
bluff stands a little apart, projecting boldly from the main height
with a sharp return to the right, so as to form a natural outwork
of great strength, practically inaccessible save by the road that
winds along the bottom of the little rivulet at the foot of the
almost perpendicular flank.  This detached ridge is about four
hundred yards in length.  It was held by six companies of the 39th
Mississippi regiment, under Colonel W. B. Shelby, while behind, in
the positions of land batteries III. and IV., were planted six
field pieces, and still farther back on the water front the columbiads
of Whitfield and Seawell, mounted on traversing carriages, stood
ready to rake the road with their 8-inch and 10-inch shell and
shrapnel.

Shortly after seven o'clock, Nelson sent in the 1st Louisiana Native
Guards, under Lieutenant-Colonel Bassett, in column, to force the
crossing of the creek.  The 3d Louisiana Native Guards followed in
close support.  Just before the head of the column came near the
creek, the movement was perceived by the Confederates, who immediately
opened on the negroes a sharp fire of musketry from the rifle-pits
on the detached bluff; at the same moment the field guns opened
with shell and shrapnel from the ridge behind, and as the men
struggled on through the creek and up the farther bank they became
exposed to the enfilade fire of the columbiads.  When, in mounting
the narrow gorge that led up the hill, the head of the column,
necessarily shattered as it was by this concentrated fire, had
gained a point within about two hundred yards of the crest, suddenly
every gun opened on them with canister.  This was more than any
man could stand.  Bassett's men gave back in disorder on their
supports, then in the act of crossing the creek, and the whole
column retired in confusion to its position near the sugar-house
on the north bank.  Here both regiments were soon re-formed and
again moved forward in good order, anticipating instructions to
renew the attack; yet none came, and, in fact, the attack was not
renewed, although the contemporary accounts, some of them even
official, distinctly speak of repeated charges.  In this abortive
attempt, Captain Andrew Cailloux and Second Lieutenant John H.
Crowder, of the 1st regiment, were instantly killed.  Cailloux,
who is said to have been a free man of color, although all the
officers of his race were at that time supposed to have resigned,
fell at the head of the leading company of his regiment, while
gallantly cheering on his men.  The 1st regiment lost, in this
brief engagement, 2 officers, and 24 men killed and 79 wounded--in
all, 105.  The 3d, being far less exposed, as well as for a shorter
time, lost 1 officer and 5 men killed, and 1 officer wounded--in
all, 7.

The morning was drawing out when these movements were well spent,
and the advanced positions simply held without further effort to
go forward.  The hour may have been about ten o'clock.  Grover,
Paine, and Weitzel listened in vain for any sounds of musketry on
their left to indicate that either Augur or Sherman was at work,
yet no sound came from that quarter save the steady pounding of
the Union artillery.  Now Weitzel believed that, by pursuing his
advance in what might be called skirmishing order and working his
way gradually forward from the vantage-ground of Fort Babcock, he
might gain, without great addition to his losses, already heavy,
a foothold on the high ground held by the Confederate left; yet of
the character of the defences of this part of the line Weitzel knew
but little, and of the nature of the ground behind these defences
and the direction of the roads, neither he nor any one in the Union
army knew any thing.  The topography of the ground in sight afforded
the only indication of what might be expected farther on, and this
was confusing and difficult to the last degree.  Weitzel had,
therefore, strong reason for believing that his difficulties,
instead of ending with the capture of the Confederate works, might
be only beginning.  There was, of course, the chance that the
garrison along the whole front might throw down their arms or
abandon their defences the moment they should find themselves taken
in reverse at any point, for it was known that they had no reserves
to be reckoned with after breaking through the line.  Grover had
been ordered to support either the right or the left, or to attempt
to make his way into the works, as circumstances might suggest.
This last he had tried, and failed to accomplish.  On his left
there was no attack to support.  When riding toward the right he
met Weitzel, who, although commanding the right wing, was his junior
in rank as well as in experience, Grover gave Weitzel the counsel
of prudence, and Weitzel fell in with these views.  The two commanders
decided to ask fresh orders or to wait for an assault on the centre
or left before renewing the attack on the right.

All this time Augur stood ready, his division formed and all in
perfect order, waiting for the word from Banks, who made his
headquarters close at hand, and who, in his turn, waited for the
sound of Sherman's musketry as the signal to put in Augur.  With
Sherman, Augur was in connection along the front, although not in
easy communication.  The precise nature of the causes that held
Sherman back it is, even now, impossible to state, nor would it be
easy, in the absence of the facts, to form a conjecture that should
seem to be altogether probable and at the same time reasonable.
The most plausible surmise seems to be that Sherman supposed he
was to wait for the engineers to indicate the point of attack, and
that he himself did not choose to go beyond what he conceived to
be his orders to precipitate a movement whose propriety he doubted.
Sherman was an officer of the old army, of wide experience, favorably
known and highly esteemed throughout the service for his intelligence,
his character, and his courage.  He was known as one of the most
distinguished of the chosen commanders of the few light batteries
that the government of the United States had thought itself able
to afford in the days before the war.  Before coming to Louisiana
he had commanded a department, and in that capacity had carried to
a successful conclusion the brilliant operations that gave Hilton
Head and Port Royal to the forces of the Union.  Neither in his
previous history was there any thing to his personal discredit as
a man or as a soldier.  The fact remains, however, account for it
how we may, that when about noon, greatly disturbed by the check
on the right, and still more by the silence on the left, Banks
himself rode almost unattended to Sherman's headquarters, he found
Sherman at luncheon in his tent, surrounded by his staff, while in
front the division lay idly under arms, without orders.  Hot words
passed, the precise nature of which has not been recorded, and
Banks returned to his headquarters determined to replace Sherman
by the chief-of-staff of the department.  The roads had not yet
been opened, and it was half-past one before these orders could be
given.  Andrews rode directly to the left, accompanied by but a
single aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Fiske.  When he came on the ground
he found Sherman's division deployed, and Sherman himself on
horseback at the head of his men, ready to lead them forward.  Then
Andrews, with great propriety, deferred the delivery of the orders
placing him in command, and, after a few words, at a quarter past
two Sherman moved to the assault.  Andrews remained to witness the
operation.

Nickerson moved forward on the right in column of regiments.  The
14th Maine, deployed as skirmishers, covered his front, followed
by the 24th Maine, 177th New York, and 165th New York in line.
After emerging from the woods, Nickerson's right flank rested on
the road that runs past Slaughter's house, near the position of
battery 16.

Dow formed the left of the division and of the army.  He advanced
at the same time as Nickerson, and in like order, his right resting
near the position of battery 17 and his left near Gibbons's house,
marked as the position of battery 18.  The 6th Michigan led the
brigade, followed by the 15th New Hampshire, 26th Connecticut, and
128th New York.

In the interval between the two brigades rode Sherman, surrounded
by his whole staff and followed by his escort.

No sooner had the line emerged from among the trees than the
Confederates opened upon every part of it, as it came in sight, a
galling fire of musketry and artillery.  At first the troops moved
forward steadily and at a good pace, but as they drew nearer to
the enemy and the musketry fire grew hotter, their progress was
delayed and their formation somewhat broken by four successive and
parallel lines of fence that had to be thrown down and crossed.
Once clear of the young corn, they found themselves entangled with
the abatis that covered and protected the immediate front of the
Confederate works on this part of the line.  This had been set on
fire by the exploding shells, and the smoke and flame now added to
the difficulty of the movement.  Here the men suffered greatly,
many being shot down in the act of climbing the great trunks of
the fallen trees, and many more having their clothing reduced to
tatters and almost torn from their bodies in the attempt to force
their way through the entangled branches.  The impetus was soon
lost, the men lay down or sought cover; numbers of Dow's men made
their way to the grove in their rear and into the gully on their
left; of Nickerson's, many drifted singly and in groups into the
ravine on their right.

Long before this, indeed within a few minutes after the line first
marched out from the wood, Sherman had fallen from his horse,
severely wounded in the leg; under the vigorous fire concentrated
upon this large group of horsemen in plain sight of the Confederates
and in easy range, two of his staff officers had shared the same
fate.  This would have brought Dow to the command of the division;
but nearly at the same instant Dow himself was wounded and went to
the rear, and so the command fell to Nickerson, who was with his
brigade, and, in the confusion of the moment, was not notified.
Thus, for some interval, there was no one to give orders for fresh
dispositions among the regiments.  Many officers had fallen; the
128th New York had lost its colonel, Cowles; the 165th New York,
at last holding the front of Nickerson's line, had lost two successive
commanders, Abel Smith and Carr, both wounded, the former mortally,
while standing by the colors.  To retire was now only less difficult
than to advance.  Nickerson's men, lying down, held their ground
until after dark; but Dow's, being nearer the cover of the woods,
fell back to their first position.

Andrews now took command of the division, in virtue of the written
orders of the commanding general, and prepared to obey whatever
fresh instructions he might receive.  None came; there was, indeed,
nothing to be done but to withdraw and to restore order.

As soon as Banks heard the rattle of the musketry on the left, and
saw from the smoke of the Confederate guns that Sherman was engaged,
he ordered Augur forward.  Augur, as has been said, had been ready
and waiting all day.  His arrangements were to make the attack with
Chapin's brigade, deployed across the Plains Store road, and to
support it with Dudley's, held in reserve under cover of one of
the high and thick hedges of the Osage orange that crossed and
divided the fields on the right of the road.  Chapin's front was
covered by the skirmishers of the 21st Maine; immediately in their
rear were to march the storming column of two hundred volunteers,
under Lieutenant-Colonel O'Brien, of the 48th Massachusetts.  The
stormers rested and waited for the word in the point of the wood
on the left of the Plains Store road, nearly opposite the position
of battery 13.  Half their number carried cotton bags and fascines
to fill the ditch.  On the right of the road the 116th New York
was deployed; on its left the 49th Massachusetts, closely supported
by the 48th Massachusetts, the 2d Louisiana, of Dudley's brigade,
and the reserve of the 21st Maine.

O'Brien shook hands with the officer who brought him the last order,
and, turning to his men, who were lying or sitting near by, some
on their cotton bags, others on the ground, said in the coolest
and most business-like manner:  "Pick up your bundles, and come
on!"  The movement of the stormers was the signal for the whole
line.  A truly magnificent sight was the advance of these battalions,
with their colors flying and borne sturdily toward the front; yet
not for long.  Hardly had the movement begun when the whole force
--officers, men, colors, stormers, and all,--found themselves
inextricably entangled in the dense abatis under a fierce and
continuous discharge of musketry and a withering cross-fire of
artillery.  Besides the field-pieces bearing directly down the
road, two 24-pounders poured upon their flank a storm of missiles
of all sorts, with fragments of railway bars and broken chains for
grape, and rusty nails and the rakings of the scrap-heap for
canister.  No part of the column ever passed beyond the abatis,
nor was it even possible to extricate the troops in any order
without greatly adding to the list of casualties, already of a
fearful length.  Banks was all for putting Dudley over the open
ground directly in his front, but, before any thing could be done,
came the bad news from the left, and at last it was clear to the
most persistent that the day was miserably lost.  When, after
nightfall, the division commanders reported at headquarters, among
the wounded under the great trees, it was known that the result
was even worse than the first accounts.

The attempt had failed without inflicting serious loss upon the
enemy, save in ammunition expended, yet at a fearful cost to the
Union army.  When the list came to be made up, it was found that
15 officers and 278 men had been killed, 90 officers and 1,455 men
wounded, 2 officers and 155 men missing, making the total killed
293, total wounded 1,545, total missing 157, and an aggregate of
1,995.  Of the missing, many were unquestionably dead.  Worse than
all, if possible, the confidence that but a few hours before had
run so high, was rudely shaken.  It was long indeed before the men
felt the same faith in themselves, and it is but the plain truth
to say that their reliance on the department commander never quite
returned.

The heavy loss in killed and wounded taxed to the utmost the skill
and untiring exertions of the surgeons, who soon found their
preparations and supplies exceeded by the unlooked-for demand upon
them.  All night long on that 27th of May the stretcher-bearers
were engaged in removing the wounded to the field-hospitals in the
rear.  These were soon filled to overflowing, and many rested under
the shelter of the trees.  Hither, too, came large numbers of men
not too badly hurt to be able to walk, and to all the tired troops
the whole night was rendered dismal to the last degree by the groans
of their suffering comrades mingled everywhere, the wounded with
the well, the dying with the dead.

Among the killed were:  Colonel Edward P. Chapin, of the 116th New York;
Colonel Davis S. Cowles, of the 128th New York; Lieutenant-Colonel
William L. Rodman, of the 38th Massachusetts; Lieutenant-Colonel
James O'Brien, of the 48th Massachusetts; Captain John B.
Hubbard, Assistant Adjutant-General, of Weitzel's brigade; Lieutenant
Ladislas A. Wrotnowkski, Topographical Engineer on Weitzel's staff.
Lieutenant-Colonels Oliver W. Lull, of the 8th New Hampshire, and
Abel Smith, Jr., of the 165th New York, were mortally wounded.
The long list of the wounded included Brigadier-General Thomas W.
Sherman, Brigadier-General Neal Dow, Colonel Richard E. Holcomb,
of the 1st Louisiana; Colonel Thomas S. Clark, of the 6th Michigan;
Colonel William F. Bartlett, of the 49th Massachusetts; Major
Gouverneur Carr, of the 165th New York.

Farragut's ships and mortar-boats, which had been harassing the
garrison at intervals, day and night, for more than ten days, joined
hotly in the bombardment, but ceased firing, by arrangement, as
soon as the land batteries slackened.  The fire of the fleet,
especially that of the mortars, was very annoying to the garrison,
especially at first, yet the actual casualties were not great.

The Confederate losses during the assault are not known.  In Beall's
brigade all the losses up to the 1st of June numbered 68 killed,
194 wounded, and 96 missing; together, 358; most of these must have
been incurred on the 27th of May.  The Confederate artillery was
soon so completely overpowered, that it became nearly useless, save
when the Union guns were masked by the advance of assaulting columns.
Three 24-pounders were dismounted, and of these one was completely
disabled.

With the result of this day the last hope of a junction between
the armies of Banks and Grant vanished.  It may therefore be
convenient to retrace our steps a little in order to note the
closing incidents of this strange chapter of well-laid plans by
fortune brought to naught.

Dwight returned from his visit to Grant on the 22d of May, and
reported to Banks in person at his headquarters with Grover on
Thompson's Creek.  In his account of what had taken place, Dwight
confirmed the idea Banks had already derived from the despatch that
Dwight had sent from Grand Gulf on the 16th, before he had seen
Grant.  Grant would send 5,000 men, Dwight reported, but Banks was
not to wait for them.  Practically this had no effect whatever upon
the campaign, and how little impression it made upon the mind of
Grant himself may be seen from his description, written in 1884,
of his interview with Dwight.  It was the morning of the 17th of
May and Grant's troops were standing on the eastern bank of the
Big Black ready to force the passage of the river:

"While the troops were standing as here described, an officer from
Banks's staff came up and presented me with a letter from General
Halleck, dated the 11th of May.  It had been sent by way of New
Orleans to Banks to forward to me.  He ordered me to return to
Grand Gulf and to co-operate from there with Banks against Port
Hudson, and then to return with our combined forces to besiege
Vicksburg.  I told the officer that the order came too late and
that Halleck would not give it then if he knew our position.  The
bearer of the despatch insisted that I ought to obey the order,
and was giving arguments to support his position when I heard great
cheering to the right of our line, and looking in that direction,
saw Lawler, in his shirt-sleeves, leading a charge upon the enemy.
I immediately mounted my horse and rode in the direction of the
charge, and saw no more of the officer who delivered the despatch,
I think not even to this day."(1)

Here two mistakes are perhaps worth noting as curious rather than
important:  Dwight was not a member of Banks's staff, and the letter
from Halleck, dated the 11th of May, which General Grant strangely
supposed to have come by way of New Orleans, was, in fact, Halleck's
telegram of that date, sent by way of Memphis, which Dwight had
picked up as he passed through Grand Gulf, after Grant had cut his
communications.  Dwight's account may have taken color from his
hopes, yet the course of events gives some reason to think he may
have had warrant for his belief.

On the 19th of May Grant's first assault of Vicksburg was repulsed
with a loss of 942.  Three days later he delivered his second
assault, which likewise failed, at a cost of 3,199 killed, wounded,
and missing.  This drove him to the siege and put him in need of
more troops; yet when, on the 25th of May, he sat down to write to
Banks, it was with the purpose of offering to send down a force of
8,000 or 10,000 men if Banks could now provide the means of transport.
But even while Grant wrote, word came that Johnston was gathering
in his rear; and so the whole thing was one more given up, and
instead, once again he called on Banks for help; and this time he
sent down two large steamers, the _Forest Queen_ and _Moderator_,
to fetch the men.  But Banks had now no men to spare; he too was
cast for a siege; he could only echo the entreaty and send back
the steamboats empty as they came.  So the affair ended.

(1) "Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant," vol. I., p. 524.


CHAPTER XVII.
THE FOURTEENTH OF JUNE.

Banks at once ordered up the ammunition and the stores from the
depot at Riley's, near the headquarters of the day before, and
early on the morning of the 28th of May established his headquarters
in tents at Young's, in rear of the centre, and began his arrangements
to reduce Port Hudson by gradual approaches.  At six o'clock in
the morning he sent a flag of truce to Gardner, from Augur's front
on the Plains Store road, bearing a request for a suspension of
hostilities until two o'clock in the afternoon, to permit the
removal of the dead and wounded.  To this Gardner at once refused
to agree unless Banks would agree to withdraw at all points to a
distance of eight hundred yards.  He also demanded that the fleet
should drop down out of range.  Banks was unable to consent.  A
long correspondence followed, twelve letters in all, crossing and
recrossing, to the utter confusion of time.  At length, shortly
after half-past three o'clock, Banks received Gardner's assent to
an armistice extending till seven o'clock.  The conditions were
that the besiegers were to send to the lines of the defence, by
unarmed parties, such of the Confederate killed as remained unburied,
and such of their wounded as had not already been picked up and
sent to the rear.  The killed and wounded of the Union army, lying
between their lines and the Confederate works, were to be cared
for in the same way.

Arnold was ordered to bring up the siege train, manned by the 1st
Indiana heavy artillery, and Houston to provide entrenching tools
and siege materials.  When all the siege artillery was in position
there were forty pieces, of which six were 8-inch sea-coast howitzers
on siege carriages, eight 24-pounders, seven 30-pounder Parrotts,
four 6-inch rifles, four 9-inch Dahlgren guns, four 8-inch mortars,
three 10-inch mortars, and four 13-inch mortars.  To these were
added twelve light batteries of sixty pieces, namely, six 6-pounder
Sawyer rifles, two 10-pounder Parrotts, twenty-six 12-pounder
Napoleons, two 12-pounder howitzers, twelve 3-inch rifles, and
twelve 20-pounder Parrotts.  The Dahlgren guns were served by a
detachment of fifty-one men from the _Richmond_ and seventeen from
the _Essex_, under Lieutenant-Commander Edward Terry, with Ensign
Robert P. Swann, Ensign E. M. Shepard, and Master's Mates William
R. Cox and Edmund L. Bourne for chiefs of the gun divisions.

In the course of the next few days the eight regiments that had
been left on the Teche and the Atchafalaya rejoined the army before
Port Hudson, coming by way of Brashear, Algiers, and the river.
This gave to the cavalry under Grierson one more regiment, the 41st
Massachusetts, now mounted, and henceforth known as the 3d
Massachusetts cavalry, the three troops of the old 2d battalion
being merged in it; Weitzel got back the 114th New York; Paine
recovered the 4th Massachusetts and the 16th New Hampshire of
Ingraham's brigade, now practically broken up; and Grover the 22d
Maine and 90th New York of Dwight's brigade, the 52d Massachusetts
of Kimball's, and the 26th Maine of Birge's, while losing the 41st
Massachusetts by its conversion into a mounted regiment.  The 16th
New Hampshire, however, had suffered so severely during its six
week's confinement in the heart of the pestilential swamp that it
was reduced to a mere skeleton, without strength either numerical
or physical.  It was easy to see that officers and men alike were
suffering from some aggravated form of hepatic disorder, due to
malarial poison.  Many were added to the sick-report every day.
Few that went to the regimental or general hospital returned to
duty, while of the men called well all were yellow, emaciated, and
restless, or so drowsy that the sentries were found asleep on their
posts at noonday.  This unfortunate regiment was therefore taken
from the front and set to guard the general ammunition depot, near
headquarters.  Without being once engaged in battle, so that it
had not a single gunshot wound to report, the 16th New Hampshire
suffered a loss by disease during its seven months' service in
Louisiana of 5 officers and 216 men--in all, 221; and nearly the
whole of this occurred in the last two months.  This regiment was
replaced in Paine's division by the 28th Connecticut, from
Pensacola.

Dwight was now given the command of Sherman's division, relieving
Nickerson, who had assumed command the morning after the assault
of the 27th.  Dow being disabled by his wounds, his brigade fell
to Clark.  The 2d Louisiana was transferred from Dudley's brigade
to Chapin's, bringing Charles J. Paine in command.  Halbert E.
Paine's division was withdrawn from the earlier formation of the
right wing under Weitzel, and was established in position on Grover's
left, covering the Jackson road and the second position of Duryea's
battery at No. 12.  Grover was placed in command, from the afternoon
of the 27th, of the whole right wing, but Dwight's brigade, under
Morgan, remained with Weitzel as part of a temporary division under
his command, Thomas retaining the command of Weitzel's brigade.
Finally, the 162d New York and the 175th New York were temporarily
taken from Paine and lent to Dwight, who, directly after the 14th
of June, united them with the 28th Maine of Sherman's division to
form a temporary 2d brigade.  At the same time he transferred the
6th Michigan to Nickerson's brigade, evidently meaning to take the
command of the 1st brigade from Clark; but these arrangements were
promptly set aside by orders from headquarters.  The left wing,
comprising Augur's division and Sherman's, now Dwight's, was placed
under the command of Augur.

Along the whole front the troops now held substantially the advanced
positions they had gained on the 27th of May.  This shortened the
line, and, as it was on the whole better arranged and the connections
and communications better, Augur took ground a little to the left
and held, with Charles J. Paine's brigade, a part of the field that
had been in Sherman's front on the 27th; while Dwight, in closing
up and drawing in his left flank, moved nearer to the river and
covered the road leading in a southerly direction from the Confederate
works around the eastern slope of Mount Pleasant and past Troth's
house.

The cavalry, being of no further use to the divisions, but rather
an encumbrance upon them, was massed, under Grierson, behind the
centre, and assigned to the duty of guarding the rear, the depots,
and the communications against the incursions of the Confederate
cavalry, under Logan, known to be hovering between Port Hudson and
Clinton, and supposed to be from 1,500 to 2,000 strong.  Logan's
actual force at this time was about 1,200 effective.  Grierson had
about 1,700, including his own regiment, the 6th Illinois, the
7th Illinois, Colonel Edward Prince, a detachment of the 1st
Louisiana, the 3d Massachusetts cavalry, and the 14th New York.

As fast as the engineers were able to survey the ground and the
working parties to open the roads, Arnold and Houston chose with
great care the positions for the siege batteries, and heavy details
were soon at work upon them, as well as upon the long line of
rifle-pits, connecting the batteries and practically forming the
first parallel of the siege works.  The positions of some of these
batteries, especially on the left, were afterward changed; but as
finally constructed and mounted, they began at the north, near the
position of the colored regiments on the right bank of Foster's
Creek, and extended, at a distance from the Confederate works
varying from six hundred to twelve hundred yards, to the Mount
Pleasant road, across which was planted siege battery No. 21.  The
first position of siege battery No. 20 is marked "old 20," and the
three formidable batteries on the extreme left, Nos. 22, 23, and
24, were not established till later, the attack of the Confederate
works in their front being at first left to the guns of the fleet.
Two epaulements for field artillery were thrown up on either side
of the road at Foster's Creek to command the passage of the stream,
but no siege guns were mounted there.  The extreme right of the
siege batteries was at No. 2.

While all eyes were turned upon the siege works and every nerve
strained for their completion, Logan's presence in the rear, though
at no time so hurtful as might fairly have been expected, was a
continual source of anxiety and annoyance.  To find out just what
force he had and what he was about, Grierson moved toward Clinton
on the morning of the 3d of June with the 6th and 7th Illinois,
the old 2d Massachusetts battalion, now merged in the 3d, a squadron
of the 1st Louisiana, two companies of the 4th Wisconsin, mounted,
and one section of Nims's battery.  Grierson took the road by
Jackson, and, when within three miles of that place, sent Godfrey,
with 200 men of the Massachusetts and Louisiana cavalry, to ride
through the town, while the main column went direct to Clinton.
Godfrey pushing on briskly through Jackson, captured and paroled,
after the useless fashion of the time, a number of prisoners, and
rejoined the column two miles beyond.  When eight miles west of
Clinton, Grierson heard a report that Logan had gone that morning
toward Port Hudson, but pushing on toward Clinton, after crossing
the Comite Grierson found Logan's advance and drove it back on the
main body, strongly posted on Pretty Creek.  A three hours' engagement
followed, resulting in Grierson's retirement to Port Hudson, with
a loss of 8 killed, 28 wounded, and 15 missing; 3 of the dead and
7 of the wounded falling into the hands of the enemy.  Logan reports
his loss as 20 killed and wounded, and claims 40 prisoners.  Among
the killed, unfortunately, was the young cavalry officer, Lieutenant
Solon A. Perkins, of the 3d Massachusetts, whose skill and daring
had commended itself to the notice of Weitzel during the early
operations in La Fourche, and whose long service without proper
rank had drawn out the remark:  "This Perkins is a splendid officer,
and he deserves promotion as much as any officer I ever saw."

Banks determined to chastise Logan for this; accordingly, at daylight
on the morning of the 5th of June, Paine took his old brigade under
Fearing, with the 52d Massachusetts, the 91st New York, and two
sections of Duryea's battery, and preceded by Grierson's cavalry,
marched on Clinton by way of Olive Branch and the plank road.  That
night Paine encamped at Redwood creek; on the 6th he made a short
march to the Comite, distant nine miles from his objective, and
there halted till midnight.  Then, after a night march, the whole
force entered Clinton at daylight on the morning of the 7th, only
to find that Logan, forewarned, had gone toward Jackson.  Then
Paine countermarched to the Comite, and, remaining till sunset,
marched that evening to Redwood, and, there going into bivouac, at
two o'clock on the following morning, the 8th of June, returned to
the lines before Port Hudson.  On this fruitless expedition the
men and horses suffered severely from the heat, and there were many
cases of sunstroke.

By the 1st of June the artillery and the sharp-shooters of the
besieged had obtained so complete a mastery over the guns of the
defenders, that on the whole line these were practically silent,
if not silenced.  In part, no doubt, this is to be ascribed to a
desire on the part of the Confederate artillerists to reserve their
ammunition for the emergency, yet something was also due to the
effect of the Union fire, by which, in the first week, twelve heavy
guns were disabled.  The 10-inch columbiad in water battery 4 was
dismounted at long range.  This gun was known to the Union soldiers,
and perhaps to the Confederates first, as the "Lady Davis," and
great was the dread awakened by the deep bass roar and the wail of
the big shells as they came rolling down the narrow pathway, or
searched the ravines where the men lay massed.  The fire of the
navy also did great damage among the heavy batteries along the
river front.  When the siege batteries were nearly ready, on the
evening of the 10th of June, Banks ordered a feigned attack at
midnight by skirmishers along the whole front, for the purpose, as
stated in the orders, "of harassing the enemy, of inducing him to
bring forward and expose his artillery, acquiring a knowledge of
the ground before the enemy's front, and of favoring the operations
of pioneers who may be sent forward to remove obstructions if
necessary."  None of these objects can be said to have been
accomplished, nor was any advantage gained beyond a slight advance
of the lines, at a single point on Weitzel's front, by the 131st
New York.  The full loss in this night's reconnoissance is not
known; in Weitzel's own brigade, there were 2 killed, 41 wounded,
6 missing--in all, 49; in Morgan's, a partial report accounts for
12 wounded and 59 missing, including two companies of the 22d Maine
that became entangled and for the moment lost in the ravines.

On the evening of the 12th of June, all arrangements being nearly
complete, Banks ordered a vigorous bombardment to be begun the next
morning.  Punctually at a quarter past eleven on the morning of
the 13th, every gun and mortar of the army and navy that could be
brought to bear upon the defences of Port Hudson opened fire, and
for a full hour kept up a furious cannonade, limited only by the
endurance of the Union guns and gunners, for the Confederates hardly
ventured to reply, save at first feebly.  When the bombardment was
at its fiercest, more than one shell in a second could be seen to
fall and explode within the narrow circuit of the defences visible
from the headquarters on the field.  The defenders had three heavy
guns dismounted during the day, yet suffered little loss in men,
for long before this nearly the whole garrison had accustomed
themselves to take refuge in their caves and "gopher-holes" at the
first sound of Union cannon, and to await its cessation as a signal
to return to their posts at the parapet.  They were not always so
fortunate, however, for more than once it happened that three or
four men were killed by the bursting of a single shell.

When the hour was up the cannonade ended as suddenly as it began,
and profound silence followed close on the intolerable din.  Then
Banks sent a flag of truce summoning the garrison to surrender in
these words:  "Respect for the usages of war and a desire to avoid
unnecessary sacrifice of life, impose on me the necessity of formally
demanding the surrender of the garrison at Port Hudson.  I am not
unconscious, in making this demand, that the garrison is capable
of continuing a vigorous and gallant defence.  The events that have
transpired during the pending investment exhibit in the commander
and garrison a spirit of constancy and courage that, in a different
cause, would be universally regarded as heroism.  But I know the
extremities to which they are reduced. . . . I desire to avoid
unnecessary slaughter, and I therefore demand the immediate surrender
of the garrison, subject to such conditions only as are imposed by
the usages of civilized warfare."  To this Gardner replied:  "My
duty requires me to defend this position, and therefore I decline
to surrender."

In the evening the generals of division met in council at headquarters.
In anticipation of what was to come, Dudley had already been ordered
to send the 50th Massachusetts, and Charles J. Paine the 48th
Massachusetts, to Dwight; and Dudley himself, with the 161st and
174th New York, was to report to Grover.  This left under Augur's
immediate command only five regiments of his division, namely, one,
the 30th Massachusetts, of Dudley's brigade, and four of C. J.
Paine's.  Shortly before midnight a general assault was ordered
for the following morning.  At a quarter before three Augur was to
open a heavy fire of artillery on his front, following it up half
and hour later by a feigned attack of skirmishers.  Dwight was to
take two regiments, and, with a pair of suborned deserters for
guides, was to try and find an entrance on the extreme left of the
works near the river.  But the main attack was to be made by Grover
on the priest-cap.  Its position is shown on the map at XV. and
XVI., and the approach was to be from the cover of the winding
ravine, near the second position of Duryea's battery, at No. 12.
The artillery cross-fire at this point was to begin at three o'clock,
and was to cease at a signal from Grover.  At half-past three the
skirmishers were to attack.  The general formation of each of the
two columns of attack had been settled in orders issued from
headquarters on the morning of the 11th.  Each column, assumed to
consist of about 2,000 men, was to be preceded and covered by 300
skirmishers; immediately behind the skirmishers were to be seventy
pioneers, carrying thirty-five axes, eighteen shovels, ten pickaxes,
two handsaws, and two hatchets; next was to come the forlorn hope,
or storming party, of 300 men, each carrying a bag stuffed with
cotton; following the stormers, thirty-four men were to carry
the balks and chesses to form a bridge over the ditch, in order
to facilitate the passage of the artillery, as well as of the
men.  The main assaulting column was to follow, marching in
lines-of-battle, as far as the nature of the ground would permit,
which, as it happened, was not far.  The field-artillery was to go
with the assaulting column, each battery having its own pioneers.
To the cavalry, meanwhile, was assigned the work of picketing and
protecting the rear, as well as of holding the telegraph road
leading out of Port Hudson toward Bayou Sara, by which it was
thought the garrison might attempt to escape, on finding their
lines broken through, or even to avoid the blow.

As was the uniform custom during the siege, all watches at division
and brigade headquarters were set at nine o'clock, by a telegraphic
signal, to agree with the adjutant-general's watch.

These final orders for the assault bear the hour of 11.30 P.M.
This was in fact the moment at which the earliest copies were sent
out by the aides-de-camp, held in readiness to carry them.  There
were seven hundred and fifty words to be written, and eleven o'clock
had already passed when the council listened to the reading of the
drafts and broke up.  From the lateness of the hour, as well as
from the distance and the darkness of the night, it resulted that
one o'clock came before the last orders were in the hands of the
troops that were to execute them.  Many arrangements had still to
be carried out and many of the detachments had still to be moved
over long distances and by obscure ways to the positions assigned
to them.  In some instances all that was left of the night was thus
occupied, and it was broad daylight before every thing was ready.

A dense fog prevailed in the early morning of Sunday, the 14th of
June, strangely veiling, while it lasted, even the sound of the
big guns, so that in places it was unheard a hundred yards in the
rear.  Punctually at the hour fixed the cannonade opened.  It was
an hour later, that is to say, about four o'clock, when the first
attack was launched.

For the chief assault Grover had selected Paine's division and had
placed the main body of his own division with Weitzel's brigade,
in close support.  Paine determined to lead the attack himself.
Across his front as skirmishers he deployed the 4th Wisconsin, now
again dismounted, and the 8th New Hampshire.  The 4th Massachusetts
was told off to follow the skirmishers with improvised hand-grenades
made of 6-pounder shells.  Next the 38th Massachusetts and the 53d
Massachusetts were formed into line of battle.  At the head of the
infantry column the 31st Massachusetts, likewise deployed, carried
cotton bags, to fill the ditch.  The rest of Gooding's brigade
followed, next came Fearing's, then Ingraham's under Ferris.  In
rear of the column was posted the artillery under Nims.  At a point
on the crest of the ridge, ninety yards distant from the left face
of the priest-cap, Paine's advance was checked.  Then Paine, who
had previously gone along the front of every regiment, addressing
to each a few words of encouragement and of preparation for the
work, passed afoot from the head of the column to the front of the
skirmish line, and exerting to the full his sonorous voice, gave
the order to the column to go in.  At the word the men sprang
forward, but almost as they did so, the Confederates behind the
parapet in their front, with fairly level aim and at point-blank
range, poured upon the head of the column a deadly volley.  Many
fell at this first discharge; among them, unfortunately, the gallant
Paine himself, his thigh crushed by a rifle-ball.  Some of the men
of the 4th Wisconsin, of the 8th New Hampshire, and of the 38th
Massachusetts gained the ditch, and a few even climbed the parapet,
but of these nearly all were made prisoners.  The rear of the column
fell back to the cover of the hill, while all those who had gained
the crest were forced to lie there, exposed to a pitiless fire of
sharp-shooters and the scarcely more endurable rays of the burning
sun of Louisiana, until night came and brought relief.  In this
unfortunate situation the sufferings of the wounded became so
unbearable, and appealed so powerfully to the sympathy of their
comrades, that many lives were risked and some lost in the attempt
to alleviate the thirst, at least, of these unfortunates.  Two men,
quite of their own accord, took a stretcher and tried to reach the
point where Paine lay, but the attempt was unsuccessful, and cost
both of them their lives.  These heroes were E. P. Woods, of Company
E of the 8th New Hampshire, and John Williams, of Company D, 31st
Massachusetts.  Not less nobly, Patrick H. Cohen, a private soldier
of the 133d New York, himself lying wounded on the crest, cut a
canteen from the body of a dead comrade and by lengthening the
strap succeeded in tossing it within reach of his commander; this
probably preserved Paine's life, for unquestionably many of the
more seriously hurt perished from the heat and from thirst on that
fatal day.

It was about seven o'clock, and the fog had lifted, when Weitzel
advanced to the attack on the right face of the priest-cap.  The
12th Connecticut and the 75th New York of his own brigade were
deployed to the left and right as skirmishers to cover the head of
the column.  Two regiments of Morgan's brigade, loosely deployed,
followed the skirmishers; in front the 91st New York, with
hand-grenades, and next the 24th Connecticut, every man carrying two
cotton bags weighing thirty pounds each.  In immediate support came
the remainder of Weitzel's brigade in column of regiments, in the
order of the 8th Vermont, 114th New York, and 160th New York,
followed by the main body of Morgan's brigade.  Birge was in close
support and Kimball in reserve.  Finally, in the rear, as in Paine's
formation, was massed the artillery of the division.

Toward the north face of the priest-cap the only approach was by
the irregular, but for some distance nearly parallel, gorges cut
out from the soft clay of the bluffs by Sandy Creek and one of its
many arms.  The course of these streams being toward the Confederate
works, the hollows grew deeper and the banks steeper at every step.
At most the creeks were but two hundred yards apart, and the ridge
that separated them gave barely standing room.  Within a few feet
of the breastworks the smaller stream and its ravine turned sharply
toward the north and served as a formidable ditch until they united
with the main stream and ravine below the bastion.  This larger
ravine near its outlet and the natural ditch throughout its length
were mercilessly swept by the fire of the bastion on the right,
the breastworks in front, and the priest-cap on the left.  The
smaller ravine led toward the south to the crest from which Paine's
men had recoiled, where their wounded and their dead lay thick,
and behind which the survivors were striving to restore the broken
formations.

Weitzel therefore chose the main ravine.  Bearing to the right from
the Jackson road, the men moved by the flank and cautiously, availing
themselves of every advantage afforded by the timber or the
irregularities of the ground, until they gained the crest of the
ridge at points varying from twenty to fifty yards from the works
near the north face of the priest-cap.  In advancing to this position
the column came under fire immediately on filing out of the ravine
and the wood in front of the position of battery No. 9.  Then, in
such order as they happened to be, they went forward with a rush
and a cheer, but beyond the crest indicated few men ever got.  From
this position it was impossible either to advance or retire until
night came.

At the appointed hour Dwight sent the 6th Michigan, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Bacon, and the 14th Maine, to the extreme left
to make an attempt in that quarter, the arrangements for which have
been already described; but either Dwight gave his orders too late,
or the column mistook the path, or else the difficulties were really
greater than they had been thought beforehand or than they afterward
seemed, for nothing came of it.  Then recalling this detachment to
the Mount Pleasant road, Dwight tried to advance in that direction.
The 14th Maine was sent back to its brigade and Clark deployed his
own regiment, the 6th Michigan, as skirmishers, supported by the
128th New York, now commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel James Smith.
The 15th New Hampshire followed and the 26th Connecticut, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Selden, brought up the rear.  These two
regiments went forward in column of companies on the main road,
but as the Confederates immediately opened a heavy artillery fire
upon the head of the column, they had to be deployed.  However,
the ground, becoming rapidly narrower, did not long permit of an
advance in this order, so that it soon became necessary to ploy
once more into column.  About 350 yards from the outer works the
Mount Pleasant road enters and crosses a deep ravine by a bridge,
then destroyed.  The hollow was completely choked with felled
timber, through which, under the heavy fire of musketry and artillery,
it was impossible to pass; so here the brigade stayed till night
enabled it to retire.  Nickerson's brigade supported the movement
of Clark's, but without becoming seriously engaged.  Thus ended
Dwight's movement.  It can hardly be described as an assault, as
an attack, or even as a serious attempt to accomplish any valuable
result; yet indirectly it was the means of gaining, and at a small
cost, the greatest, if not the only real, advantage achieved that
day, for it gave Dwight possession of the rough hill, the true
value of which was then for the first time perceived, and on the
commanding position of its northern slope was presently mounted
the powerful array of siege artillery that overlooked and controlled
the land and water batteries on the lower flank of the Confederate
defences.

Of Augur's operations in the centre, it is enough to say that the
feigned attack assigned to this portion of the line was made briskly
and in good order at the appointed time, without great loss.

The result of the day may be summed up as a bloody repulse; beholding
the death and maiming of so many of the bravest and best of the
officers and men, the repulse may be even termed a disaster.  In
the whole service of the Nineteenth Army Corps darkness never shut
in upon a gloomier field.  Men went about their work in a silence
stronger than words.

On this day 21 officers and 182 men were killed, 72 officers and
1,245 men were wounded, 6 officers and 180 men missing; besides
these, 13 were reported as killed, 84 as wounded, and 2 as missing
without distinguishing between officers and men, thus making a
total of 216 killed, 1,401 wounded, 188 missing--in all, 1,805.
Among the wounded many had received mortal hurts, while of the
missing, as in the first assault, many must now be set down as
killed.

Paine, as we have seen, fell seriously hurt while in the very act
of leading his division to the assault.  Nine days earlier he had
received his well-earned commission as brigadier-general.  He was
taken to New Orleans, and there nine days later, at the Hôtel de
Dieu Hospital, after vain efforts to save the limb, the surgeons
performed amputation of the thigh.  A few days after the surrender,
in order to avoid the increasing dangers of the climate, Paine was
sent to his home in Wisconsin on the captured steamer _Starlight_,
the first boat that ascended the river.  Thus the Nineteenth Corps
lost one of its bravest and most promising commanders, one who had
earned the affection of his men, not less through respect for his
character than by his unfailing sympathy and care in all situations,
and who was commended to the confidence and esteem of his associates
and superiors by talent and devotion of the first order joined to
every quality that stamps a man among men.

The fiery Holcomb, wounded in the assault of the 27th, yet refusing
to leave his duty to another, fell early on this fatal morning at
the head of his regiment and brigade, in the first moment of the
final charge of Weitzel's men.  This was another serious loss, for
Holcomb had that disposition that may, for want of a better term,
be described as the fighting character.  All soldiers know it and
respect it, and every wise general, seeing it anywhere among his
officers, shuts his eyes to many a blemish and pardons many a fault
that would be severely visited in another; yet in Holcomb there
was nothing to overlook or forgive.  As he was the most prominent
and the most earnest of the few officers of the line that to the
last remained eager for the fatal assault, so he was among the
earliest and noblest of its victims.

Mortally wounded at the head of Weitzel's brigade fell Colonel
Elisha B. Smith, of the 114th New York.  Barely recovered from a
serious illness, his spirit could not longer brook the restraint
of the hospital at New Orleans with the knowledge that his men were
engaged with the enemy.  Thomas was ill and had received a slight
wound of the scalp; this brought Smith to the head of the brigade;
his fall devolved the command upon Lieutenant-Colonel Van Petten,
for though Thomas, unable to bear the torture inflicted upon him
by the sounds of battle, rose from his sick-bed and resumed the
command, his weakness again overcame him when the day's work was
done.

No regiment at Port Hudson approached the 8th New Hampshire in the
number and severity of its losses, no brigade suffered so much as
Paine's, to which this regiment belonged, and no division so much
as Emory's, under the command of Paine.  On this day, Fearing
commanded the brigade, and later the division, and Lull having
fallen in the previous assault, the regiment went into action 217
strong, led by Captain William M. Barrett; of this number, 122, or
56 per cent., were killed or wounded.  On the 27th of May, out of
298 engaged, the regiment lost 124, or 41 per cent.

Next to the 8th New Hampshire on the fatal roll stands the 4th
Wisconsin.  This noble regiment, at all times an honor to the
service and to its State, whence came so many splendid battalions,
was a shining monument to the virtue of steady, conscientious work
and strict discipline applied to good material.  Bean had been
instantly killed by a sharp-shooter on the 29th of May; the regiment
went into action on the 14th of June 220 strong, commanded by
Captain Webster P. Moore; of these, 140 fell, or 63 per cent.  In
the first assault, however, it had fared better, its losses numbering
but 60.

The eccentric Currie, who came to the service from the British
army, with the lustre of the Crimea still about him, rather brightened
than dimmed by time and distance, fell severely wounded on the same
fatal crest.  He was struck down at the head of his regiment, boldly
leading his men and urging them forward with the quaint cry of "Get
on, lads!" so well known to English soldiers, yet so unfamiliar to
all Americans as to draw many a smile, even in that grim moment,
from those who heard it.

To the cannonade that preceded the assault and announced it to the
enemy must be attributed not only the failure but a great part of
the loss.  The wearied Confederates were asleep behind the breastworks
when the roar of the Union artillery broke the stillness of the
morning, and gave them time to make ready.  Such was their extremity
that in Grover's front they burned their last caps in repelling
the final assault, and, for the time, were able to replenish only
from the pouches of the fallen.

Under cover of night all the wounded that were able to walk or
crawl made their way to places of safety in the rear; while,
disregarding the incessant fire of the sharp-shooters, heavy details
and volunteer parties of stretcher-bearers, plying their melancholy
trade, carried the wounded with gentle care to the hospitals and
the dead swiftly to the long trenches.  The proportion of killed
and mortally wounded, already unusually heavy, was increased by
the exposure and privations of the long day, while many, whom it
was impossible to find or reach during the night, succumbed sooner
or later during the next forty-eight hours.  For although when, on
the morning of the 15th, Banks sent a flag of truce asking leave
to send in medical and hospital supplies for the comfort of the
wounded of both armies, Gardner promptly assented, and in his reply
called attention to the condition of the dead and wounded before
the breastworks, yet it was not until the evening of the 16th that
Banks could bring himself to ask for a suspension of hostilities
for the relief of the suffering and the burial of the slain.  But
three days and two nights had already passed; most of the hurt,
and these the most grievously, were already beyond the need of
succor.  The same thing had already occurred at Vicksburg.

The operations at Vicksburg and Port Hudson were so far alike in
their character and objects that no just estimate of the events at
either place can well be formed without considering what happened
at the other.  In this view it is instructive to observe that Grant
assaulted the Confederate position at Vicksburg within a few hours
after the arrival of his troops in front of the place, on the
afternoon of the 19th of May, when two determined attacks were
easily thrown off by the defenders, with a loss to their assailants
of 942 men.  On the 22d of May Grant delivered the second assault,
in which about three fourths of his whole effective force of 43,000
of all arms were engaged.  The full corps of Sherman and McPherson,
comprising six divisions, were repulsed by four brigades of the
garrison, numbering probably 13,000 effectives.  In this second
assault Grant's loss was 3,199.  These are the reasons he gives
for his decision to attack:

"Johnston was in my rear, only fifty miles away, with an army not
much in inferior in numbers to the one I had with me, and I knew
he was being reinforced.  There was danger of his coming to the
assistance of Pemberton, and, after all, he might defeat my
anticipations of capturing the garrison, if, indeed, he did not
prevent the capture of the city.  The immediate capture of Vicksburg
would save sending me the reinforcements which were so much wanted
elsewhere, and would set free the army under me to drive Johnston
from the State.  But the first consideration of all was--the troops
believed they could carry the works in their front, and they would
not have worked so patiently in their trenches if they had not been
allowed to try."

Having tried, he now "determined upon a regular siege--to 'outcamp
the enemy,' as it were, and to incur no more losses.  The experience
of the 22d convinced officers and men that this was best, and they
went to work on the defences and approaches with a will."(1)

It has also to be remembered, in any fair and candid consideration
of the subject, that at this comparatively early period of the war
even such bloody lessons as Fredericksburg had not sufficed to
teach either the commanders or their followers on either side,
Federal or Confederate, the full value, computed in time, of even
a simple line of breastworks of low relief, or the cost in blood
of any attempt to eliminate this value of time by carrying the
works at a rush.  Indeed, it may be doubted whether, from the
beginning of the war to the end, this reasoning, in spite of all
castigations that resulted from disregarding it, was ever fully
impressed upon the generals of either army, although at last there
came, it is true, a time when, as at Cold Harbor, the men had an
opinion of their own, and chose to act upon it.  It is also very
questionable whether earthworks manned by so much as a line of
skirmishers, prepared and determined to defend them, have ever been
successfully assaulted save as the result of a surprise.  Sedgwick's
captures of the Rappanhannock redoubts and of Marye's Heights have
indeed been cited as instances to the contrary, yet on closer
consideration it is apparent that although in the former case the
Confederates had been looking for an attack, they had given up all
expectation of being called on to meet it that day, when, just at
sunset, Russell fell suddenly upon them and finished the affair
handsomely before they had time to recover.  Marye's Heights, again,
may be described as a moral surprise, for no Confederate officer
or man that had witnessed the bloody repulse of Burnside's great
army on the very same ground, but a few weeks before, could have
expected to be called on so soon to meet the swift and triumphant
onset of a single corps of that army.  Moreover, Sedgwick's tactical
arrangements were perfect.

The truth is, the insignificant appearance of a line of simple
breastworks has almost always caused those general and staff-officers
especially that viewed them through their field-glasses, with the
diminishing power of a long perspective, to forget that an assault
upon an enemy behind entrenchments is not so much a battle as a
battue, where one side stands to shoot and the other goes out to
be shot, or if he stops to shoot it is in plain sight of an almost
invisible foe.  European examples, as usual misapplied or misunderstood,
have contributed largely to the persistency of this fatal illusion,
and Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos have served but as incantations to
confuse many a mind to which these sounding syllables were no more
than names; ignorant, therefore, of the stern necessities that
drove Wellington to these victories, forgetful of their fearful
cost, and above all ignoring or forgetting the axiom, on which
rests the whole art and science of military engineering--that the
highest and stoutest of stone walls must yield at last to the
smallest trench through which a man may creep unseen.  Vast, indeed,
is the difference between an assault upon a walled town, delivered
as a last resort after crowning the glacis and opening wide the
breach, and any conceivable movement, though bearing the same name,
made as the first resort, against earthworks of the very kind
whereby walled towns are taken, approached over ground unknown and
perhaps obstructed.

Even so, in the storm of Rodrigo the defenders struck down more
than a third of their own numbers; Badajos was taken by a happy
chance after the main assault had miserably failed; at both places
the losses of the assailants were in proportion less, and in number
but little greater, than at Port Hudson; yet, in the contemplation
of the awful slaughter of Badajos, even the iron firmness of
Wellington broke down in a passion of tears.

(1) "Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant," pp. 530, 532.


CHAPTER XVIII.
UNVEXED TO THE SEA.

With that quick appreciation of facts that forms so large a part
of the character of the American soldier, even to the extent of
exercising upon the fate of battles and campaigns an influence not
always reserved for considerations derived from a study of the
principles of the art of war, the men of the Army of the Gulf had
now made up their minds that the end sought was to be attained by
hard work on their part and by starvation on the part of the
garrison.  Criticism and denunciation, by no means confined to
those officers whose knowledge of the art of war is drawn from
books, have been freely passed upon this peculiarity, yet both
alike have been wasted, since no proposition can be clearer than
that a nation, justly proud of the superior intelligence of its
soldiers, cannot expect to reap the full advantage of that intelligence
and at the same time escape every disadvantage attending its
exercise.  Among these drawbacks, largely overbalanced by the
obvious gains, not the least is the peculiar quality that has been
aptly described in the homely saying, "They know too much."  When,
therefore, the American volunteer has become a veteran, and has
reached his highest point of discipline, endurance, and the simple
sagacity of the soldier, it is often his way to stay his hand from
exertions that he deems needless and from sacrifices that he
considers useless or worse than useless, although the same exertions
and the same sacrifices would, but a few months earlier in the days
of his inexperience, have been met by him with the same alacrity
that the ignorant peasant of Europe displays in obeying the orders
of his hereditary chief in the service of the king.

After the 14th of June the siege progressed steadily without farther
attempt at an assault.  This was now deferred to the last resort.
At four points a system of comparatively regular approaches was
begun, and upon these labor was carried on incessantly, night and
day; indeed, as is usual with works of this character, the greatest
progress was made in the short hours of the June nights.  The main
approach led from Duryea's battery No. 12 toward the priest-cap,
following the winding of the ravines and the contour of the hill.
When at last the sap had, with great toil and danger, been carried
to the crest facing the priest-cap, and only a few yards distant,
the trench was rapidly and with comparative ease extended toward
the left, in a line parallel with the general direction of the
defences.  The least distance from this third parallel, as it was
called by an easy stretch of the language, to the enemy's parapet
was about twenty yards, the greatest about forty-five.

About two hundred yards farther to the right of the elbow of the
main sap, a zigzag ran out of the ravine on the left flank of
Bainbridge's battery, No. 8, toward the bastion.  Upon this approach,
because of its directness, the use of the sap-roller, or some
equivalent for it, could never be given up until the ditch was
gained.

From the extreme left, after the northern slope of Mount Pleasant
had been gained, a main approach was extended from the flank of
Roy's battery of 20-pounder Parrotts, No. 20, almost directly toward
the river, until the trench cut the edge of the bluff, forming
meanwhile a covered way that connected all the batteries looking
north from the left flank.  Of these No. 24 was the seventeen-gun
battery, including two 9-inch Dahlgrens removed from the naval
battery of the right wing, and commanded by Ensign Swann.  On the
2d of July, Lieutenant-Commander Terry took command of the _Richmond_
and turned over the command of the right naval battery to Ensign
Shepard.  These "blue-jacket" batteries, with their trim and alert
gun crews, were always bright spots in the sombre line.  From the
river bank the sap ran with five stretches of fifty or sixty yards,
forming four sharp elbows, to the foot and well up the slope of
the steep hill on the opposite side of the ravine, where the
Confederates had constructed the strong work known to both combatants
as the Citadel.  From the head of the sap to the nearest point of
the Confederate works the distance was about ninety-five yards.

From the ravine in front of the mortar battery of the left wing,
No. 18, a secondary approach was carried to a parallel facing the
advanced lunette, No. XXVII., and distant from it 375 yards.  The
object of this approach was partly to amuse the enemy, partly to
prevent his breaking through the line, now drawn out very thin,
and partly also to serve as a foothold for a column of attack in
case of need.

From the ravine near Slaughter's house a zigzag, constructed by
the men of the 21st Maine, under the immediate direction of Colonel
Johnson, led to the position of battery No. 16, where were posted
the ten guns of Rails and Baines.  The distance from this battery
to the defences was four hundred yards.

On the 15th of June, on the heels of the bloody repulse of the
previous day, Banks issued a general order congratulating his troops
upon the steady advance made upon the enemy's works, and expressed
his confidence in an immediate and triumphant issue of the contest:

"We are at all points on the threshold of his fortifications," the
order continues.  "Only one more advance, and they are ours!

"For the last duty that victory imposes, the Commanding General
summons the bold men of the corps to the organization of a storming
column of a thousand men, to vindicate the flag of the Union, and
the memory of its defenders who have fallen!  Let them come forward!

"Officers who lead the column of victory in this last assault may
be assured of the just recognition of their services by promotion;
and every officer and soldier who shares its perils and its glory
shall receive a medal to commemorate the first great success of
the campaign of 1863 for the freedom of the Mississippi.  His name
will be placed in General Orders upon the Roll of Honor."

Colonel Henry W. Birge, of the 13th Connecticut, at once volunteered
to lead the stormers, and although the whole project was disapproved
by many of the best officers and men in the corps, partly as
unnecessary and partly because they conceived that it implied some
reflection upon the conduct of the brave men that had fought and
suffered and failed on the 27th and the 14th, yet so general was
the feeling of confidence in Birge that within a few days the ranks
of the stormers were more than filled.  As nearly as can now be
ascertained, the whole number of officers who volunteered was at
least 80; of enlisted men at least 956.  Of these, 17 officers and
226 men belonged to the 13th Connecticut.  As the different parties
offered and were accepted, they were sent into camp in a retired
and pleasant spot, in a grove behind the naval battery on the right.
On the 15th of June Birge was ordered to divide his column into
two battalions, and to drill it for its work.  On the 28th this
organization was complete.  The battalions were then composed of
eight companies, but two companies were afterwards added to the
first battalion.  To Lieutenant-Colonel Van Petter, of the 160th
New York, Birge gave the command of the first battalion, and to
Lieutenant-Colonel Bickmore, of the 14th Maine, that of the second
battalion.  On that day, 67 of the officers and 826 men--in all,
893, were present for duty in the camp of the stormers.  Among
those that volunteered for the forlorn hope but were not accepted
were 54 non-commissioned officers and privates of the 1st Louisiana
Native Guards, and 37 of the 3d.  From among the officers of the
general staff and staff departments that were eager to go, two were
selected to accompany the column and keep up the communication with
headquarters and with the other troops; these were Captain Duncan
S. Walker, assistant adjutant-general, and Lieutenant Edmund H.
Russell, of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves, acting signal officer.

Then the officers and men quietly prepared themselves for the
serious work expected of them.  Those that had any thing to leave
made their wills in the manner sanctioned by the custom of armies,
and all confided to the hands of comrades the last words for their
families or their friends.

Meanwhile an event took place, trifling in itself, yet accenting
sharply some of the more serious reasons that had, in the first
instance, led Banks to resist the repeated urging to join Grant
with his whole force, and afterward had formed powerful factors in
determining him to deliver and to renew the assault.  Early on the
morning of the 18th of June a detachment of Confederate cavalry
rode into the village of Plaquemine, surprised the provost guard,
captured Lieutenant C. H. Witham and twenty-two men of the 28th
Maine, and burned the three steamers lying the bayou, the _Sykes,
Anglo-American_, and _Belfast_.  Captain Albert Stearns, of the
131st New York, who was stationed at Plaquemine as provost marshal
of the parish, made his escape with thirteen men of his guard.
The Confederates were fired upon by the guard and lost one man
killed and two wounded.  In their turn they fired upon the steamboats,
and wounded two of the crew.  Three hours later the gunboat _Winona_,
Captain Weaver, came down from Baton Rouge, and, shelling the enemy,
hastened their departure.  In the tension of greater events, little
notice was taken at the moment of this incident; yet it was not
long before it was discovered that the raiders were the advance
guard of the little army with which Taylor was about to invade La
Fourche, intent upon the bold design of raising the siege of Port
Hudson by blockading the river and threatening New Orleans.

Thus Banks was brought face to face with the condition described
in his letter of the 4th of June to Halleck:

"The course to be pursued here gives me great anxiety.  If I abandon
Port Hudson, I leave its garrison, some 6,000 or 7,000 men, the
force under Mouton and Sibley, now threatening Brashear City and
the Army of Mobile, large or small, to threaten or attack New
Orleans.  If I detach from my command in the field a sufficient
force to defend that city, which ought not to be less than 8,000
or 10,000, my assistance to General Grant is unimportant, and I
leave an equal or larger number of the enemy to reinforce Johnston.
If I defend New Orleans and its adjacent territory, the enemy will
go against Grant.  If I go with a force sufficient to aid him, my
rear will be seriously threatened.  My force is not large enough
to do both.  Under these circumstances, my only course seems to be
to carry this post as soon as possible, and then to join General
Grant.  If I abandon it I cannot materially aid him."

Taylor's incursion caused Banks some anxiety and appreciable
inconvenience, without, however, exercising a material influence
on the fortunes of the siege; accordingly, it will be better to
reserve for another chapter the story of this adventure.

About the same time, Logan again became troublesome.  At first he
seems to have thought of retiring on Jackson, Mississippi; but this
Johnston forbade, telling him to stay where he was, to observe and
annoy the besiegers, and if pressed by too strong a force, to fall
back only so far as necessary, hindering and retarding the advance
of his assailants.  By daylight, on the morning of the 15th of
June, Logan dashed down the Clinton road, surprised the camp of
the 14th New York cavalry, who made little resistance, and the
guard of the hospital at the Carter House, who made none.  In this
raid Logan took nearly one hundred disabled prisoners, including
six officers, and carried off a number of wagons.  However, finding
Grierson instantly on his heels, Logan promptly "fell back as far
as necessary."  On the evening of the 30th of June, while hovering
in the rear of Dwight, Logan captured and carried off Brigadier-General
Dow, who, while waiting for his wound to heal, had taken up his
headquarters in a house some distance behind the lines.  At daylight,
on the morning of the 2d of July, Logan surprised the depot at
Springfield Landing, guarded by the 162d New York, Lieutenant-Colonel
Blanchard, and a small detachment of the 16th New Hampshire,
under Captain Henry.  Careless picket duty was the cause, and a
great stampede the consequence, but Logan hardly stayed long enough
to find out exactly what he had accomplished, since he reports
that, besides burning the commissary and quartermasters' stores,
he killed and wounded 140 of his enemy, captured 35 prisoners,
fought an entire brigade, and destroyed 100 wagons, with a loss on
his part of 4 killed and 10 wounded; whereas, in fact, the entire
loss of the Union army was 1 killed, 11 wounded, 21 captured or
missing, while the stores burned consisted of a full supply of
clothing and camp and garrison equipment for about 1,000 men.  The
wagons mentioned by Logan were part of a train met in the road,
cut out, and carried off as he rapidly rode away, and the number
may be correct.

The end of June was now drawing near, and already the losses of
the besiegers in the month of constant fighting exceeded 4,000.
At least as many more were sick in the hospitals, while the
reinforcements from every quarter barely numbered 3,000.  There
were no longer any reserves to draw from; the last man was up.
The effective strength of all arms had at no time exceeded 17,000.(1)
Of these less than 12,000 can be regarded as available for any duty
directly connected with the siege, and now every day saw the command
growing smaller in numbers, as the men fell under the fire of the
sharp-shooter, or succumbed to the deadly climate, or gave out
exhausted by incessant labor and privation.  The heat became almost
insupportable, even to those who from time to time found themselves
so fortunate as to be able to snatch a few hours' rest in the dense
shade of the splendid forest, until their tour of duty should come
again in the trenches, where, under the June sun beating upon and
baking all three surfaces, the parched clay became like a reverberating
furnace.  The still air was stifling, but the steam from the almost
tropical showers was far worse.  Merely in attempting to traverse
a few yards of this burning zone many of the strongest men were
sunstruck daily.  The labor of the siege, extending over so wide
a front, pressed so severely upon the numbers of the besieging
army, always far too weak for such an undertaking in any climate
at any season, above all in Louisiana in June, that the men were
almost incessantly on duty, either in digging, as guards of the
trenches, as sharp-shooters, or on outpost service; and as the
number available for duty grew smaller, and the physical strength
of all that remained in the ranks daily wasted, the work fell the
more heavily.  When the end came at last the effective force,
outside of the cavalry, hardly exceeded 8,000, while even of this
small number nearly every officer and man might well have gone on
the sick-report had not pride and duty held him to his post.

This will seem the less remarkable when it is remembered that the
garrison during the same period suffered in the same proportion,
while from like causes less than a year before Breckinridge had,
in a much shorter time, lost the use of half his division.  Butler's
experience had been nearly as severe.

To the suffering and labors that are inseparable from any operation
in the nature of a siege were added insupportable torments, the
least of which were vermin.  As the summer days drew out and the
heat grew more intense, the brooks dried up; the creek lost itself
in the pestilential swamp; the wells and springs gave out; the river
fell, exposing to the almost tropical sun a wide margin of festering
ooze.  The mortality and the sickness were enormous.

The animals suffered in their turn, the battery horses from want
of exercise, the train horses and mules from over-work, and all
from the excessive heat and insufficiency of proper forage.  There
was never enough hay; the deficiency was partly eked out by making
fodder of the standing corn, but this resource was quickly exhausted,
and after the 3d of July, when Taylor sealed the river by planting
his guns below Donaldsonville, all the animals went upon half or
quarter rations of grain, with little hay or none.  At length, for
two or three days, the forage depots fairly gave out; the poor
beasts were literally starving when the place fell, nor was it for
nearly a week after that event that, by the raising of Taylor's
blockade below and the arrival of supplies from Grant above, the
stress was wholly relieved.

The two colored regiments, the 1st and 3d Louisiana Native Guards,
besides strongly picketing their front, were mainly occupied, after
the 27th of May, in fatigue duty in the trenches on the right.
While the army was in the Teche country, Brigadier-General Daniel
Ullmann had arrived at New Orleans from New York, bringing with
him authority to raise a brigade of colored troops.  With him came
a full complement of officers.  A few days later, on the 1st of
May, Banks issued, at Opelousas, an order, which he had for some
time held in contemplation, for organizing a corps of eighteen
regiments of colored infantry, to consist, at first, of five hundred
men each.  These troops were to form a distinct command, to which
he gave the name of the Corps d'Afrique, and in it he incorporated
Ullmann's brigade.  By the end of May Ullmann had enrolled about
1,400 men for five regiments, the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th.
These recruits, as yet unarmed and undrilled, were now brought to
Port Hudson, organized, and set to work in the trenches and upon
the various siege operations.

About the same time the formation of a regiment of engineer troops
was undertaken, composed of picked men of color, formed in three
battalions of four companies each, under white officers carefully
chosen from among the veterans.  The ranks of this regiment, known
as the 1st Louisiana engineers, were soon recruited to above a
thousand; the strength for duty was about eight hundred.  Under
the skilful handling of Colonel Justin Hodge it rendered valuable
service throughout the siege.

Company K of the 42d Massachusetts, commanded by Lieutenant Henry
A. Harding, had for some months been serving as pontoniers, in
charge of the bridge train.  During the siege it did good and hard
work in all branches of field engineering under the immediate
direction of the Chief Engineer.

While at Opelousas, Banks had applied to Halleck to order
Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone to duty in the Department of the
Gulf. Stone had been without assignment since his release, in the
preceding August, from his long and lonely imprisonment in the
casemates of the harbor forts of New York, and, up to this moment,
every suggestion looking to his employment had met the stern
disapproval of the Secretary of War.  Even when in the first flush
of finding himself at last at the top notch of his career, Hooker, in
firm possession, as he believed, of the post he had long coveted, as
commander of the Army of the Potomac, had asked for Stone as his Chief
of Staff, the request had been met by a flat refusal.  A different fate
awaited Banks's application.  On the 7th of May Halleck issued the
orders asked for, and in the last days of the month Stone reported
for duty before Port Hudson.  At first Banks was rather embarrassed
by the gift he had solicited, for he saw that he himself was falling
into disfavor at Washington; the moment was critical; and it was
easy to perceive how disaster, or even the slightest check, might
be magnified in the shadows of Ball's Bluff and Fort Lafayette.
Moreover, Stone was equally unknown to and unknown by the troops
of the Nineteenth Army Corps.  Instead, therefore, of giving him
the command of Sherman's division, for which his rank indicated
him, Banks kept Stone at headquarters without special assignment,
and made every use of his activity, as well as of his special
knowledge and ready skill in all matters relating to ordnance and
gunnery.

On the evening of the 26th of June a strange thing happened.  While
it was yet broad daylight Colonel Provence of the 16th Arkansas,
posted in rear of the position of battery XXIV, discovering and
annoyed by the progress made on battery 16 in his front, sent out,
one at a time, two bold men, named Mieres and Parker, to see what
was going on.  After nightfall, on their report, he despatched
thirty volunteers, under Lieutenant McKennon, to drive off the
guard and the working party and destroy the works.  The position
was held by the advance guard of the 21st Maine, under Lieutenant
Bartlett, who, for some reason hard to understand, ordered his men
not to fire.  The Arkansas party, therefore, accomplished its
purpose, without further casualty than having one man knocked down,
as he was leaping the parapet of the trench, by a soldier who
happened to consider his orders as inapplicable to this method of
defence.  Then Major Merry, with the reserves of the 21st, coming
promptly to the rescue, easily drove out the enterprising assailants,
with whom went as prisoners Lieutenant Bartlett and five of his
men, with fourteen muskets that had not been fired.(2)

As the saps in front of Bainbridge's and Duryea's batteries drew
every day nearer to the bastion and the priest-cap, the working
parties were harassed and began to be greatly delayed by the
unceasing fire of the Confederate sharp-shooters.  Moreover, in
spite of the vigilance of the sharp-shooters in the trenches, their
adversaries had so much the advantage of ground that they were able
to render the passage of certain exposed points of the approaches
slow and hazardous.  At first, cotton bales were used to protect
the head of the sap, but these the adventurous enemy set alight
with blazing arrows or by sallies of small parties under cover of
darkness.  In the short night it was impossible to raise a pile of
sand-bags high enough to overlook the breastworks.  Toward the end
of June this was changed in a single night by the skill and ingenuity
of Colonel Edward Prince, of the 7th Illinois cavalry.

Happening to be at headquarters when the trouble was being talked
about, he heard an officer suggest making use of the empty hogsheads
at the sugar-house; how to get them to the trenches was the next
question.  This he promptly offered to solve if simply ordered to
do it and left to himself.  Cavalry had never been of any use in
a siege, he said; it was time for a change.  The order was instantly
given.  Prince swung himself into the saddle and rode away.  Before
daylight his men had carried through the woods and over the hills
to the mouth of the sap, opposite the southern angle of the
priest-cap, enough sugar hogsheads to make two tiers.  The heads had
been knocked in, a long pole thrust through each hogshead, and thus
slung, it was easy for two mounted troopers to carry it between
them.  Quietly rolled into position by the working parties and
rapidly filled with earth, a rude platform erected behind for the
sharp-shooter to mount upon, with a few sand-bags thrown on top to
protect his head,--this was the beginning of the great trench
cavalier, whose frowning crest the astonished Confederates awoke
the next morning to find towering high above their heads.  Afterwards
enlarged and strengthened, it finally dominated the whole line of
defence not only in its immediate front, but for a long distance
on either side.

Not less ingenious was the device almost instinctively resorted to
by the artillerists for the safety of the gunners when, after the
siege batteries opened, the Confederate sharp-shooters began picking
off every head that came in sight.  The first day saw a number of
gunners stricken in the act of taking aim, an incident not conducive
to deliberation or accuracy on the part of their successors at the
guns.  The next sunrise saw every exposed battery, from right to
left, protected by a hinged shutter made of flat iron chiefly taken
from the sugar troughs, covered with strips of rawhide from the
commissary's, the space stuffed tight with loose cotton, and a hole
made through all, big enough for the gunner's eye, but too small
for the sharp-shooter's bullet.  Such was substantially the plan
simultaneously adopted at three or four different points and
afterwards followed everywhere.  The remedy was perfect.

On the 3d of July arrangements were made for the daily detail of
a brigade commander to act as General of the Trenches during a tour
of twenty-four hours, from noon to noon.  His duties were to
superintend the siege operations, to post the guards of the trenches,
to repulse sorties, and to protect the works.  The works to be
constructed were indicated and laid out by the Chief Engineer,
whose duties, after the 17th of June, when Major Houston fell
seriously ill, were performed by Captain John C. Palfrey, aided
and overlooked by General Andrews, the Chief of Staff.  Daily, at
nine o'clock in the morning, the General of the Trenches and the
Chief Engineer made separate reports to headquarters of everything
that had happened during the previous day.  Each of these officers
made five reports, yet of the ten but two are to be found printed
among the Official Records.  These are the engineer's reports of
work done on the 5th and 6th of July.  They contain almost the only
details of the siege to be gathered from the record, notwithstanding
the fact that every paper, however small, or irregular in size or
form, or apparently unimportant in substance, that related in any
way to the military operations of the Army of the Gulf was carefully
preserved on the files of its Adjutant-General's office, where,
for safety as well as convenience, documents of this character were
kept separate from the ordinary files covering matters of routine
and requiring to be handled every day or hour.  The proof is strong
that these important records were in due time delivered into the
custody of the War Office, where, for a considerable period after
the close of the war, little or no care seems to have been taken
of the documents thus turned in by the several Corps and Departments,
as these were discontinued; and although the care and management
of the War Records division of the Adjutant-General's Office at
Washington has, from its earliest organization, been such as to
deserve the highest admiration, yet many of these papers are not
to be found there.  The probability is that they were either mislaid
or else swept away and destroyed before this office was organized.

Palfrey's report for the 5th of July shows the left cavalier finished
and occupied, and the right cavalier nearly finished, but constantly
injured by a 24-pounder gun that had so far escaped destruction by
the artillery of the besiegers.  The sap in front of Bainbridge's
battery, No. 8, was advanced about twenty yards during this day,
and the parallel in front of the priest-cap extended to the left
eleven yards; work was greatly retarded by a heavy rain in the
night.  The mine was so far advanced that a shaft was begun to run
obliquely under the salient, this course being chosen instead of
the usual plan of a vertical shaft with enveloping galleries, as
shorter in time and distance, although more dangerous.

On the 6th the sap was pushed forward forty-two feet, and the
parallel carried to the left sixty-nine feet.  The mine shaft,
begun the day before, was carried about twenty-seven feet underground,
directly toward the salient.  The cavaliers were finished.

During the 7th, although there is no report for that day, the shaft
for the mine under the priest-cap was finished, the chamber itself
excavated and charged with about twelve hundred pounds of powder,
and the mine tamped with sand-bags.  The mine on the left had been
ready for some days; it was now charged with fifteen hundred pounds
of powder and tamped.

Heavy thunder-storms, accompanied by warm rain, had been frequent
of late, and the night dews had been at times heavy.  Accordingly
it was thought best not to trust so delicate an operation as the
explosion of the mines to the chance of a damp fuse.  Daybreak on
the 9th of July having been set as the hour for the simultaneous
explosion of the mines, to be instantly followed by one last rush
through the gaps, Captain Walker was sent on the evening of the
7th, to the _Richmond_ to ask for dry fuses from the magazines of
the Navy.

Meanwhile events were moving rapidly to an end.  In the early
morning of Tuesday, the 7th, the gunboat _General Price_ came down
the river bringing the great news that Vicksburg had surrendered
to Grant on the 4th of July.  Commodore Palmer, on board the
_Hartford_, was the first to receive the news, but for some reason
it happened that signal communication was obstructed or suspended
between the _Hartford_ and headquarters, so that it was not until
a quarter before eleven that Colonel Kilby Smith, of Grant's staff,
delivered to Banks the welcome message of which he was the bearer.

In less time than it takes to tell, an aide-de-camp was on his way
to the General of the Trenches bearing the brief announcement,
"Vicksburg surrendered on the 4th of July."  This note, written
upon the thin manifold paper of the field order-books, the General
of the Trenches was directed to wrap securely around a clod of clay
--the closest approach to a stone to be found in all the lowlands
of Louisiana--and toss it over into the enemy's works.  At the same
time the good news was sped by wire and by staff officers to the
commanders of divisions.  At noon a national salute was to be fired
and all the bands were to play the national airs; but the men could
not wait for these slow formalities.  No sooner was the first loud
shout of rejoicing heard from the trenches, where for so many weary
nights and days there had been little to rejoice at, than by a sort
of instinct the men of both armies seem to have divined what had
happened.  From man to man, from company to company, from regiment
to regiment, the word passed, and as it passed, once more the cheers
of the soldiers of the Union rang out, and again the forest echoed
with the strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner" from the long-silent
bands.  Many a rough cheek, unused to tears, was wet that morning,
and the sound of laughter was heard from many lips that had long
been set in silence; but when the first thrill was spent, it gave
way to a deep-drawn sigh of relief.  The work was done; all the
toil and suffering was over.  Nor was this feeling restricted to
the outside of the parapet; the defenders felt it even more strongly.
At first they received the news with real or affected incredulity.
An officer of an Arkansas regiment, to whom was first handed the
little scrap of tissue paper on which the whole chapter of history
was told in seven words, acknowledged the complement by calling
back, "This is another damned Yankee lie!"  Yet before many minutes
were over the firing had died away, save here and there a scattering
exception, although peremptory orders were even given to secure
its renewal.  In spite of everything the men began to mingle and
to exchange story for story, gibe for gibe, coffee for corn-beer,
and when night fell there can have been few men in either army but
believed the fighting was over.

That evening Gardner summoned his commanders to meet him in council.
Among them all there was but one thought--the end had come.

Shortly after half-past twelve the notes of a bugle were heard on
the Plains Store road sounding the signal, "Cease firing."  A few
seconds later an officer with a small escort approached, bearing
a lantern swung upon a long pole, with a white handkerchief tied
beneath it, to serve as a flag of truce.  At the outpost of Charles
J. Paine's brigade the flag was halted and its purpose ascertained.
This was announced to be the delivery of an important despatch from
Gardner to Banks.  Thus it was that a few minutes after one o'clock
the hoofs of two horses were heard at the same instant at headquarters,
yet each with a sound of its own that seemed in keeping with its
story.  One, a slow and measured trot, told of duty done and stables
near; the other, quick and nervous, spoke of pressing news.  Two
officers dismounted; the clang of their sabres was heard together;
together they made their way to the tent where the writer of these
lines lay awake and listening.  One was Captain Walker, with the
fuse, the other was Lieutenant Orton S. Clark, of the 116th New
York, then attached to the staff of Charles J. Paine.  The long
envelope he handed in felt rough to the touch; the light of a match
showed its color a dull gray; every inch of it said, "Surrender."

When opened it was found to contain a request for an official
assurance as to the truth of the report that Vicksburg had surrendered.
If true, Gardner asked for a cessation of hostilities with a view
to consider terms.  At a quarter-past one Banks replied, conveying
an exact copy of so much of Grant's despatch as related the
capitulation of Vicksburg.  He told when and how the despatch had
come, and wound up by regretting that he could not consent to a
truce for the purpose indicated.  In order to avoid all chance of
needless excitement or disturbance, as well as of the premature
publication of the news, the Adjutant-General carried this despatch
himself, and, accompanied by Lieutenant Clark, as well as, at his
own request, by General Stone, rode first to Augur's headquarters
to acquaint him with the news and to borrow a bugler, and then to
the outposts to meet the Confederate flag of truce.  A blast upon
the bugle brought back the little party of horsemen, with the
lantern swaying from the pole; but it was nearly daylight before
they again returned with Gardner's reply.  Meanwhile, right and
left word had been quietly passed to the pickets to cease firing.

In his second letter Gardner said:

"Having defended this position so long as I deem my duty requires,
I am willing to surrender to you, and will appoint a commission of
three officers to meet a similar commission, appointed by yourself,
at nine o'clock this morning, for the purpose of agreeing upon and
drawing up the terms of surrender, and for that purpose I ask a
cessation of hostilities.  Will you please designate a point outside
of my breastworks where a meeting shall be held for this purpose?"

To this Banks answered at 4:30 A.M.:

"I have designated Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone, Colonel
Henry W. Birge, and Lieutenant-Colonel Richard B. Irwin as the
officers to meet the commission appointed by you.  They will meet
your officers at the hour designated at a point near where the flag
of truce was received this morning.  I will direct that all active
hostilities shall entirely cease on my part until further notice
for the purpose stated."

The division commanders, as well as the commanders of the upper
and lower fleets, were at once notified, and at six o'clock Captain
Walker was sent to find Admiral Farragut, wherever he might be,
and to deliver to him despatches conveying the news of the surrender,
outlining Banks's plans for moving against Taylor in La Fourche,
and urging the Admiral to send all the light-draught gunboats at
once to Berwick Bay.

Banks meant to march Weitzel directly to the nearest landing, which
was within the lines of Port Hudson, as soon as the formal capitulation
should be accomplished, and to send Grover after him as fast as
steamboats could be found.  This called for many arrangements; the
occupying force had also to be seen to; and finally, it was necessary
that the starving garrison should be fed.  Colonel Irwin was
therefore relieved, at his own request, from duty as one of the
commissioners, and Brigadier-General Dwight was named in his stead.
This drew an objection from Weitzel, who naturally felt that there
were claims of service as well as of rank that might have been
considered before those of the temporary commander of the second
division; however, it was too late to make any further change, and
when Banks offered to name Weitzel, whose protest had been not for
himself but for his brigades, as the officer to receive Gardner's
sword, the offer was declined.  Among the officers of the navy,
too, especially those of higher grades, great cause of offense was
felt that, after all their services in the siege, they were left
unrepresented in the honors of the surrender.  This feeling was
natural enough; yet before determining how far the complaints based
on it were just, it is necessary to consider how important was
every hour, almost every moment, with reference to the operations
against Taylor, while three and a half hours were required to make
the journey between headquarters and the upper fleet, and four and
a half hours to reach the lower fleet.  Moreover, the Admiral had
gone to New Orleans the evening before.

At nine the commissioners met under the shade of the beautiful
trees, nearly on the spot where O'Brien had rested among his men
while waiting for the word on the 27th of May.  On the Confederate
side the commissioners were Colonel William R. Miles, commanding
the right wing of the garrison, Colonel I. G. W. Steedman, of the
1st Alabama, commanding the left wing, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Marshall J. Smith, Chief of Heavy Artillery.

Among those thus brought together there was more than one gentleman
of marked conversational talent; the day was pleasant, the shade
grateful, and, to one side at least, the refreshment not less so;
and thus the time passed pleasantly until two o'clock, when the
commissioners signed, with but a single change, the articles that
had been drawn up for them and in readiness since six in the morning.
The alteration was occasioned by the great and unexpected length
to which the conference had been protracted.  Five o'clock in the
afternoon had been named as the time when the besiegers were to
occupy the works; this had to be changed to seven o'clock on the
morning of the 9th.  The terms, which will be found in full in the
Appendix, were those of an unconditional surrender.  Gardner, who
was in waiting conveniently near, at once approved the articles,
and at half-past two they were completed by the signature of Banks.
A few minutes later the long wagon-train, loaded with provisions,
that had been standing for hours in the Plains Store road, was
signalled to go forward.  The cheers that welcomed the train, as
it wound its way up the long-untravelled road and through the
disused sally-port, were perhaps not so loud as those with which
the besiegers had greeted the news from Vicksburg, yet they were
not less enthusiastic.  From this moment the men of the two armies,
and to some extent the officers, mingled freely.

Andrews was designated to receive the surrender, and from each
division two of the best regiments, with one from Weitzel's brigade,
were told off to occupy the place.

Punctually at seven o'clock on the morning of the 9th of July the
column of occupation entered the sally-port on the Jackson road.
At its head rode Andrews with his staff.  Next, in the post of
honor, came the stormers with Birge at their head, then the 75th
New York of Weitzel's brigade, followed by the 116th New York and
the 2d Louisiana of Augur's division, the 12th Maine, and the 13th
Connecticut of Grover's division, the 6th Michigan and the 14th
Maine of Dwight's division, and 4th Wisconsin and the 8th New
Hampshire of Paine's.(3)  With the column was Duryea's battery.
The 38th Massachusetts was at first designated for this coveted
honor, but lost it through some necessary changes due to the intended
movement down the river.  Weitzel, with his own brigade under
Thomas, on the way to the place of embarkation, closely followed
the column and witnessed the ceremonies.

These were simple and short.  The Confederate troops were drawn up
in line, Gardner at their head, every officer in his place.  The
right of the line rested on the edge of the open plain south of
the railway station; the left extended toward the village.  At the
word "Ground arms" from their tried commander, followed by the
command of execution from the bugles, every Confederate soldier
bowed his head and laid his musket on the ground in token of
submission, while Gardner himself tendered his sword to Andrews,
who, in a few complimentary words, waived its acceptance.  At the
same instant the Stars and Bars, the colors of the Confederacy,
were hauled down from the flagstaff, where they had so long waived
defiance; a detachment of sailors from the naval batteries sprang
to the halyards and rapidly ran up the flag of the United States;
the guns of Duryea's battery saluted the colors; the garrison filed
off as prisoners of war, and all was over.

The last echo of the salute to the colors had hardly died away when
Weitzel, at the head of the First Division, now for the first time
united, marched off to the left, and began embarking on board the
transports to go against Taylor.

With the place were taken 6,340 prisoners of war, of whom 405 were
officers and 5,935 enlisted men.  The men were paroled with the
exact observance of all the forms prescribed by the cartel then in
form; yet the paroles were immediately declared void by the
Confederate government, and the men were required to return to duty
in the ranks.  The officers, in accordance with the retaliatory
orders of the period, had to be kept in captivity; they were,
however, given the choice of their place of confinement.  About
211 elected to go to Memphis, and were accordingly sent up the
river a few days after the surrender, the remainder were sent to
New Orleans with instructions to Emory to keep them safely under
guard in some commodious house or houses, to be selected by him,
and to make them as comfortable as practicable.(4)  There were also
captured 20 pieces of light artillery and 31 pieces of field
artillery; of these 12 heavy guns and 30 light guns were in
comparatively good order.

The total losses of the Corps during the siege were 45 officers
and 663 men killed, 191 officers and 3,145 men wounded, 12 officers
and 307 men captured or missing; in all, 4,363.  Very few prisoners
were taken by the Confederates, and little doubt remains that a
large proportion of those set down as captured or missing in reality
perished.

Of the Confederate losses no complete return was ever made.  A
partial return, without date, signed by the chief surgeon, shows
176 killed, 447 wounded, total 632.  In this report the number of
those that had died in the hospital is included among the wounded.
Nor does this total include the losses at Plains Store, which,
according to the surgeon's return, were 12 killed and 36 wounded,
or, according to Colonel Miles's report, 8 killed, 23 wounded, 58
missing; in all, 89.  Major C. M. Jackson, who acted as assistant
inspector-general under Gardner, and, according to his own account,
came out through the lines of investment about an hour after the
surrender, reported to Johnston that the total casualties during
the siege were 200 killed, between 300 and 400 wounded, and 200
died from sickness.

(1) The figures here given do not agree with those of the monthly
and tri-monthly returns for May and June.  These returns are,
however, simply the returns for March carried forward, owing to
the impossibility of collecting and collating the reports of
regiments, brigades, and divisions during active operations.

(2) Colonel Provence, in his report, claims 7 prisoners, and says:
"The enemy fired but once, and then at a great distance."  (Official
Records, vol. xxvi., part I., p. 150.)

(3) No record exists of these details, but the list here given is
believed to be nearly correct.

(4) As evidence of the considerate manner in which these gentlemen
were treated, see the interesting article, "Plain Living on Johnson's
Island," by Lieutenant Horace Carpenter, 4th Louisiana, printed in
the _Century_ for March, 1891, page 706.


CHAPTER XIX.
HARROWING LA FOURCHE.

It will be remembered that when Banks marched to Opelousas, Taylor's
little army, greatly depleted by wholesale desertion and hourly
wearing away by the roadside, broke into two fragments, the main
body of the cavalry retiring, under Mouton, toward the Sabine,
while the remainder of the troops were conducted by Taylor himself
toward Alexandria and at last to Natchitoches.  As soon as Kirby
Smith became aware that his adversary was advancing to the Red
River, he prepared to meet the menace by concentrating on Shreveport
the whole available force of the Confederacy in the Trans-Mississippi
from Texas to Missouri, numbering, according to his own estimate,
18,000 effectives.  He accordingly called on Magruder for two
brigades and drew in from the line of the Arkansas the division of
John G. Walker.  However, this concentration became unnecessary
and was given up the instant Smith learned that Banks had crossed
the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi and had sat down before Port
Hudson.

While this movement was in progress, Walker was on the march toward
Natchitoches or Alexandria, by varying routes, according as the
plans changed to suit the news of the day.  Taylor observed Banks
and followed his march to Simmesport, while Mouton hung upon the
rear and flank of Chickering's column, guarding the big wagon-train
and the spoils of the Teche campaign.

Then Kirby Smith, not caring as yet to venture across the Atchafalaya,
ordered Taylor to take Walker's division back into Northern Louisiana
and try to break up Grant's campaign by interrupting his communications
opposite Vicksburg; but this attempt turned out badly, for Grant
had already given up his communications on the west bank of the
Mississippi and restored them on the east, and Taylor's forces,
after passing from Lake Catahoula by Little River into the Tensas,
ascending that stream to the neighborhood of Richmond and occupying
that town on the 3d of May, were roughly handled on the 7th in an
ill-judged attempt to take Young's Point and Milliken's Bend.
Then, leaving Walker with orders to do what damage he could along
the river bank--which was not much--and, if possible, as it was
not, to throw supplies of beef and corn into Vicksburg, Taylor went
back to Alexandria and prepared for his campaign in La Fourche,
from which Kirby Smith's superior orders had diverted him.  Meanwhile
nearly a month had passed and Walker, after coming down to the Red
River, a week too late, was once more out of reach.

Taylor's plan was for Major, with his brigade of cavalry, to cross
the Atchafalaya at Morgan's Ferry, while Taylor himself, with the
main body under Mouton, should attempt the surprise and capture of
Brashear: then, if successful, the whole army could be thrown into
La Fourche, while in case of failure Major could easily return by
the way he came.

Major left Washington on the 10th of June, marched twenty-eight
miles to Morgan's Ferry, by a road then high and dry although in
April Banks had found it under water, and crossing the Atchafalaya
on the 14th rode along the Bayou Fordoche with the intention of
striking the river at the Hermitage; but a broken bridge turned
him northward round the sweep of False River toward Waterloo.  Sage
was at False Point with six companies of his 110th New York, a
squadron of the 2d Rhode Island cavalry, and a section of Carruth's
battery.  As soon as he found the enemy approaching in some force
he moved down the levee to the cover of the lower fleet and thus
lost the chance of gaining and giving timely notice of Major's
operation.  Major on his part rode off by the Grosstęte through
Plaquemine, as already related, and so down the Mississippi to
Donaldsonville, having passed on the way three garrisons without
being seen by any one on board.  Making a feint on Fort Butler,
Major, under cover of the night, took the cut-off road and struck
the Bayou La Fourche six miles below Donaldsonville; thence he rode
on to Thibodeaux, entering the town at daylight on the 21st of
June.  At Thibodeaux Major picked up all the Union soldiers in the
place to the number of about 100, mostly convalescents.

Soon after taking command in New Orleans, Emory had begun to look
forward to what might happen in La Fourche, as well as to the
possible consequences to New Orleans itself.  The forces in the
district were the 23d Connecticut, Colonel Charles E. L. Holmes,
and the 176th New York, Colonel Charles C. Nott, both regiments
scattered along the railroad for its protection, Company F and some
odd men and recruits of the 1st Indiana, under Captain F. W. Noblett,
occupying the field works at Brashear, and two companies of the
28th Maine at Fort Butler.  About this time Holmes, who as the
senior colonel had commanded the district since Weitzel quitted it
to enter on the Teche campaign, resigned on account of ill-health.
Nott and Wordin, the lieutenant-colonel of the 23d, were on the
sick-list.  Finding the country thus feebly occupied and the service
yet more feebly performed, as early as the 7th of June, Emory had
chosen a very intelligent and spirited young officer of the 47th
Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Stickney, placed him in
command of the district, without regard to rank, and sent him over
the line to Brashear to put things straight.  In this work Stickney
was engaged, when, at daylight on the morning of the 20th of June,
he received a telegram from Emory conveying the news that the
Confederates were advancing on La Fourche Crossing; so he left
Major Anthony, of the 2d Rhode Island cavalry, in command at Brashear
and went to the point where the danger threatened.  When, on the
afternoon of the 21st of June, the Confederate force drew near,
Stickney found himself in command of a medley of 838 men belonging
to eight different organizations--namely, 195 of the 23d Connecticut,
154 of the 176th New York, 46 of the 42d Massachusetts, 37 of the
26th Maine, 306 of the 26th Massachusetts, 50 troopers of the 1st
Louisiana cavalry, 20 artillerymen, chiefly of the 1st Indiana,
and one section, with 30 men, of Grow's 25th New York battery.

The levee at this point was about twelve feet high, forming a
natural fortification, which Stickney took advantage of and
strengthened by throwing up slight rifle-pits on his flanks.  These
had only been carried a few yards, and were nowhere more than two
feet high, when, about seven o'clock in the evening, under cover
of the darkness, Major attacked.  The attack was led by Pyron's
regiment, reported by Major as 206 strong, and was received and
thrown off by about three quarters of Stickney's force.  For this
result the credit is largely due to the gallantry and good judgment
of Major Morgan Morgan, Jr., of the 176th New York, and the steadiness
of his men, inspired by his example.  Grow's guns being separated
and one of them without support, this piece was abandoned by its
gunners and fell for the moment into the hands of the Confederates;
the other piece, placed by Grow himself to protect the flank, poured
an effective enfilade fire upon Pyron's column.

Stickney's loss was 8 killed and 41 wounded, including Lieutenant
Starr, of the 23d Connecticut, whose hurt proved mortal.  The
Confederate loss is not reported, but Stickney says he counted 53
of their dead on the field, and afterward found nearly 60 wounded
in the hospitals at Thibodeaux.  The next morning, June 22d, their
dead and wounded were removed under a flag of truce.(1)

While the flag was out, Cahill came up from New Orleans with the
9th Connecticut, a further detachment of the 26th Massachusetts,
and the remainder of Grow's battery.  This gave Stickney about
1,100 men, with four guns in position and six field-pieces.  Cahill's
arrival was seen by Major, who, after waiting all day in a drenching
rain, began to think his condition rather critical; accordingly,
at nine o'clock in the evening he set out to force his way to
Brashear, where he was expecting to find Green.  Riding hard, he
arrived at the east bank of Bayou Boeuf late the next afternoon,
and, crossing by night, at daylight on the 24th he had completely
surrounded the post of Bayou Boeuf, and was just about to attack,
when he saw the white flag that announced the surrender of the
garrison to Mouton.  Before this, Captain Julius Sanford, of the
23d Connecticut, set fire to the sugar-house filled with the baggage
and clothing of the troops engaged at Port Hudson.

Meanwhile, for the surprise of Brashear, Mouton had collected
thirty-seven skiffs and boats of all sorts near the mouth of the Teche,
and manned them with 325 volunteers, under the lead of Major Sherod
Hunter.  At nightfall on the 22d of June Hunter set out, and by
daylight the next morning his whole party had safely landed in the
rear of the defences of Brashear, while Green, with three battalions
and two batteries of his command, stood on the western bank of
Berwick Bay, ostentatiously attracting the attention of the
unsuspicious garrison, and three more regiments were in waiting on
Gibbon's Island, ready to make use of Hunter's boats in support of
his movement.

Banks meant to have broken up the great depot of military stores
at Brashear, and to have removed to Algiers or New Orleans all
regimental baggage and other property that had gone into store at
Brashear and the Boeuf before and after the Teche campaign; such
were his orders, but for some reason not easy to explain they had
not been carried out.  Besides the Indianians, who numbered about
30 all told, there were at Brashear four companies--D, G, I, K--of
the 23d Connecticut, two companies of the 176th New York, about
150 strong, and one company, or the equivalent of a company, of
the 42d Massachusetts, making in all rather less than 400 effectives;
there were also about 300 convalescents, left behind by nearly
thirty regiments.  Notwithstanding the vast quantity of stores
committed to their care, including the effects of their comrades,
and in spite of all warnings, so slack and indifferent was the
performance of duty on the part of the garrison of Brashear that,
on the morning of the 23d of June, the reveillé was sounded for
them by the guns of the Valverde battery.  Thus sharply aroused,
without a thought of what might happen in the rear, the garrison
gave its whole attention to returning, with the heavy guns, the
fire of Green's field-pieces across Berwick Bay.  Soon the gunboat
_Hollyhock_ backed down the bay and out of the action, and thus it
was that about half-past six Hunter's men, running out of the woods
toward the railway station, and making known their presence with
their rifles, took the garrison completely by surprise, and, after
a short and desultory fight, more than 700 officers and men gave
up their swords and laid down their arms to a little less than one
half of their own number.  Of the men, nearly all were well enough
to march to Algiers four days later, after being paroled.  Worse
still, they abandoned a fortified position with 11 heavy guns--24-,
30-, and 32-pounders.  The Confederate loss was 3 killed and 18
wounded.  Hunter says the Union troops lost 46 killed and 40 wounded,
but about this there seems to be some mistake, for the proportion
is unusual, and the whole loss of the 23d Connecticut in killed
and wounded was but 7, of the 176th New York but 12.

Green crossed Berwick Bay as fast as he could, and pushing on found
the post at Bayou Ramos abandoned.  The Union troops stationed
there had retired to Bayou Boeuf, and so at daylight on the 24th,
without feeling or firing a single shot, the united guards of the
two stations, numbering 433 officers and men, with four guns,
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Duganne, of the 176th New York,
promptly surrendered to the first bold summons of a handful of
Green's adventurous scouts riding five miles ahead of their column.
Taylor now turned over the immediate command of the force to Mouton
and hastened back to Alexandria to bring down Walker, in order to
secure and extend his conquests.  Mouton marched at once on
Donaldsonville.

When the Union forces at La Fourche Crossing found the Confederates
returning in such strength, they made haste to fall back on New
Orleans, and were followed as far as Boutte Station by Waller's
and Pyron's battalions.

On the 27th of June, Green, with his own brigade, Major's brigade,
and Semmes's battery appeared before Donaldsonville, and demanded
the surrender of the garrison of Fort Butler.  This was a square
redoubt, placed in the northern angle between the bayou and the
Mississippi, designed to command and protect the river gateway to
La Fourche, mounting four guns, and originally intended for a
garrison of perhaps 600 men.  The parapet was high and thick, like
the levee, and was surrounded by a deep ditch, the flanks on the
bayou and the river being further protected by stout stockades
extending from the levees to the water, at ordinary stages.  The
work was now held by a mixed force of 180 men, comprising two small
companies of the 28th Maine--F, Captain Edward B. Neal, and G,
Captain Augustine Thompson,--besides a number of convalescents of
various regiments.  Major Joseph D. Bullen, of the 28th, was in
command, and with him at the time was Major Henry M. Porter, of
the 7th Vermont, provost-marshal of the parish of Iberville, whose
quarters in the town on the other side of the bayou were no longer
tenable.

Farragut, who had gone down to New Orleans and hoisted his flag on
the _Pensacola_, leaving Palmer and Alden in command of the upper
and lower fleets before Port Hudson, had disposed his gunboats so
as to patrol the river in sections.  The _Princess Royal_,
Lieutenant-Commander M. B. Woolsey, was near Donaldsonville; the
_Winona_, Lieutenant-Commander A. W. Weaver, near Plaquemine; and
the _Kineo_, Lieutenant-Commander John Watters, between Bonnet Carré
and the Red Church.  As soon as the Confederates appeared before
Donaldsonville, Woolsey was notified, and couriers were sent up and
down the river to summon the _Winona_ and the _Kineo_.

Green brought to the attack six regiments and one battery, between
1,300 and 1,500 strong,(2) including three regiments of his own
brigade, the 4th, 5th, and 7th Texas, and three regiments of Major's
brigade--Lane's, Stone's, and Phillips's.  The river, and therefore
the bayou, were now low, exposing wide margins of batture, and
Green's plan was, while surrounding and threatening the fort on
its land faces, to gain an entrance on the water front by crossing
the batture and passing around the ends of the stockades.

At ten minutes past midnight the red light of a Coston signal from
the fort announced to the Navy that the enemy were coming.  At
twenty minutes past one the fight was opened by the Confederates
with musketry.  Instantly the fort replied with the fire of its
guns, and of every musket that could be brought to the parapet.
Five minutes later the _Princess Royal_, which, since nightfall,
had been under way and cleared for action, began shelling the woods
on the right of the fort, firing a few 9-inch and 30-pounder shells
over the works and down the bayou, followed presently by 30-pounder
and 20-pounder shrapnel and 9-inch grape, fired at point-blank
range in the direction of the Confederate yells.  The assault was
made in the most determined manner.  Shannon, with the 5th Texas,
passed some of his men around the end of the river stockade, others
climbed and helped one another over, some tried to cut it down with
axes, many fired through the loopholes; Phillips made a circuit of
the fort and tried the bayou stockade, while Herbert's 7th Texas
attempted to cross the ditch on the land side.  The fight at the
stockade was desperate in the extreme; those who succeeded in
surmounting or turning this barrier found an impassable obstacle
in the ditch, whose existence, strange to say, they had not even
suspected.  Here the combatants fought hand to hand; even the sick,
who had barely strength to walk from the hospital to the rampart,
took part in the defence.  The Texans assailed the defenders with
brickbats; these the Maine men threw back upon the heads of the
Texans; on both sides numbers were thus injured.  Lane, who was to
have supported Phillips, somehow went adrift, and Hardeman, who
was to have attacked the stockade on the bayou side, was delayed
by his guide, but toward daylight he came up to join in the last
attack.  By way of a diversion, Stone had crossed the bayou to the
east bank on a bridge of sugar coolers, and his part in the fight
was confined to yells.

At a quarter before four the yelling, which had gone on continuously
for more than two hours, suddenly died away, the fire slackened,
and three rousing cheers went up from the fort.  A few minutes
later the _Winona_ came down and opened fire, and at half-past four
the _Kineo_ hove in sight.  The fight was ended.  "The smoke clearing
away," says Woolsey, "discovered the American flag flying over the
fort.  Gave three cheers and came to anchor."  Yet the same sun
rose upon a ghastly sight--upon green slopes gray with the dead,
the dying, and the maimed, and the black ditch red with their blood.

Green puts his loss at 40 killed, 114 wounded, 107 missing, in all
261.  However, during the 28th, the _Princess Royal_ and the _Kineo_
received on board from the provost-marshal 124 prisoners, by actual
count, including 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 major, 3 captains, and 5
lieutenants; and Lieutenant-Commander Woolsey says the garrison
buried 69 Confederates and were "still at it."  Among the Confederates
killed was Shannon, and among the missing Phillips.  Of the garrison,
1 officer, Lieutenant Isaac Murch, of the 28th Maine, and 7 men
were killed, 2 officers and 11 men wounded--in all 21.  The _Princess
Royal_ had 1 man killed, 2 wounded.  The vessel was struck in twenty
places by grape-shot.

Green has been sharply criticised for the apparent recklessness
with which he delivered his assault, even after having announced
to Mouton his intention of waiting; yet it is clear that he was
sent there to attack; if he was to attack at all, he had nothing
to gain by waiting; an assault by daylight would have been wholesale
suicide; while, on the other hand, the garrison would unquestionably
be reinforced by troops and gunboats before another night.  Having
paid this tribute to his judgment, and to his daring and the
intrepidity of his men the homage that every soldier feels to be
his due, one may be allowed to quote without comment this passage
from Green's report of the affair, in naked frankness hardly
surpassed even among the writings of Signor Benvenuto Cellini:

"At daylight I sent in a flag of truce, asking permission to pick
up our wounded and bury our dead, which was refused, as I expected.
My object in sending the flag so early was to get away a great
number of our men, who had found a little shelter near the enemy's
works, and who would have been inevitably taken prisoners.  I must
have saved one hundred men by instructing my flag-of-truce officer,
as he approached the fort, to order our troops to steal away."

Bullen's message to Emory has the true ring:  "The enemy have
attacked us, and we have repulsed them.  I want more men; I must
have more men."  Emory responded with the remaining two companies
of the 28th Maine, that had been left near New Orleans when the
regiment moved to Port Hudson, and Banks relieved the 1st Louisiana
on the lines and sent it at once to Donaldsonville, with two sections
of Closson's battery under Taylor, and Stone to command.  This put
the place out of peril.

Even this bright spot on the dull, dark background was not to be
permitted to go untarnished, for, on the 5th of July, Bullen, the
hero of this heroic defence, whose name deserves to live in the
memory of all that love a sturdy man, a stout heart, a steady mind,
or a brave deed, was murdered by a tipsy mutineer of the relieving
force.  On Friday, the 14th of August, 1863, this wretched man,
Francis Scott, private of Company F, 1st Louisiana, suffered the
military penalty of his crime.

Taylor now gave up the attempt to capture the position at
Donaldsonville, and devoted his attention to a blockade of the
river by establishing his batteries at various points behind the
natural fortification formed by the levee.  Seven guns, under
Faries, were placed on Gaudet's plantation, opposite Whitehall
Point, while the guns of Semmes, Nichols, and Cornay were planted
opposite College Point and at Fifty-five Mile Point, commanding
Grand View reach.  On the 3d of July Semmes opened fire on the
Union transports, as they were approaching College Point on their
way up the river.  The steamer _Iberville_ was disabled, and from
this time until after the surrender no transport passed up, except
under convoy, and it was only with great difficulty that even the
fastest boats made their way down with the help of the current.

When this state of things was reported to Farragut, who had gone
back to Port Hudson, he sent to New Orleans for his Chief of Staff,
Captain Jenkins, to come up, in order that he himself might once
more go down and give his personal attention to the affair.  On
the 7th of July the _Tennessee_ started from New Orleans with
Jenkins aboard; she had successfully run the gauntlet of the
batteries, when, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, as
Faries was firing his last rounds, a solid shot struck and instantly
killed Commander Abner Read.  Captain Jenkins was, at the same
time, wounded by a flying fragment of a broken cutlass.  Of the
crew two were killed and four wounded.

On the 8th the _Saint Mary's_, a fine seagoing steamer and one of
the fastest boats in the department, was carrying Lieutenant Emerson,
Acting-Assistant Adjutant-General, with important despatches from
headquarters to Emory and to the Chief Quartermaster, when, about
three o'clock in the morning, she drew the fire of all the Confederate
guns.  The _Princess Royal_ and the _Kineo_ convoyed her past the
upper battery, but from this point she had to trust to her speed
and her low freeboard.  In rounding Fifty-five Mile Point she was
struck five times, one conical shell and one shrapnel penetrating
her side above the water-line and bursting inboard.

At half-past six on the morning of the 9th of July, Farragut, who
had left Port Hudson on the _Monongahela_ on the evening of the
7th, started from Donaldsonville with the _Essex, Kineo_, and
_Tennessee_ in company, ran the gauntlet of the batteries, swept
and silenced them with his broadsides, and endured for nearly two
hours a brisk musketry fire from the enemy without serious loss
suffered or inflicted.  At half-past one o'clock on the morning of
the 10th of July, the gunboat _New London_, bearing Captain Walker,
Assistant Adjutant-General, with a despatch announcing the surrender
of Port Hudson, came under the fire of Faries's battery, opposite
Whitehall.  She was very soon disabled by a shot through her boilers,
and was run ashore near the left bank, where the _Tennessee_ and
the _Essex_ came to her assistance from below.  Landing on the east
bank, Captain Walker made his way afoot down the river along the
levee until he came in sight of the _Monongahela_, when, at six
o'clock in the morning, his signals being perceived, he was taken
aboard in one of the ship's boats and communicated to the admiral
the good news that the campaign was at an end.  To dispose of Taylor
could be but a matter of a few days; then once more, in the words
of Lincoln, would the great river flow "unvexed to the sea."

Taylor's plans were well laid, and had been brilliantly executed.
In no other way, with the force at his disposal, could he have
performed a greater service for his cause.  Save the severe yet
not material check at Donaldsonville, he had had everything his
own way:  he had overrun La Fourche; his guns commanded the river;
his outposts were within twenty miles of the city; he even talked
of capturing New Orleans, but this, in the teeth of an alert and
powerful fleet, was at best but a midsummer fancy.

In New Orleans, indeed, great was the excitement when it became
known that the Confederate forces were so near.  In Taylor's army
were the friends, the brothers, the lovers, the husbands, even the
fathers of the inhabitants.  In the town were many thousands of
registered enemies, and of paroled Confederate prisoners of all
ranks.  At one time there were no Union troops in the city, save
a detachment of the 42d Massachusetts, barely two hundred and fifty
strong.  But the illness that had deprived Emory's division of its
leader in the field had given to New Orleans a commander of a
courage and firmness that now, as always, rose with the approach
of danger, with whom difficulties diminished as they drew near,
and whose character had earned the respect of the townspeople.
These, though their hearts beat high and their pulses were tremulous
with emotion, conducted themselves with a propriety and an outward
calmness that reflected the highest credit upon their virtue and
their good sense.  Yet, when all that was possible had been done,
things were at such a pass that, on the 4th of July, Emory thought
it imperative to speak out.  "I respectfully suggest," he wrote to
Banks, "that unless Port Hudson be already taken, you can only save
this city by sending me reinforcements immediately and at any cost.
It is a choice between Port Hudson and New Orleans."

Banks made the choice with serenity and without a moment's hesitation
determined to run the remote risk of losing New Orleans for the
moment, with the destruction of Taylor's army in reserve as a
consolation, rather than to insure himself against this peril at
the price of instant disaster at Port Hudson, even on the very eve
of victory.

"Operations here," was the reply sent from headquarters on the 5th
to Emory's urgent appeal, "can last but two or three days longer
at the outside, and then the whole command will be available to
drive back the enemy who is now annoying our communications and
threatening New Orleans."  So the event proved and such was now
the task to be performed.

Augur, who had been ill for some time, yet unwilling to relinquish
his command, now found himself unfitted for the summer campaign
that seemed in prospect.  He accordingly turned over his division
to Weitzel, took leave of absence on surgeon's certificate, and
went North to recruit his health.  Shortly afterward he was assigned
to the command of the Department of Washington and did not rejoin
the Nineteenth Corps.

Weitzel, as has been said, took transport on the 9th of July
immediately after the formal capitulation.  Getting under way toward
evening, he landed at Donaldsonville early the next morning.  His
presence there so threatened the flank and front of Taylor's forces,
as to induce an immediate withdrawal of the guns from the river
and the calling in of all detachments.  Morgan, with Grover's First
brigade and Nims's battery, followed Weitzel about midnight on the
10th, and Grover himself, with his other two brigades, on the 11th.
During the night of that day, Grover therefore found himself before
Donaldsonville, holding both banks of Bayou La Fourche with two
divisions.  He was confronted by Green with his own brigade and
Major's, together with the batteries that had lately been annoying
the transports and drawing the attention of the gunboats on the
river.  When, on the 10th, Green saw the transports coming down
the Mississippi laden with troops, it did not at once occur to him
that Port Hudson was lost; he simply thought these troops were
coming to attack him.  Concentrating his whole force, he posted
Major with four regiments and four guns on the left or east bank
of the bayou, and on the right or west bank three regiments and
two guns of his own brigade.  Green's pickets were within two miles
of Donaldsonville.  As Grover developed and took more ground in
his front, Green drew back toward Paincourtville.

On the morning of the 13th of July, without any intention of bringing
on a battle or of hastening the enemy's movements, but merely to
gain a little more elbow-room and to find new fields for forage
for his animals, Grover moved out an advance guard on either side
of the bayou.  "The enemy is evidently making preparation," he said
in his despatch of the 12th before ordering this movement, "to
escape if pursued by a strong force or to resist a small one.  Our
gunboats can hardly be expected at Brashear City for some days,
and it is evidently injudicious to press them until their retreat
is cut off."  Dudley, with two sections of Carruth's battery under
Phelps and with Barrett's troop, marched on the right bank of the
bayou, supported by Charles J. Paine's brigade with Haley's battery.
Morgan, under the orders of Birge, temporarily commanding Grover's
division, moved in line with Dudley on the opposite bank.  They
went forward slowly until, about six miles out, they found themselves
upon the estate of the planter whose name is variously spelled Cox,
Koch, and Kock.  Here, as Dudley and Morgan showed no disposition
to attack, Green took the initiative, and, favored by a narrow
field, a rank growth of corn, dense thickets of willows, the deep
ditches common to all sugar plantations in these lowlands, and his
own superior knowledge of the country, he fell suddenly with his
whole force upon the heads of Dudley's and Morgan's columns, and
drove them in almost before they were aware of the presence in
their front of anything more than the pickets, whom they had been
seeing for two days and who had been falling back before them.
Morgan handled his brigade badly, and soon got it, or suffered it
to fall, into a tangle whence it could only extricate itself by
retiring.  This fairly exposed the flank of Dudley, who was making
a good fight, but had already enough to do to take care of his
front against the fierce onset of Green's Texans.  The result of
this bad mismanagement was that the whole command was in effect
clubbed and on both banks driven back about a mile, until Paine came
to its support; then Grover rode out, and, seeing what had happened,
drew in his whole force.

Grover's losses in this affair, called the battle of Cox's Plantation,
were 2 officers and 54 men killed, 7 officers and 210 men wounded,
3 officers and 183 men captured or missing; in all 465.  To add to
the reproach of this rough treatment at the hands of an inferior
force, two guns were lost, one of the 1st Maine battery and one of
the 6th Massachusetts, but without the least fault on the part of
the artillerists.

After the close of the campaign Colonel Morgan was arraigned before
a general court-martial upon charges of misbehavior before the
enemy and drunkenness on duty, and, being found guilty upon both
charges, was sentenced to be cashiered and utterly disqualified
from holding any office of employment under the government of the
United States; but Banks disapproved the proceedings, findings,
and sentence on the ground that the evidence appeared to him too
conflicting and unsatisfactory.  "The execution of this sentence,"
his order continue, "is suspended until the pleasure of the President
can be known."  When the record with this decision reached the
Judge Advocate-General of the Army at Washington, he sent it back
to Banks with instructions that, as no sentence remained for the
action of the President, the proceedings were at an end and Colonel
Morgan must be released from arrest.  This was accordingly done on
the 26th of October, 1863.

Green puts his loss at 3 killed and 30 wounded, including 6 mortally
wounded.  The Union loss, he says, was "little less than 1,000;
there were over 500 of the enemy killed and wounded, of whom 200
were left out on the field, and about 250 prisoners."

When, on the evening of the 14th of July, at Port Hudson, Banks
received this news, he went at once to Donaldsonville to confer
with Grover and Weitzel on the situation and the plan of campaign.
It was agreed on all hands that it was inexpedient to press Taylor
hard or to hasten his movements in any way until time should have
been allowed for the light-draught gunboats to re-enter Berwick
Bay and thus gain control of Taylor's line of retreat.  In thus
refraining from any attempt to avenge promptly what must be regarded
as a military affront, the depleted ranks and the wearied condition
of the troops were perhaps taken into account, and, moreover, it
must have been considered to the last degree inadvisable to entangle
the command in the dense swamps that would have to be crossed,
after pushing Taylor prematurely back from the fertile and
comparatively high lands that border the Bayou La Fourche.  Then
Banks continued on to New Orleans, where he arrived on the 18th,
and renewed his pressure on the admiral for the gunboats; but,
unfortunately, the gunboats were not to be had.  Of those that had
accompanied the army in the campaign of the Teche, only one, the
feeble _Hollyhock_, had remained in Berwick Bay after the army
descended the Red River, crossed the Atchafalaya, and moved on Port
Hudson.  The others, with the transports, had followed the movements
of the troops and had been caught above the head of the Atchafalaya
when the waters fell.  Thus they had long been without repairs and
not one of them was now in condition for immediate service.  The
water on the bar at the mouth of the Atchafalaya was now nearly at
its lowest point, so that even of the light-draught gunboats only
the lightest could cross.  Accordingly it was not until the 22d of
July that the _Estrella_ and _Clifton_ made their appearance in
Berwick Bay and put an end to Taylor's operations.

On the afternoon of the 21st of July, knowing that the gunboats
were coming, Taylor set the finishing touch to his incursion by
burning the rolling-stock of the railway and running the engines
into the bay.  He had already destroyed the bridges as far back as
Tigerville, thus rendering the road quite useless to the Union forces
for the next five weeks.

On the morning of the 25th the advance of Weitzel's brigade, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Peck, consisting of his own 12th Connecticut
and the 13th Connecticut, commanded by Captain Comstock, arrived
at Brashear by steamer from Donaldsonville, and, landing, once more
took possession of the place; but in the meantime Taylor had safely
withdrawn to the west bank, and gone into camp on the Teche with
all of his army intact and all his materials and supplies and most
of his captures safe.

(1) The history of the 23d Connecticut says:  "We delivered to them
108 dead.  We captured 40 prisoners."--"Connecticut in the War,"
p. 757.

(2) When Green says 800, he of course refers to the four regiments
actually engaged in the assault; for, after losing, as he says,
261 of these 800, he makes the four regiments of Major's brigade,
with two sections of Faries's battery, number 800; while his own
force, with one section of Gonzales's battery, he puts at 750.
800 + 750 + 261 = 1,811.


CHAPTER XX.
IN SUMMER QUARTERS.

Before Banks parted with Grover at Donaldsonville, he left orders
for the troops to rest and go into "summer quarters" as soon as
the pending operation should be decided.  Accordingly, in the last
days of July, Weitzel broke away from the discomforts of muddy,
dusty, shadeless Donaldsonville, and marching down the bayou, once
more took up his quarters near Napoleonville and Thibodeaux, and
encamped his men at ease among the groves and orchards of the garden
of La Fourche.

On the 16th of July the steamboat _Imperial_, from St. Louis on
the 8th, rounded to at the levee at New Orleans in token that the
great river was once more free.  The next day she set out on her
return trip.

On the 5th of August a despatch from Halleck, dated the 23d of
July, was received and published in orders:

"I congratulate you and your army on the crowning success of the
campaign.  It was reserved for your army to strike the last blow
to open the Mississippi River.  The country, and especially the
great West, will ever remember with gratitude their services."

Afterwards, on the 28th of January, 1864, Congress passed a joint
resolution of thanks

"to Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks and the officers and soldiers
under his command for the skill, courage, and endurance which
compelled the surrender of Port Hudson, and thus removed the last
obstruction to the free navigation of the Mississippi River."

Admiral Porter now came down the river to New Orleans in his flagship
_Black Hawk_, and arranged to relieve Admiral Farragut from the
trying duty of patrolling and protecting the river, so long borne
by the vessels of his fleet.  Farragut then took leave of absence
and went North, leaving the West Gulf Squadron to Commodore Bell.

When Port Hudson surrendered, two of the nine-months' regiments
had already served beyond their time.  The 4th Massachusetts claimed
its discharge on the 26th of June, the 50th four days later,
insisting that their time ran from the muster-in of the last company;
but, being without information from Washington on this point, Banks
counted the time from the muster-in of the field and staff, and
therefore wished to hold these regiments respectively eighty-one
and forty-two days longer, or at all events until the receipt of
instructions or the end of the siege.  To this view officers and
men alike objected, many of them so strongly that whole companies
refused duty.  They were within their lawful rights, yet, better
counsels quickly prevailing, all consented to stay, and did good
service to the last.  Of seven other regiments the term of enlistment
was on the point of expiring.  They were the 21st, 22d, 24th, and
26th Maine, the 52d Massachusetts, the 26th Connecticut, and the
16th New Hampshire.  These nine regiments were now detached from
the divisions to which they belonged and placed under the orders
of Andrews to form part of the garrison of Port Hudson until the
transports should be ready to take them home by sea or river.

As soon as the river was opened, Grant responded freely to all the
urgent demands made upon him for steamboats, forage, beef, telegraph
operators, and so on.  He sent Ransom to occupy Natchez, and about
the 25th of July Herron arrived at Port Hudson with his division
of two brigades, 3,605 effectives, with 18 guns.  Herron's command,
the victor of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, formerly known as the
Army of the Frontier, had been called to the aid of Grant at
Vicksburg.  It came to the Gulf as Herron's division, but was
presently, by Grant's orders, merged in the 13th Corps as its Second
Division.

At the close of July, in response to Banks's urgent appeals for
more troops to replace the nine-months' men, Halleck ordered Grant
to send down a corps of 10,000 or 12,000 men.  Accordingly, between
the 10th and 26th of August, Grant sent the reorganized Thirteenth
Corps to Carrollton.  Ord, the proper commander of the Thirteenth
Corps, took sick leave, and the corps came to Louisiana under the
command of Washburn, with Benton, Herron, Lee and Lawler commanding
the divisions, and Colonel Mudd the brigade of cavalry.  All told,
the effective strength of the corps was 778 officers and 13,934 men;
total, 14,712.

Chiefly in July and August the twenty-one nine-months' regiments
and in November the nine-months' men of the 176th New York went
home to be mustered out.  This left of the Nineteenth Corps
thirty-seven regiments, having an effective strength, daily
diminishing, of less than 350 men each; in all, less than 15,000.
From these it was indispensable to take one full and strong regiment
for Key West and the Tortugas, another for Pensacola, and a third
for Forts Jackson and Saint Philip.  This disposed of 2,000; 2,500
more was the least force that could be expected to do the police and
guard duty of a hostile town so great and populous as New Orleans,
containing the main depots of the army; thus the movable force of
infantry was cut down to 8,500, or, as Banks states it, 10,000,
and for any operations that should uncover New Orleans, would be
but half that number.

In the reorganization of the Nineteenth Corps, thus rendered
necessary, the Second division was broken up and ceased to exist,
its First and Third brigades being transferred to the Third division,
the temporary command of which was given to Dwight, but only for
a short time.  The First and Third brigades of the First division
were thrown into one; Weitzel's brigade at first resumed its original
name of the Reserve brigade, and a new Second brigade was provided
by taking Gooding's from the Third division, so that when a fortnight
later Weitzel's brigade was restored to the First division, it
became the Third brigade.  The Fourth division, like the Third,
was reduced to two brigades.  Major-General William B. Franklin,
who had just come from the North under orders from Washington, was
assigned to command of the First division, while Emory was to retain
the Third and Grover the Fourth; but when the Thirteenth Corps
began to arrive, Banks found himself in the anomalous position of
commanding a military department within whose limits two army corps
were to serve, one, numerically the smaller, under his own immediate
orders, the other under its proper commander.  The approaching
completion of the organization of the Corps d'Afrique would add a
third element.  It was therefore found convenient on every account
to name an immediate commander of the Nineteenth Corps, and for
this post Franklin's rank, service, and experience plainly indicated
him.  The assignment was made on the 15th of August, and Franklin
took command at Baton Rouge on the 20th.  Then Weitzel was designated
to command the First division.  However, there were during the next
few months, among the commanders of all grades, so many changes,
due to illness or absence, that only confusion could follow the
attempt to tell them all.

The artillery of the corps was redistributed to correspond with
the new organization, and the cavalry was concentrated at Baton
Rouge, Plaquemine, Thibodeaux, and New Orleans, with orders that
all details for orderly duty and the like were to be furnished from
a single battalion, the 14th New York, attached to the defences of
New Orleans.

Weitzel's division, except his old brigade under Merritt, took post
at Baton Rouge, where also Emory's division was encamped, successively
commanded by Nickerson and McMillan, while Grover's division,
assigned to the defence of New Orleans, was separated, Birge
occupying La Fourche, with headquarters at Thibodeaux, and Cahill
forming the garrison of New Orleans.

At Port Hudson, after the departure of the nine-months' troops,
Andrews had the 6th Michigan newly converted into the 1st Michigan
heavy artillery, ten troops of the 3d Massachusetts cavalry,
Rawles's, Holcomb's, and Barnes's batteries; and besides these the
infantry of the Corps d'Afrique, then in process of organization,
including, at the end of August, the old 1st and 3d regiments and
the five regiments of Ullmann's brigade--the 6th to the 10th.  The
return of the post for the 31st of August accounts for an effective
force of 5,427; of these 1,815 belonged to the white troops and
3,612 to the colored regiments.  The whole number of infantry
regiments of the Corps d'Afrique, then authorized, was nineteen,
of which only the first four were completed.  Besides these there
were two regiments of engineers, the 1st full, the 2d about half
full, and three companies of heavy artillery, making the whole
muster of colored troops in the department about 10,000.  Towards
the end of September the regiments of infantry numbered twenty,
with ranks fairly filled.  The Corps d'Afrique was then organized
in two divisions of two brigades each, Ullmann commanding the First
division and the senior colonel the Second.  Rawles's battery was
assigned to the First division and Holcomb's to the Second.  This
division, however, never became much more than a skeleton, its
First brigade being from the first detached by regiments for garrison
duty in the various fortifications.

Andrews at once took up the work of organization and instruction
in earnest, rightly conceiving it not merely possible, but even
essential, to give to the officers and men of the colored regiments,
thus formed into an army corps under his command, a degree of
instruction, as well in tactics as in the details of a soldier's
duty, higher then was to be found in any save a few picked regiments
of the volunteer and regular service.  The prejudice at first
entertained against the bare idea of service with colored troops
had not entirely disappeared, yet it had so far lost its edge that
it was now possible to select from a number of applicants for
promotion, especially to the higher grades, officers who had already
shown their fitness and their capacity, while holding inferior
commissions or serving in the ranks of the white regiments.  Thus
the original source of weakness in the composition of the first
three regiments was avoided, and, small politics and local influence
being of course absent, and Banks's instructions being urgent to
choose only the best men, the colored regiments soon had a fine
corps of officers.  To the work now before him Andrews brought an
equipment and a training such as few officers possessed.  Experience
had shown him the merit, the capacity, and the defects of the
American volunteer officer.  At the very bottom of these defects
was the looseness of his early instruction in the elements of his
duty; once wrongly taught by an instructor, himself careless or
ignorant, he was likely to go on conscientiously making the same
mistake to the end of his term.  Realizing his opportunity, Andrews
set about establishing uniformity in all details of drill and duty
by establishing a school of officers.  These he himself taught with
the greatest pains and industry, correcting the slovenly, yet
encouraging the willing, until the whole corps was brought up to
a uniform standard, and on the whole a high one.

Stone succeeded Andrews as Chief of Staff at department headquarters
on the 25th of July.

Franklin's staff, as commander of the Nineteenth Army Corps in the
field, included Major Wickham Hoffman, Assistant Adjutant-General;
Colonel Edward L. Molineux, Acting Assistant Inspector-General;
Lieutenant-Colonel John G. Chandler, Chief Quartermaster;
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry D. Woodruff, Chief Commissary of Subsistence;
Surgeon John H. Rauch, Medical Director; Captain Henry W. Closson,
Chief of Artillery; Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey, Acting Chief
Engineer; Captain William A. Pigman, Chief Signal Officer.


CHAPTER XXI.
A FOOTHOLD IN TEXAS.

Banks now wished and proposed to move on Mobile, which he rightly
supposed to be defended by about 5,000 men.(1)  This had indeed
been among the objects specially contemplated by his first instructions
from the government, and in the progress of events had now become
the next in natural order.  Grant and Farragut were of the same
mind; but other ideas had arisen, and now the government, anxious
to avert the impending risk of European complications, deemed it
of the first importance that the flag of the nation should, without
delay, be restored at some point in Texas.  The place and the plan
were left discretionary with Banks, but peremptory orders were
given him to carry out the object.(2)

Texas had no military value at that moment.  To have overrun the
whole State would hardly have shortened the war by a single day.
The possession of Mobile, on the other hand, would, besides its
direct consequences, have exercised an important if not a vital
influence upon the critical operations in the central theatre of
war; would have taken from the Confederates their only remaining
line of railway communication between the Atlantic seaboard and
the States bordering on the Mississippi; would have weakened the
well-nigh fatal concentration against Rosecrans at Chickamauga and
Chattanooga; would have eased the hard task of Sherman in his
progress to Atlanta; and would have given him a safe line of retreat
in the event of misfortune.  What was it, then, that persuaded the
government to put aside its designs on Mobile, to give up the
offensive, to refrain from gathering the fruits of its successes
on the Mississippi, in order to embark in the pursuit of objects
avowedly "other than military"?

A series of acts and events, more or less menacing in character,
seemed to indicate a concerted purpose on the part of some, at
least, of the leading nations of Europe to interfere in the domestic
affairs of the United States against the government of the United
States.  The powerful rams, intended for the recapture of New
Orleans, that were being almost openly built to the order of the
Confederacy in the port of Liverpool, in the very shipyards whence
the _Alabama_ had gone to sea, were approaching completion.  Other
iron-clads, not less powerful, were under construction in France,
with the personal connivance of the Emperor, under the flimsy
pretence that they were intended for the imperial government of
China.  Finally, on the 10th of June, casting all promises and
pretexts to the winds, the French troops had marched into the
capital of Mexico, made themselves masters of the country, vamped
up a sham throne, and upon it set an Austrian puppet.  That Napoleon
III. nursed among his favorite dreams the vision of a Latin empire
in America, built upon the ruins of Mexican liberty and taking in
at least the fairest portion of the Louisiana that his illustrious
uncle had parted with so cheaply, was well known.  Against the
inconvenient spread of his ambition the occupation of some part,
of any part, of Texas, was intended as a diplomatic caution.  That
the warning cast its shadow even upon the dark mind of Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte there can be no doubt; yet in the meantime there had
occurred in quick succession three events that must have sounded
in his ears with tones that even his dull imagination could not
easily misunderstand.  These were Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port
Hudson.  He had not the least notion of helping the unsuccessful.

The whole Confederate force under Kirby Smith in the trans-Mississippi
region numbered at this time about 33,000 effective.  Of these,
about 4,000 were in the Indian country, 8,000 in Arkansas, less
than 14,000 in Western Louisiana, and rather less than 7,000 in
Texas.  Of the forces in Louisiana under Taylor, about 3,000 were
in the extreme northern district.  Magruder, whose headquarters
were at Houston, and who commanded not only the whole of Texas but
nominally New Mexico and Arizona besides, was keeping rather more
than two thirds of his forces for the defence of Galveston and the
line of the Sabine, while the remainder were distributed on the
Rio Grande, at Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and Indianola; he had
not 2,000 men together anywhere, nor could even Kirby Smith have
concentrated 20,000 at any single point without giving up all the
rest of the vast territory confided to his care.

At the end of August Banks had nearly 37,000 officers and men for
duty.  Of these, about 13,000 belonged to the Thirteenth Corps and
about 6,500 to that portion of the Nineteenth Corps, being the
First and Third divisions, that was concentrated and ready for
active service in the field.  The defences of New Orleans, including
La Fourche, absorbed 7,000; Port Hudson, 5,500; the rest were
holding Baton Rouge, Key West, and Pensacola.

Yielding his own views as to Mobile, Banks entered heartily into
the project of the government for gaining a foothold in Texas.
Learning from the Navy that the mouth of the Sabine was but feebly
defended, while the entrance was practicable for gunboats of light
draught, he conceived the plan of descending suddenly upon the
coast at that point with a force sufficient to march to Houston
and take Galveston in reverse.  He selected the troops, and collected
the transports and the stores.  When he was ready he gave the
command of the expedition to Franklin, and caused Beckwith to
replace Emory in command of the defences of New Orleans, to enable
him to rejoin his division for service in the field.

Franklin had the brigades under Love and Merritt of Weitzel's First
division, with Bainbridge's, Closson's, and Bradbury's batteries,
and the two brigades, Nickerson's and McMillan's, of Emory's Third
division, with Duryea's, Trull's, and Hebard's batteries.  For
cavalry there were the two squadrons of the 1st Texas.  Commodore
Bell, who then commanded the West Gulf Squadron, gave the command
of the gunboats, destined to keep down the fire of the shore
batteries and cover the landing of the troops, to Lieutenant
Frederick Crocker, from whose personal observation while serving
on the blockade the information that led to the choice of the point
of attack had been largely drawn.  Crocker, besides his own vessel,
the _Clifton_, had the _Sachem_, Lieutenant Amos Johnson; the
_Arizona_, Acting-Master Howard Tibbetts; the _Granite City_,
Acting-Master C. W. Lamson.  Crocker's belief was that the defences
ashore and afloat consisted of two 32-pounder guns in battery, and
two small steamboats converted into rams.

Franklin's orders were to proceed to Sabine Pass; there, if the
Navy should be able to secure the landing, he was to debark his
whole force rapidly, take up a strong position, seize Beaumont, or
some other point on the railroad to Houston, and then reconnoitre
the enemy to learn their position and strength.  He was not to go
farther into the country until reinforced.  After landing, he was
to turn back the transports to Brashear, where Benton's division
of the Thirteenth Corps would be found waiting to join him.

After many delays, due to the state and inadequacy of the transports,
which, besides ten ocean steamers, fit and unfit, included six
river steamers wholly of the latter class, Weitzel sailed from New
Orleans on the evening of the 4th of September.  Leaving the
Southwest Pass on the morning of the 5th, under convoy of the
_Arizona_, and steering westward, he was joined, early on the
following morning, off Berwick Bay, by the _Clifton_ and the
_Sachem_.  A detachment of about 100 sharp-shooters, mainly from
Companies B and G of the 75th New York, under Lieutenants Root and
Cox, was then sent aboard the _Clifton_, and to the _Sachem_ an
officer and 25 men from the 161st New York.

About daylight on the 7th, Crocker became convinced that he had
overrun his distance and gone beyond Sabine Pass; but when all the
vessels had put about and for three or four hours had been steering
to the eastward, he found himself off the entrance to the Calcasieu,
thirty miles east of the Sabine.  Then he and Weitzel agreed that,
under the circumstances, the best thing to be done was to intercept
the remainder of the expedition, supposed to be following, under
the immediate command of Franklin, and assembling the whole force
where they were to wait until the next morning, the 8th of September,
for the attempt at Sabine Pass.  But the arrangement had been that
the attack by the gunboats to cover Weitzel's landing was to be
made early on the morning of the 7th.  Accordingly Franklin, with
his part of the fleet, carrying the supporting force, had already
passed Berwick Bay; in fact, at eleven o'clock he was off Sabine
Pass; and the _Suffolk_, bearing the headquarters flag of the
Nineteenth Corps, had crossed the bar and was about to run in, the
others following, when Franklin perceived that his advance had not
yet come up, and therefore stopped the movement.  In the afternoon
Weitzel, seeing nothing of Franklin's fleet, made up his mind that
he must have gone by, and once more setting his face toward the
west, joined Franklin off the Sabine about nine o'clock that
evening.

After the full and open notice thus given the enemy, all thought
of anything like a surprise was at an end; yet it was agreed to go
on and make the attempt the next morning.  Accordingly, at daylight
on the 8th, Crocker, with the _Clifton_ and the other gunboats,
followed by Weitzel with the 75th New York on the transport steamer
_Charles Thomas_, entered the harbor, and after reconnoitring the
landing-place and the defences, signalled the rest of the fleet to
run in.  Weitzel put a picked force of five hundred men on the
transport _General Banks_, and following in the wake of the four
gun-boats, made ready to land about a thousand yards below the fort.

Shortly before four o'clock the gunboats moved to the attack.
Above the swamp through which the Sabine finds an outlet to the
Gulf, the shore lies low and barren.  The fort or sand battery was
placed at the turn about one half mile below the hamlet called
Sabine City, opposite the upper end of the oyster reef that for
nearly a mile divides the channel into two parts, each narrow and
neither straight.  The _Sachem_, followed by the _Arizona_, took
the eastern or Louisiana channel, and was hardly under fire before
a shot struck her steampipe and completely disabled her.  The
_Clifton_ moved at full speed up the western or Texas channel until,
when almost directly under the guns of the fort, she also received
a shot through her boilers, grounding at the same time; and thus,
nearly at the same instant, before the action had fairly begun,
the two leading gunboats were completely disabled and at the mercy
of the enemy.  The Louisiana channel was too narrow for the _Arizona_
to pass the _Sachem_ or to turn about; so at the moment when the
_Clifton_ received her fatal injury, the _Arizona_ was backing down
the eastern channel to ascend the western to her assistance; but
in doing this she also took the ground.  The _Sachem_ hauled down
her colors and hoisted the white flag at the fore, and after bravely
continuing the fight for twenty minutes longer the _Clifton_ followed
suit.

The place where the _Clifton_ grounded was fairly in range of the
beach where Weitzel was expected to land his troops.  There may
have been a minute, or even ten, during which it might have been
possible for Weitzel, breaking away from the concerted plan, to
have thrown his picked men ashore while the attention of the
Confederates was fixed upon the _Clifton_; yet, although this
criticism has been suggested by high authority, the point would
have been a fine one at best; and under the actual circumstances,
with the _Granite City_ in the channel ahead, the _Arizona_ aground,
and the guns of the _Sachem_ and the _Clifton_ about to be added
to those with which the enemy had opened the action, the problem
becomes one of pure speculation.  What is clear is that the landing
depended upon the gunboats; that these were cruelly beaten before
they had a chance to prove themselves; and that nothing really
remained to do but what was actually done:  that is, to give up
the expedition and go home.

It is true that the orders under which Franklin was acting indicated
that if he found a landing impracticable at Sabine Pass he was to
attempt to land at some other place near by; and it is also true
that the infantry might have been set ashore almost anywhere in
the soft salt marsh that serves for the neighboring coasts of
Louisiana and Texas; but this must have been without their guns
and wagons and with no fresh water save what they carried with them
until they should have moved successfully into the interior; while
on the transports the stock of water was already running so low
that the men and animals were on short allowance.  Therefore, with
the loss of 3 officers and 94 men captured, of the 75th New York,
6 killed, 2 drowned, and 4 wounded, and 200 mules and 200,000
rations thrown into the sea, the expedition returned to New Orleans,
whence, by reason of unseaworthiness of transports, part of it had
not yet started.  The transports came back in a sorry plight, the
_Cahawba_ on one wheel, the river steamboat _Laurel Hill_ without
her smokestacks, and all the others of her class with their frail
sides stove.  The _Clifton_ and the _Sachem_, whose losses are but
partially reported, lost 10 killed, 9 wounded, and 39 missing.
Nearly all the rest of their crews were taken prisoners.

The Confederate work, known as Fort Griffin, mounted six guns, of
which two were 32-pounder smooth bores, two 24-pounder smooth bores,
and two 32-pounder howitzers, manned by a single company of Cook's
regiment of Texas artillery, whose strength is stated variously,
though with great precision, as 40, 41, 42, and 44 men.  This
company was commanded by Lieutenant Richard W. Dowling, and the
post by Captain Frederick H. Odlum.  There was a supporting body
of about 200 men, as well as the gunboat _Uncle Ben_, but Dowling's
company was the only force actually engaged.  They received, and
certainly deserved, the thanks of the Confederate Congress.

Still intent on executing the instructions of the government, and
having in mind Halleck's strong preference for an overland operation,
Banks at once gave orders to concentrate at Brashear for a movement
up the Teche as far as Lafayette, or Vermilion, and thence across
the plains by Niblett's Bluff into Texas.  The route by the
Atchafalaya and the Red River, Halleck's favorite, was now
impracticable, for both rivers were at their lowest stage, and the
great length of this line put out of the question the movement of
any large force dependent upon land transport.

During the last fortnight of September, Banks concentrated Weitzel's
and Emory's divisions of the Nineteenth Corps, under Franklin, on
the lower Teche, near Camp Bisland, supporting them with Washburn's
and McGinnis's divisions of the Thirteenth Corps, under Ord.  The
cavalry division under A. L. Lee covered the front towards New
Iberia.

Emory being forced to go North on sick-leave, his division was
commanded by McMillan from the 17th of September until the 6th of
October, when Grover relieved him after turning over the Fourth
division to Beckwith.

Birge, with his reorganized brigade, occupied La Fourche, with
headquarters at Thibodeaux.

Sharpe's brigade of Weitzel's division remained at Baton Rouge,
with Gooding as the post commander.

Burbridge's division of the Thirteenth Corps remained at Carrollton,
while Herron's, at the time of the Sabine Pass expedition, had been
posted at Morganza to observe and prevent any fresh movement by the
Confederates across the upper Atchafalaya.

This division was about 2,500 strong, and Herron, being ill, had
just turned over the command to Dana, when on the 29th of September
Green swept down with Speight's and Mouton's brigades and the
battalions of Waller and Rountree upon the outposts on Bayou
Fordoche, at Sterling's plantation, killed 16, wounded 45, and took
454 prisoners, including nearly the full strength of the 19th Iowa
and 26th Indiana.  Green's loss was 26 killed, 85 wounded, and 10
missing; in all, 212.

On the 3d of October Franklin broke camp at Bisland and moved by
easy marches to a position near the south bank of the Bayou Carencro,
meeting with no resistance beyond slight skirmishing at the crossing
of the Vermilion.  On the 11th the Nineteenth Corps encamped within
two miles of the Carencro, its daily marches having been, on the
3d to Franklin, twelve miles; on the 4th to Sorrell's plantation,
eleven miles; on the 5th to Olivier's, near New Iberia, thirteen
miles; on the 8th to the Vermilion, fifteen miles; on the 9th,
crossing the Vermilion, eight miles; on the 11th ten miles; in all,
sixty-nine miles.

Ord with the Thirteenth Corps, meanwhile augmented by Burbridge's
division from Carrollton, set out from Berwick at the same time
that Franklin left Bisland, and, following at an interval of a
day's march, encamped on the 10th of October on the Vermilion.  On
the 14th Ord closed up on Franklin at the Carencro.  A week later,
Ord being ill, Washburn took command of the detachment of the
Thirteenth Corps, his division falling to Lawler.

Banks with his staff left New Orleans on the 7th of October.  On
the following afternoon he joined the forces near New Iberia,
remaining near headquarters in the field until the evening of the
11th, when he returned to New Orleans.  Stone stayed two days longer
and then followed his chief.  This left Franklin in command of all
the forces in Western Louisiana, numbering about 19,500 for duty,
namely, 11,000 of the Thirteenth Corps, 6,000 of the Nineteenth
Corps, and 2,500 of the cavalry division.  Banks's object in
returning to New Orleans was to organize a second expedition for
the coast of Texas.  The advance to the Carencro had not only
brought his army face to face with Taylor's forces, but also with
the well-known conditions that would have to be met and overcome
in the movement beyond the Sabine.  All idea of this march of more
than two hundred miles across a barren country, with no water in
the summer and fall, while in the winter and spring there is plenty
of water but no road, was now given up once for all.  Besides the
natural obstacles, there was Magruder to be reckoned with at the
end of the march and Taylor in the rear.

Taylor had now about 11,000 effectives in the divisions of Mouton,
Walker, and Green, with eleven batteries.  To occupy him and to
push him farther away, Franklin marched to Opelousas on the 21st
of October, skirmishing by the way, and until the end of the month
continued to occupy a position covering that town and Barré's
Landing.

On the 26th of October, with a force of about 4,000 effectives of
the Second division of the Thirteenth Corps under Dana, augmented
by the 13th and 15th Maine, the 1st Engineers and 16th infantry of
the Corps d'Afrique, and the 1st Texas cavalry, Banks embarked at
New Orleans for the mouth of the Rio Grande.  After long delays
and great peril from bad weather, the expedition landed at Brazos
Santiago between the 3d and 5th of November, and on the 6th occupied
Point Isabel and Brownsville, distant thirty miles on the main land.

Having thus at last secured the foothold in Texas so urgently
desired by the government, Banks, who had now entered heartily into
the expansive scheme, set about occupying successively all the
passes or inlets that connect the Gulf of Mexico with the land-locked
lagoons or sounds of the Texas coast from the Rio Grande to the
Sabine.

Accordingly, he sent for the rest of the Thirteenth Corps, and by
the end of December had taken possession of the fringe of the coast
as far east and north as Matagorda Bay.  So far he had met with
little opposition, the Confederate force in this part of Texas
being small.  The Brazos and Galveston were still to be gained,
and here, if anywhere in Texas, a vigorous resistance was to be
counted on.  Banks was bending everything to the attempt when, as
the new year opened, the government stopped him, and turned his
head in a new direction.

During these operations on the Texas coast the 13th Maine, commanded
by Lieutenant-Colonel Hesseltine, and the 15th Maine formed part
of the Second division of the Thirteenth Corps.  Both regiments
did good service, especially under Ransom, in the expedition that,
led by Washburn, landed on Mustang Island on the 16th of November,
took the Confederate battery commanding Aransas Pass, and then,
crossing to Matagorda Island, rapidly reduced Fort Esperanza, and
thus gained the control of Matagorda Bay before the month was out.

(1) Banks to Halleck, July 30 and August 1, 1863:  "Official
Records," vol. xxvi., part I, pp. 661, 666.

(2) Halleck to Banks, July 24, 1863, July 31st, August 6th, August
10th, August 12th:  "Official Records," vol. xxvi., part I, pp.
652, 664, 672, 673, 675.


CHAPTER XXII.
WINTER QUARTERS.

In preparation for Washburn's departure on the 27th of October,
Franklin began to draw back from Opelousas to New Iberia.  Lawler
led off, and was followed on the 1st of November by McGinnis,
Grover, Weitzel, and the cavalry under Fonda, in the order named.
Burbridge, followed by Mudd's cavalry brigade, took the Teche road,
by Grand Coteau.

On the 3d, while the Nineteenth Corps rested at the Vermilion and
McGinnis at the Carencro, Burbridge, who was in camp on Bayou
Bourbeau, was surprised by the sudden descent of Green with two
brigades.  Burbridge had with him only his First brigade, about
1,200 strong, with 500 men of the 118th Illinois mounted infantry
and the 14th New York cavalry, under Fonda, Rice's 17th Ohio battery,
and Marland's section of Nims's battery; in all, 1,625 men.  The
23d Wisconsin, 96th Ohio, 60th Indiana, and the gunners of Rice
and Nims fought hard to prevent a rout and to save the wagon-trains
and the cavalry; and, McGinnis coming up in good time, Green drew
off, taking with him nothing save one of the Ohio 10-pounder
Parrotts.  At one moment both of Marland's guns, abandoned by their
supports, were completely cut off by the Confederate cavalry, but
Marland, rising to the occasion, bade his cannoneers draw their
revolvers, and charged at a full gallop directly through the lines
of Green's cavalry, to the complete astonishment of both armies,
and came into battery on the right of the 46th Indiana.  "The
bringing off of the section of Nims's battery, commanded by Lieutenant
Marland," says Washburn, "after the regiment sent to its support
had surrendered, extorted the admiration of every beholder."

Marland's loss in this brilliant little affair was but two men
missing.  Burbridge had 25 killed, 129 wounded, and 562 captured
or missing; in all, 716.  Green reports his loss as 22 killed, 103
wounded, and 53 missing.  Green's report shows that he had in the
fight three regiments of infantry, seven of cavalry, and two sections
of artillery.

With frequent skirmishing, but without serious molestation, the
march was continued, and on the 17th of November, the Nineteenth
Corps went into camp at New Iberia.

By the end of December the Thirteenth Corps, except Sheldon's
brigade which was at Plaquemine, had been gradually transferred to
the Texas coast.  Thus Franklin was left to hold the line of the
Teche with little more than 5,000 men of the Nineteenth Corps and
about 3,500 of Lee's cavalry.  This, with the winter nights and
the winter roads, was too small a force to hold a position so
advanced and so exposed as New Iberia, even if there had been any
longer an object in doing so.

Accordingly, on the evening of the 5th of January, marching orders
were issued for the following morning; but in the night a drizzling
rain came on and, freezing as it fell, coated the deep, dense mud
with a glaze of ice.  The march was therefore put off a day, and
on the morning of the 7th, through a frozen bog, a biting norther
blowing, and the weather unusually cold for this region, the
Nineteenth Corps floundered back to Franklin.  The best of the
roads were bad enough, but those across the bends, used in ordinary
seasons as cut-offs, were now impassable sloughs, so the troops
had to march nearly the full length of the bayou.  Here a novel
form of straggling was introduced through the ever industrious
ingenuity of the lazy, many of whom contrived to leave the ranks,
and, crossing the levee, seized canoes or made rafts, and tranquilly
floated down the bayou ahead of their plodding comrades.

On the morning of the 9th of January the corps went into winter
quarters at Franklin.  Tents were not issued until a month later,
but meanwhile the men built shelters and huts for themselves of
such materials as they could find on the plantations or in the
wooded swamps; and with branches of live oak and boughs of laurel
and the long gray Spanish moss, they constructed for their camps
a lavish ornamentation of arbors and arches, mimic forts and sham
monitors.

The terms of service of the older regiments enlisted in the early
days of 1861 being about to expire, the government now offered a
bounty and a furlough for thirty days to all veterans who should
again enlist for three years or during the war; and in carrying
out this plan Banks arranged to send home in each month, beginning
with February, at least two regiments of re-enlisted veterans from
each corps.  Of the nineteen regiments and six batteries of the
Nineteenth Corps raised in 1861, every one promptly embraced these
terms.  In some regiments nearly every man present re-enlisted.
The 7th Vermont enrolled every survivor, save 59, of the original
muster; in the 13th Connecticut out of 406 present 400 signed; the
26th Massachusetts returned 546.  To make up, in part, for the
temporary loss to be accounted for from this cause, the government
sent down four fine regiments, well commanded, the 29th Maine, the
30th Maine, the 153d New York, and the 14th New Hampshire, and,
these being assigned to the Nineteenth Corps, the first three joined
the First division, but the 14th New Hampshire came too late for
the campaign, and was assigned to temporary duty near New Orleans.
About the same time Nields's 1st Delaware battery and Storer's 7th
Massachusetts battery joined the corps.

The idea of a foothold in Texas had been gradually swelling until
at length it had attained the dimensions of an overland army of
occupation.  For this the nature of the region to be traversed, as
well as the character of the enemy to be met, demanded a large
mounted force.  Therefore the government sent from Washington and
from other Northern stations the 2d New York veteran cavalry, the
11th New York, the 18th New York, the 2d Maine, the 3d Rhode Island,
the 12th Illinois, and the 3d Maryland, and from the West many
horses.  Banks also mounted seven more regiments of infantry, and
having thus raised Lee's cavalry division, when all had joined, to
nineteen regiments, they were finally organized in five brigades,
with three batteries of horse artillery, namely, Duryea's, Rawles's,
and Nims's.  These three batteries were lost to the Nineteenth
Corps, and with them four of the mounted infantry regiments, the
2d Louisiana, the 75th New York, the 8th New Hampshire, and the
31st Massachusetts; the last three only for a time.

Returning from sick-leave, Emory relieved Weitzel in command of
the First division on the 13th of December.  Weitzel presently went
North on special service and did not resume his command but was
transferred in the spring to the Army of the James.

In February, 1864, while the Nineteenth Corps lay in camp at
Franklin, it was once more re-organized by breaking up the First,
Third, and Fourth divisions, and forming two new divisions, the
First, commanded by Emory, comprising the brigades of Dwight,
McMillan and Benedict; the Second division, commanded by Grover,
composed of the brigades of Nickerson, Birge, and Sharpe.  Emory's
division was already concentrated on the Teche, but Grover's brigades
were separated, Nickerson's being in the defences of New Orleans,
Birge's in La Fourche, and Sharpe's at Baton Rouge.  The first
intention was to concentrate the division at Madisonville, and move
it by rail to join Franklin; but events interposed.

The Corps staff serving at this time at headquarters in the field
included Colonel Charles C. Dwight, acting assistant inspector-general;
Surgeon Eugene F. Sanger, medical director; Captain J. G. Oltman,
topographical engineer; Captain Thomas H. Annable, commissary
of musters; Captain A. W. Chapman, judge-advocate; Lieutenant
John J. Williamson, ordnance officer; Captain Henry C. Inwood,
provost-marshal; Captain John P. Baker, Captain George M. Franklin,
and Lieutenant David Lyon, aides-de-camp.


CHAPTER XXIII.
THE RED RIVER.

Seven months had thus been spent in desultory adventures and in
multitudinous preparations without a serious military object, and
still the capture of Mobile was to be put off, and still the dream
of a foothold in Texas was to be pursued.  As for Texas, if the
government had, especially at this time, any settled plan, it is
by no means easy to make out what it was.  In the previous July
the occupation of some point in Texas had been put forward by
Halleck as an object of paramount importance.  At first the particular
place and manner were of no consequence; yet, when the mouth of
the Rio Grande had been seized, with the effect of cutting off the
contraband trade of Matamoras, Seward, who may be supposed to have
known the diplomatic purposes of the government, was frankly
delighted, while Halleck, who must be regarded as expressing its
military views, was as frankly disgusted.  Finally, when not one
foothold but many footholds had been gained along the coast of
Texas, Halleck wound up the long correspondence (1) by renewing
his instructions of the previous summer, looking to a combined
naval and military operation on the Red River upon a scale even
greater than that originally contemplated; for now, besides the
great fleet of ironclads under Porter, the project was to absorb
the available strength of three armies.  Banks was to move northward
by the Atchafalaya; Steele was to advance from the line of the
Arkansas; and from Vicksburg Grant was to send Sherman, with such
troops as he could spare.  Grant, Banks, Sherman, and Steele, as
well as Admiral Porter, received corresponding instructions at the
same time, and, understanding them in the same sense, the Red River
expedition was fairly launched.

Once committed to the scheme, Banks devoted himself loyally to the
arrangements necessary for prosecuting it on a scale at least
commensurate with the magnitude of the undertaking and with the
expectations of the government, as he understood them.  Texas was
to be his objective, and he was the lead his army up the Red River,
as the shortest and best way to Texas.  From the outset he was
committed to the use of a large body of cavalry able to operate on
the plains that lie beyond the Sabine, as well as to overcome the
opposition of the mounted forces of the Confederacy in that region.
Not only was forage scarce in the Red River country, but Shreveport
once taken and passed, the march would lie for three hundred miles
across a desert; an immense forage train was therefore indispensable.
It was also reasonable to suppose that, before passing Shreveport,
the combined armies of the Confederacy in the trans-Mississippi
would have to be met and beaten, and for this end a large force of
infantry and artillery must also form part of the expedition, at
least as far as Shreveport.  The co-operation of the Navy was
necessary, in its turn, if only to keep open the long line of supply
by the Red River.  Finally the usual time of the highest water in
the upper Red River fixed the date of the movement.

Sherman came from Vicksburg to New Orleans on the 1st of March,
and within a few hours reached a distinct agreement with Banks as
to the aid expected from the Army of the Tennessee.  Admiral Porter
had already arranged to be at the mouth of the Red River with a
large fleet of gunboats in time for the rising of the waters; and
now Sherman promised to send with the fleet ten thousand picked
men of his army, to be at Alexandria on the 17th of March.  Banks,
on his part, agreed that his troops, marching north by the Teche,
should meet Sherman's at Alexandria.  Steele, who was at Little
Rock, undertook to move at the same time to meet the combined forces
and the fleet on the Red River.  Confronting Steele was Price;
across Banks's line of advance stood Taylor; with the whole or any
part of his force, Sherman and Porter might have to reckon, and in
any case Fort De Russy must be neutralized or reduced before they
could get to Alexandria.

Thus upon a given day two armies and a fleet, hundreds of miles
apart, were to concentrate at a remote point far within the enemy's
lines, situated on a river always difficult and uncertain of
navigation, and now obstructed and fortified.  Not often in the
history of war is the same fundamental principle twice violated in
the same campaign; yet here it was so, and even in the same orders,
for after once concentrating within the enemy's lines at Alexandria,
the united forces of Banks, Sherman, and Porter were actually to
meet those of Steele within the enemy's lines at Shreveport, where
Kirby Smith, strongly fortified moreover, was within three hundred
miles, roughly speaking, of either Banks or Steele, while Steele
was separated from Banks by nearly five hundred miles of hostile
territory, practically unknown to any one in the Union armies, and
neither commander could communicate with the other save by rivers
in their rear, over a long circuit, destined to lengthen with each
day's march, as they should approach their common enemy in his
central stronghold.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about all this was Sherman's
ready and express assent to the disregard of the first rule of the
great art of which he had always been an earnest student and long
past a master; yet it is to be observed that Sherman knew the Red
River country better than any one in the Union armies; he knew well
the scanty numbers and the scattered state of the hostile forces;
with him, as well as with Admiral Porter, this movement had long
been a favorite; he had indeed hoped and expected to undertake it
himself; but he evidently had in mind a quick and bold movement,
having for its object the destruction of the Confederate depots
and workshops at Shreveport, without giving the enemy notice,
breathing space, or time to concentrate.  But this was not to be.
On learning, at New Orleans, that Banks meant to command in person,
Sherman naturally gave up all thought of accompanying the expedition,
and went back to Vicksburg to get his troops ready.  The contingent
he had promised to send from the Army of the Tennessee he now made
up of two divisions of the Sixteenth Corps, united under Mower,
with Kilby Smith's division of the Seventeenth Corps, and the
command of the whole he gave to A. J. Smith.

As early as the 2d of March Porter assembled at the mouth of the
Red River a great fleet of nineteen ironclads, including fifteen
of the heavier class and four of the lighter.  The fleet carried
162 guns, of which 62 were of the higher calibres, from 80-pounder
rifles up to 11-inch Dahlgrens, and the combined weight of projectiles
was but little less than five tons.

On the 10th of March, A. J. Smith embarked his force at Vicksburg
on an admirably organized fleet of nineteen river transports,
controlled by a simple system of signals from the flagship _Clara
Bell_.  When, the next day, Smith joined Porter at the mouth of
the Red River, six days were still left until the time when Banks
had agreed to be at Alexandria with his army.  Sherman's orders to
Smith required him to make use of the interval by co-operating with
the navy in an expedition up the Black and the Washita, for the
destruction of Harrisonburg, but Porter had already done the work
single-handed.  Naturally supposing that Banks's troops were in
march up the Teche toward the point of meeting, although they knew
that Banks himself was still detained at New Orleans, Smith and
Porter determined at once to take or turn Fort De Russy, and then
to push on to Alexandria.  On the morning of the 12th of March,
the combined fleet entered the Red River.  At the head of the
Atchafalaya, Porter, with nine of the gunboats, turned off to the
left and descended that stream as far as Simmesport, followed by
the army transports, while Phelps, with the _Eastport_ and the
remainder of the fleet, continued the ascent of the Red River, with
a view of threatening Fort De Russy, and occupying the attention
of its defenders until Smith could land and march across country
to attack them.

On the morning of the 13th of March Smith landed, and toward
nightfall took up the line of march for Fort De Russy, distant by
land twenty-eight miles, although by the windings of the river
nearly seventy.  In his front, Smith found Scurry's brigade of
Walker's division partly entrenched on Yellow Bayou; but Mower
quickly brushed Scurry aside, and Walker, after observing the
strength of his enemy, concentrated on the Bayou De Glaze, to avoid
being shut up in the elbow at Marksville, as well as to get Mouton
in support; and thus the way was open to Smith.  On the afternoon
of the 14th, Mower arrived before Fort De Russy, and just before
nightfall the brigades of Lynch and Shaw swept over the parapet
and forced a surrender, with a loss of 3 killed and 35 wounded.
The captures included 25 officers and 292 men, and ten guns, of
which two were 9-inch Dahlgrens from the spoils of the _Indianola_
and the _Harriet Lane_, once more restored to their first owners.

Phelps, who had with great energy burst through the formidable raft
nine miles below Fort De Russy, came up in _Eastport_ in time to
fire one shot from his 100-pounder Parrott, and to see the white
flag displayed.

When this news reached him, Porter at once ordered his fastest
boats to hasten to Alexandria.  The advance of the fleet arrived
off the town on the 15th of March, just as the last of the Confederate
boats were making good their escape above the falls.  Kilby Smith
and his division followed on the transports with the remainder of
the fleet, and, landing at Alexandria during the afternoon of the
16th, relieved the naval detachment sent ashore some hours earlier
to occupy the town.  On the 18th of March, A. J. Smith marched in
with Mower's two divisions.  Thus the advance of Porter's fleet
was in Alexandria two days, and the head of A. J. Smith's column
one day, ahead of the appointed time.

Walker retreated on Natchitoches, accompanied by Gray's brigade of
Mouton's division from the Huffpower.  Taylor, quitting his
headquarters at Alexandria, called in Polignac's brigade from the
line of the Tensas and concentrated his force at Carroll Jones's
plantation, on the road between Opelousas and Fort Jesup, distant
forty-six miles in a south-southeasterly direction from Natchitoches,
twelve miles south from Cotile, and twenty miles southwesterly from
Alexandria.  Here he was in a good position for receiving supplies
and reinforcements, for covering Natchitoches, and for observing
any approach of the Union forces either from Opelousas or from
Alexandria.

Meanwhile Banks had called in from Texas the divisions of Cameron
and Ransom of the Thirteenth Corps and sent them to join Franklin
on the lower Teche.  The command of this detachment being given to
Ransom, his division fell to Landram.  Lee's cavalry was given the
same direction, excepting Fonda's brigade, which stayed at Port
Hudson.  His last brigade, that of Dudley, marched from Donaldsonville
on the 6th of March, crossed Berwick Bay on the 9th, and arrived
at the cavalry camp near Franklin on the 10th.  Cameron's wagons
reached him at Berwick on the 12th, and he marched to join the army
in the field on the morning of the 13th.  On the evening of the
same day Lee led the advance of the army from the town of Franklin,
but, his column being quite nine miles long, it was not until the
following morning that his rear-guard filed into the road.  On the
morning of the 15th of March he was followed by Emory and Ransom.
Lee arrived at Alexandria on the 19th, Emory on the 25th, and Ransom
on the 26th.  The troops were, with some exceptions among the newly
mounted regiments, in admirable condition, all were in fine spirits,
and the long march of one hundred and sixty miles was well ordered
and well executed, without confusion, haste, or delay, so that
when, with closed ranks and bands playing, and with measured tread
and all intervals observed, the column entered Alexandria, the
appearance of the men drew exclamations of admiration even from
critics the least friendly.

When the news of A. J. Smith's and Porter's arrival in the Red
River and of the capture of Fort De Russy reached New Orleans on
the 16th of March, it found Banks himself preparing to set out on
the following morning to join Franklin near New Iberia.  He at once
despatched Stone to Alexandria by the river, and following him on
the 23d on the transport steamer _Black Hawk_, arrived at Alexandria
on the 24th, and took command of the combined forces of Franklin
and A. J. Smith.

Grover, as has been said, was to have moved with Franklin, or close
upon his heels, but the 7th of March had come before the first
preparatory orders were given for the movement of Sharpe's brigade
from Baton Rouge, and not until the 10th was Grover told to
concentrate his division at Thibodeaux.  His route was now changed
to the river.  Accordingly Sharpe's brigade debarked at Alexandria
on the 26th, and the Second brigade under Molineux on the 28th,
but Nickerson stayed for a fortnight longer at Carrollton.

Vincent, who with the 2d Louisiana cavalry had been watching and
reporting Lee's movement and regularly falling back before his
advance, joined Taylor at Carroll Jones's on the 19th.  Then Taylor
sent Vincent with his regiment and Edgar's battery to watch the
crossing of Bayou Jean de Jean and to hold the road by which Banks
was expected to advance on Shreveport.  Vincent encamped on the
high ground known as Henderson's Hill, commanding the junction of
the Bayou Rapides and Cotile twenty-three miles above Alexandria.
Here he was in the air, and A. J. Smith, realizing the importance
of seizing the passage without loss of time, at once proceeded to
dislodge him.  Accordingly, on the 21st of March he sent out Mower
with his two divisions of the Sixteenth Corps and Lucas's brigade
of cavalry.  Mower made his dispositions with great skill and
promptness, and that night, during a heavy storm of rain and hail,
completely surprised Vincent's camp and captured the whole regiment
bodily, together with four guns of Edgar's battery.  A few of
Vincent's men managed to escape in the darkness and confusion, but
about 250 were brought in and with them 200 horses.  This was a
heavy blow to Taylor, since it deprived him of the only cavalry he
had with him and thus of the means of scouting until Green should
come from Texas.  Mower returned to Alexandria on the 22d, and
Taylor, probably unwilling to risk a surprise in his exposed
position, withdrew about thirty miles to Kisatchie, still covering
the Fort Jesup road; but a week later he sent his cavalry northward
twenty-six miles to Natchitoches and with his infantry retired to
Pleasant Hill.

Banks has been blamed for his delay in meeting A. J. Smith and
Porter at Alexandria, yet, whatever may be the theoretical merits
of such a criticism, in fact no loss of time that occurred up to
the moment of quitting Alexandria had the least influence on the
course of the campaign, for even after the concentration was
completed the river, though very slowly rising by inches, was still
so low that the gunboats were unable to pass the rapids.  The
_Eastport_ hung nearly three days on the rocks in imminent peril,
and at last had to be hauled off by main force, a whole brigade
swaying on her hawsers to the rhythm of the field music.  This was
on the 26th of March, and the _Eastport_ was the first of the
gunboats to pass the rapids, the Admiral being naturally unwilling
to expose the boats of lighter draught as well as of lighter armament
to the risk of capture if sent up alone.  The hospital steamer
_Woodford_, which was the first boat to follow the _Eastport_, was
wrecked in the attempt.  The next five boats took three days to
pass, nor was it until the 3d of April that the last of the twelve
gunboats and thirty transports, selected to accompany the expedition
to Shreveport, floated in safety above the obstructions.  Several
of the transports drew too much water to permit them to pass the
rapids; these, therefore, stayed below, and with them the remaining
seven gunboats.

And now occurred the first important departure from the original
plan of operations.  The season of high water had been looked
forward to as insuring constant communication along the whole length
of the Red River as far as the fleet should be able to ascend.
But the Red is a treacherous river at best, and this year it was
at its worst.  There was to be no March rise worth speaking about.
Thus the rapids presented an obstacle, impassable, or only to be
passed with difficulty; the bare rocks divided the fleet in twain,
the only communication was overland by the road around the falls.
The supplies had to be landed at Alexandria, loaded into wagons,
hauled around, and re-shipped, and this made it necessary to
establish depots in the town as well as above the falls, and to
leave behind Grover's division, 4,000 strong, to protect the stores
and the carry.  At the same time McPherson recalled Ellet's marine
brigade to Vicksburg, and thus the expedition lost a second detachment
of 3,000 men; but this loss was partly made up by Dickey's brigade
of colored troops, 1,500 strong, which joined the column from the
garrison of Port Hudson.  Withal the force was ample, for at the
end of March there were 31,000 officers and men for duty, including
about 4,800 under Ransom, 6,600 under Emory, 9,000 under A. J.
Smith, and Lee's cavalry, 4,600.  Here was a superb fighting column
of 25,000 officers and men of all arms, with ninety guns.  This
more than met the calculations of Banks and Sherman on which the
campaign was undertaken.  In the three columns there were to be
40,000 men; of these, Sherman was to furnish 10,000, Banks 15,000,
and Steele 15,000.

Steele had already sent word that he could not be counted upon for
more than 7,000, all told.  He had expected to march from Little
Rock by the 14th of March on Arkadelphia, there to be joined by
Thayer moving at the same time from Fort Smith.  Thayer marched on
the 21st with 4,000 effectives and 14 guns, Steele on the 23d with
7,500 effectives and 16 guns; besides these, he left Clayton with
1,600 men and 11 guns to hold Pine Bluff.

We have seen how, in one movement, three divergent ideas were being
carried out without either having been distinctly decided on:  a
foothold in Texas, an overland occupation in force, and a swift
raid by the river.  To these there was now to be added a fourth
idea, in itself sound, yet fatally inconsistent with the others.

On the 27th of March, before setting out from Alexandria, Banks
received, by special messenger, the orders of Lieutenant-General
Grant, dated the 15th of March, on taking command of the armies of
the United States.  For the first time during the war, all the
armies were to move as one, with a single purpose, ruled by a single
will; along the whole line, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic,
a combined movement was to take place early in May, and in this
the entire effective force of the Department of the Gulf was to
take part.  A. J. Smith was to join the Army of the Tennessee for
the Atlanta campaign, and Banks was to go against Mobile.  Sherman
had lent A. J. Smith to Banks for thirty days.  This limit Grant
was willing to extend by ten or fifteen days, but if Shreveport
were not to be taken by that time--that is, by the 25th of April
at the very latest,--then Banks was to send A. J. Smith's detachment
back to Vicksburg in season to arrive there at the date originally
named--that is, by the 10th of April,--even if this should lead to
the abandonment of the expedition.  The orders for the expedition
given by Halleck, while occupying nominally the supreme command
that had now in truth fallen into the strong hand of Grant, were
not revoked; the expedition was to go on; only, to make sure that
it should not be gone too long, it was to be put in irons.

Grant may easily be excused if, while as yet hardly warm in the
saddle, he hesitated to revoke orders that he must have known to
be those of the President himself; yet, since a door must be either
open or shut it would have been far better to revoke the orders
than to trammel their execution with conditions so hard that Banks
might well have thrown up the campaign then and there.  However,
Banks on his part had good reason to know the wishes of the government
and not less the consequences of disregarding them; moreover, as
the case must have presented itself to him, there was an off chance
that Kirby Smith might not be able to concentrate in time to save
Shreveport; another, still more remote, that he might give up the
place without a fight; and a third, more unlikely than either, that
Steele might join Banks in time to make short work of it, or at
all events to make Banks strong enough to spare A. J. Smith by the
appointed time.  Two weeks remained until the earliest date set
for A. J. Smith to be at Vicksburg; twenty-nine days to the latest
day allowed for the taking of Shreveport.  In his dilemma Banks
decided to run these chances.

After seeing the first of the gunboats safely over the falls, on
the 26th of March Banks set his column in motion.  A. J. Smith
marched on Cotile Landing to wait for his boats.  On the 28th Lee,
with the main body of the cavalry, preceded Smith to Henderson's
Hill, in order to hold the road and the crossing of Bayou Jean de
Jean.  Franklin with Emory and Ransom and the main supply trains
followed on the same day.

Twenty miles above Cotile Landing the Red River divides, and, for
sixty miles, until Grand Ecore is reached, the waters flow in two
unequal channels; the most southerly of these, along which the road
runs, is known as Cane River, or Old Red River.  This was formerly
the main stream, but the more northerly branch, at once deeper and
less tortuous, now forms the only navigable channel, and is called
the Rigolets du Bon Dieu, or more familiarly the Bon Dieu.

Lee crossed Cane River at Monett's Ferry, and, recrossing above
Cloutierville, entered Natchitoches on the 31st of March.  At
Monett's Ferry on the 29th, Cloutierville on the 30th, and again
at Natchitoches he encountered slight opposition from the enemy's
skirmishers.

Franklin, marching by the same road, encamped at Natchitoches on
the 2d of April.

Embarking on his transports as they came, A. J. Smith set out from
Cotile Landing on the 2d of April in company with Porter's fleet,
and landed at Grand Ecore on the 3d.

The river was still rising slowly, and it was not until the 7th of
April that Porter considered the draught of water sufficient to
justify him in going farther.  Then, leaving at Grand Ecore the
six heavy boats that had come with him thus far, he began the ascent
of the upper reach of the river with the _Carondelet, Fort Hindman,
Lexington, Osage, Neosho_, and _Chillicothe_, convoying and closely
followed by a fleet of twenty transports, bearing Kilby Smith's
division and a large quantity of military stores of all kinds.
Porter expected to be at Springfield Landing, 110 miles above Grand
Ecore, on the 9th.  On arriving there, Kilby Smith was to reconnoitre
towards Springfield, and if practicable, to send a regiment to
seize the bridge across the Bayou Pierre in the direction of
Mansfield.

On the 6th of April, as soon as the movement of the fleet was
decided on, Banks resumed the march on Shreveport.  Shortly after
leaving Natchitoches the main road, with which the road from Grand
Ecore unites, strikes off from the river toward the west to avoid
Spanish Lake, and, traversing a barren wilderness, affords neither
position nor resting-place until Shreveport is reached.  Banks
meant to be at Mansfield, holding the roads that there converge,
simultaneously with the arrival at the fleet at Springfield Landing.
Lee, who was encamped at Natchitoches with the brigades of Lucas,
Robinson, and Dudley, led the advance, and marching twenty-three
miles encamped that night at Crump's Corner.  Ransom broke camp at
Natchitoches at six o'clock in the morning, and marched sixteen
miles.  Emory followed closely upon Ransom.  A. J. Smith remained
at Grand Ecore till the next day, to await the departure of the
fleet, and then marching eight miles on the Shreveport road fell
into the rear of the column.  Dickey's colored brigade formed the
guard of the main wagon train, and Gooding's brigade of cavalry
covered the rear and left flank.  From this time Lee's movements
were to be directed by Franklin.

Meanwhile, between the 3d and 5th of April, Taylor, after consuming
the forage for twenty miles around Pleasant Hill, had withdrawn
his infantry to Mansfield.  Green's cavalry, long expected, was
now beginning to come in, largely augmented, from Texas, whither
it had been hastily sent, early in the winter, to meet the threatened
invasion from the coast.

On the morning of the 7th of April, Lee advanced on Pleasant Hill,
Robinson leading, supported by Lucas.  Robinson easily drove before
him the advance guard of the Confederate cavalry until about two
o'clock in the afternoon, at Wilson's farm, three miles beyond
Pleasant Hill, he came upon the main body of Green's force, comprising
Major's brigade, under Lane, posted in the skirt of the wood, on
rising ground, behind a clearing.  Robinson dismounted his men and
engaged the enemy, who resisted so firmly that Lucas was sent to
Robinson's support just in time to save him from being driven off
the field by a determined charge.  Lucas likewise dismounted his
men, and the two brigades, charging together afoot, drove the
Confederates from their position, and pursued them to Carroll's
saw-mill, on the southerly branch of Bayou St. Patrice, about seven
miles beyond Pleasant Hill, where, toward nightfall, they made a
strong stand.  In this action, Lee took 23 prisoners, and suffered
a loss of 11 killed, 42 wounded, and 9 missing.

Ransom marched at half-past five in the morning, and at two o'clock
in the afternoon the head of his column was at Pleasant Hill,
nineteen miles distant, where he went into camp, having overtaken
the cavalry train during the march, and Dudley's brigade at the
close.  Emory, closely following Ransom, arrived at Pleasant Hill
about five o'clock in the afternoon, and went into camp.  The last
of the infantry and all the wagons were much retarded by a heavy
storm that broke over the rear of the column and cut up the road
badly.  The night was far spent when Ransom's train joined him,
and Emory's, in spite of every exertion, could not be brought up
until late on the following morning.  A. J. Smith was now a good
day's march behind Ransom and Emory.

When Lee found himself so obstinately opposed, and so hindered by
these dilatory tactics, he sent a message to Franklin, through
Banks's senior aide-de-camp, who had been riding with the advance,
asking that a brigade of infantry might be sent forward to his
assistance.  Lee's view was that the infantry, advancing in skirmish
order, could make better progress than the cavalry, which, in a
country so thickly wooded, found itself reduced to the same tactics,
with the added drawback that as often as they dislodged the enemy
they had to run back after their horses before they could follow.
Franklin declined to accede to this request without orders, justly
reflecting that infantry thus advanced at night, after a hard day's
march, must be worn out in the attempt to keep touch with the
cavalry, while, in the history of these mixed forces, the instances
are rare indeed in which the mounted men have not, after bringing
on the action, left it, as the proper thing, for the infantry to
finish.  However, late in the evening Banks joined Franklin, and
an hour or two before midnight ordered him to send a brigade to
Lee, to report to him at dawn.  Upon this Franklin directed Ransom
to send either a brigade or a division, at his discretion, and
Ransom, in his turn, ordered Landram to take Emerson's brigade of
his division and join the cavalry for the service indicated.

(1) January 4, 1864--Official Records, vol. xxxiv, part ii., p. 15.


CHAPTER XXIV.
SABINE CROSS-ROADS.

Landram accordingly marched at three o'clock on the morning of the
8th of April, and reported to Lee about five.

Soon after sunrise Lee moved forward against the enemy, Lucas
leading, with one regiment of his brigade dismounted and deployed
as skirmishers, supported by two regiments of Landram's infantry,
in line of battle.  Green's men still adhering to the obstructive
policy of the day before, after a time the two remaining regiments
of Emerson's brigade were deployed and required to drive the enemy
more rapidly, while the cavalry covered the flanks.  About one
o'clock in the afternoon, when half the distance that separated
Mansfield from his camp of the night before had been accomplished,
Lee found himself at the edge of a large clearing on the slope of
a hill, with the Confederates in force in his front and on his
right flank.

Ransom marched from Pleasant Hill at half-past five, and at half-past
ten was ten miles distant on the northerly branch of the Bayou
St. Patrice, designated as his camp for the day.  He was just going
into bivouac when, on a request from Lee for a fresh force of
infantry to relieve the exhausted men of Emerson's brigade, Franklin
directed Ransom to go forward himself with Vance's brigade, and
thus to make sure of Emerson's return.

Franklin's arrangements for the day's march of his command, as well
as Banks's for the whole force, contemplated a short march for the
head of the column and a longer one for the rear, so that a
comparatively early hour in the day the army would be closed up,
ready to encounter the enemy in good order.  Accordingly, shortly
before three o'clock in the afternoon, Emory went into camp on the
banks of the south branch of the St. Patrice, within easy supporting
distance of Ransom, while A. J. Smith continued his march, until
at night, having accomplished twenty-one miles, he went into bivouac
about two miles before reaching Pleasant Hill.

At last nearly the whole of Green's cavalry corps had joined Taylor,
and at the same time two divisions of Price's army had come in from
Arkansas and taken post in supporting distance of Taylor at Keachie,
which is about half-way between Mansfield and Shreveport, or about
twenty miles from either.  With his own force, under Walker and
Mouton, Green's Texans, Churchill's Arkansas division, and Parsons's
Missouri division, Taylor now had at least sixteen thousand good
men, with whom, if permitted, he might give battle in a chosen
position, while Banks's force was stretched out the length of a
long day's march on a single narrow road in a dense pine forest,
with no elbow-room save such as was to be found in the narrow and
infrequent clearings.  In such a region excess of numbers was a
hindrance rather than a help, and cavalry was worse then useless
for offence.  Banks was, moreover, encumbered by twelve miles of
wagons bearing all his ammunition and stores, and was weakened by
the necessity of guarding this long train through the barren
wilderness deep in the heart of the enemy's country.  Of these
conditions Kirby Smith was planning to take advantage, and it was
to guard against such an enterprise that Banks's column was closing
up in readiness to meet the enemy with its full strength, when
suddenly on both sides events took the bit in their teeth and
precipitated a battle that was in the plans of neither.

It was about eleven o'clock when Ransom set out to go to the front
with Vance's brigade.  The distance to be passed over was about
five and a half miles.  Riding ahead, Ransom himself arrived on
the field about half-past one in the afternoon.  At this time, by
Lee's orders, Landram had pushed forward the 19th Kentucky, deployed
as skirmishers, and supporting it strongly with the rest of Emerson's
brigade, had driven Green's troopers across the open ground, over
the hill, and well into the woods beyond, and had taken position
on the crest.  Here he was joined by Nims, who brought his guns
into battery across the road.  On the left of Nims were placed two
of Rottaken's howitzers, detached from the 6th Missouri cavalry.
On the right and left of the horse artillery Emerson formed, and
Vance, as soon as he came up, took position on Emerson's right,
but as Banks undertook to hasten the movement through the direct
action of his own staff-officers, it resulted that the regiments
of the two brigades were sandwiched.  Lucas, dismounted, extended
the line of battle to the right.  With him were a section of Rawles's
battery and another of Rottaken's.

To cover the flanks in the forest Dudley deployed as skirmishers
the 8th New Hampshire on the right, and on the left the 3d and the
31st Massachusetts, supported by the 2d Illinois.  Robinson was
with the cavalry train, which was rather closely following the
march of its division, in order to clear the head of the infantry
without starving the cavalry.

Neither side could move forward without bringing on a battle.  But
Lee, instead of being able and ready to disengage his cavalry
advance-guard and to fall back to a chosen field, was now anchored
to the ground where he found himself, not alone by the concentration
of the main body of the cavalry at the very front, but also and
even more firmly by the presence of the infantry with its artillery
and their employment, naturally enough, to form the centre of his
main line.

The clearing, the largest yet seen by the Union Army since entering
the interminable wilderness of pines, was barely half a mile in
width; across the road it stretched for about three quarters of a
mile, and down the middle it was divided by a ravine.

Directly in front of Banks stood Taylor in order of battle, covering
the crossing of the ways that lead to Pleasant Hill, to Shreveport,
to Bayou Pierre, and to the Sabine.  On his right was the cavalry
of Bee, then Walker's infantry astride of the main road, and on
Walker's left Mouton, supported on his left by the cavalry brigades
of Major and Bagby, dismounted.  To this position, well selected,
Taylor had advanced from Mansfield early in the morning, with the
clear intention of offering battle, and, regardless of Kirby Smith's
purpose of concentrating nearer Shreveport, had sent back orders
for Churchill and Parsons to come forward.  They marched early,
and were by this time well on the way, but a distance of twenty-five
miles separated their camp of the night before from the field of
the approaching combat.

As on the previous day's march, Stone had been with Lee's advance
since the early morning, without, however, being charged with the
views of his chief and without attempting to issue orders in his
name; but now Banks himself rode to the extreme front, as his habit
was.  Arriving on the ground not long after Ransom, and seeing the
enemy before him in force, Banks at once ordered Lee to hold his
ground and sent back orders to Franklin to bring forward the column.
The skirmishing that had been going on all the morning, as an
incident of the advance and retreat of the opposing forces, had
become the sharp prelude of battle, and through the openings of
the forest the enemy could be seen in continuous movement toward
his left.  This was Major and Mouton feeling their way to the Union
right, beyond which and diagonally across the front ran the road
that leads from Mansfield to Bayou Pierre.

Whether Taylor, as he says, now became impatient at the delay and
ordered Mouton to open the attack, or whether, as others have
asserted, Mouton attacked without the knowledge or orders of Taylor,
is not quite clear, nor is it here material.  About four o'clock,
when the two lines had looked at each other for two hours or more,
Taylor suddenly delivered his attack by a vigorous charge of Mouton's
division on the east of the road.  Ransom's infantry on the field
numbered about 2,400 officers and men; including Lucas, Banks's
fighting line fell below 3,500, and the whole force he had at hand
was not above 5,000 strong.  Against this, Taylor was now advancing
with nearly 10,000.  It was therefore inevitable that on both flanks
his line must widely overlap that of Banks as soon as the two should
meet.

When Ransom perceived Mouton's movement, he threw forward his right
to meet it with such spirit that Mouton's first line was driven
back in confusion on his second; then rallying and returning to
the charge, Mouton's men halted, lay down, and began firing at
about two hundred yards' range.  The two batteries of Landram's
division, Cone's Chicago Mercantile, and Klauss's 1st Indiana, now
came on the field, and were posted by Ransom on the ridge near the
centre, to oppose the enemy's advance on the left, before which
Dudley's men were already falling back.  Bee and Walker had in fact
turned the whole left flank, and were rapidly moving on, breaking
in the line as they advanced.  This soon left Nims's guns without
support, and at the same time Klauss and Cone came under a fire so
severe from Walker's men, that Ransom determined to withdraw to
the cover of the wood in his rear at the edge of the clearing.
Unfortunately, Captain Dickey, his assistant adjutant-general, fell
mortally wounded in the act of communicating these orders, and thus
some of the regiments farther toward the right, being without
orders, and fighting stubbornly against great odds, stood their
ground until they were completely surrounded and taken prisoners.
While aiding Landram to rally and reform the remnants of his division
in the skirt of timber, Ransom was severely wounded in the knee,
and had to be carried off the field.  Vance and Emerson were wounded
and taken prisoners, each at the head of his brigade.

Meanwhile, shortly after three o'clock, at his quarters, near
Ransom's camp of the forenoon, Franklin received his first suggestion
of an impending battle, in Banks's order to bring all the infantry
to the front.  First sending back word to Emory, Franklin set out
at once and rode forward rapidly, followed by Cameron's division.
When, some time after four o'clock, he entered the clearing and
galloped to the hill where the guns of Nims still stood grimly
defiant and Ransom's men were still desperately struggling to hold
their first ground, the situation was already hopeless.  Hardly
had he arrived on the ground, than, by a single volley from Walker's
advancing lines, Franklin's horse was killed, and he himself and
Captains Chapman and Pigman of his staff were wounded.

Cameron came up just as Landram was striving hard to rally his men
and to hold a second position in the lower skirt of the wood, to
prevent the enemy from coming on across the clearing; but for this,
time and numbers and elbow-room were alike wanting.  Moreover,
every movement of the Confederate troopers must be gaining on the
flanks.  Nor was Cameron's handful, barely 1,300, enough to enable
the remnant of the Thirteenth Corps to hold for many minutes so
weak a position against such odds.  Cameron deployed his four
battalions and tried hard, but the whole line soon crumbled and
fell apart to the rear.

Until this moment, Banks and Franklin, as well as every officer of
the staff of either, beginning with Stone, had exerted themselves
to the utmost to second the efforts of Ransom and of Landram to
save the day.  The retreat once fairly began, all attempt to stay
its course was for a time given up as idle, for every man knew just
how far back he must go to find room to form a line of battle longer
than the road was narrow.  Green's cavalry having been for the most
part dismounted and on the flanks, as well as in the forest, the
pursuit was not very vigorous and was now and then retarded by the
successive covering lines of Lucas and of Dudley, so that the
prospect seemed fair of bringing off the remnants of the fighting
force without much more loss, when about a mile behind the
battle-field, at the foot of a slight descent, the retreating column
came upon a knot of wagons inextricably tangled and stuck fast
in a slough.  This was the great cavalry train trying to escape.
Instantly what had been a severe check became a serious disaster.
Already, by holding so stiffly to his first position, in the front
line, in the road, Nims had lost more than half his horses, and
thus in quitting the field he found himself compelled to abandon
three of his guns; yet not until he had inflicted vast injuries on
his enemy, and to the last furnished a noble example of coolness
in the performance of duty and the highest courage in the hour of
trial.  Now the remnant of this fine battery was swallowed up in
the wreck of the wagons, and soon fourteen more guns went to swell
the ruin.  Thus Rails and Rottaken lost each a section, Cone and
Klauss their whole batteries.  In all twenty guns were lost; three
on the field and seventeen at the jam.  With them went 175 wagons,
11 ambulances, and 1,001 draught animals.  To pass the obstruction
the infantry had to turn widely out of the road and for a long
distance push their way through the woods.  No semblance of order
survived.  After this there was only one mass of men, wagons, and
horses crowding to the rear.

How little expectation there had been of fighting a battle that
day, especially on the line where the extreme outposts chanced to
be, and how suddenly all was changed, is aptly shown by what was
happening in Emory's camp when, at a quarter before four o'clock,
he received Franklin's order to go to the front.  The wagons of
the Thirteenth Corps were in the road in the act of passing the
lines of the Nineteenth Corps on the way to join their proper
command.  Emory's wagons had been with him for some little time
and several of the quartermasters were even engaged in issuing
clothing when the summons came.  There had been no heavy firing as
yet, such as indicates a battle, and the exact degree of urgency
may be best represented by saying that the marching orders were
delivered to Emory in writing by a mounted orderly and were in
these words:  "Move your infantry immediately to the front, leaving
one regiment as guard to your batteries and train.  If your train
has got up, you will take two days' rations and the cooking utensils."
The language of this order, which may fairly be taken as an authentic
reflection of the oral message from Banks, on which it was directly
based, would have justified Emory in taking an hour or more for
the issue of the rations; but Emory, whose nature it was to forecast
danger, had from the first hour of the campaign been apprehensive
of some sudden attack that should find the army unprepared; and
thus it was that, merely stopping to take a double ration of hard
bread, twelve minutes later the head of his column filed into the
road and marched to the front.  At this hour the battle was just
beginning, and the first sounds, rolling to the rear, served to
quicken the march of Emory's men.  About a quarter before five he
was met by an aide-de-camp with orders to hasten, coupled with the
first direct information that an engagement was in progress.  A
mile farther on an ambulance was met bearing Ransom to the rear.
Emory exchanged a few words with the wounded officer, and then
ordered his division to take the double-quick.  A mile beyond, the
usual rabble of camp followers and stragglers was encountered, and
soon the road was filled with the swollen stream of fugitives,
crying that the day was lost.

And now from Emory down to the smallest drummer-boy every man saw
that the hour had come to show what the First division was made
of.  The leading regiments and flankers instantly fixed bayonets;
the staff-officers drew their swords; hardly a man fell out, but
at a steady and even quickened pace, Emory's men forced their way
through the confused mass in the eager endeavor to reach a position
where the enemy might be held in check.  This, in that country,
was not an easy task, and it was not until the last rush of the
flying crowd and the dropping of stray bullets here and there told
that the pursuing enemy was close at hand, that Emory found room
to deploy on ground affording the least advantage for the task
before him.  He was now less than three miles from the field where
Lee had been beaten back and Ransom had been overwhelmed.  The
scene was a small clearing with a fenced farm, traversed by a narrow
by-road and by a little creek flowing toward the St. Patrice.  Here
the Confederates could be plainly seen coming on at such a pace
that for some moments it was even doubtful whether Emory might not
have delayed just too long the formation of his line of battle.
Such was his own though as in the dire need of the crisis he
determined to sacrifice his leading regiment in order to gain time
and room for the division to form.  Happily the Confederates helped
him by stopping to loot the train and the rejoice loudly over each
discovery of some special luxury to them long unfamiliar.

Then rapidly sending orders to Dwight to hold the road at any cost,
to McMillan to form on the right, to Benedict to deploy on Dwight's
left, Emory himself rode up to Kinsey, and together they led forward
the 161st New York and deployed the regiment widely as skirmishers
across the whole front of the division, in the very teeth of the
Confederate line of battle, rapidly advancing with wild yells and
firing heavily as they came.  Not a man of the division, not one
of the 161st, but felt as well as Emory the imposing duty laid on
that splendid regiment and the hard sacrifice expected of it; yet
they stood their ground so well and so long that not only had the
whole division time to deploy, but, when at last the Confederate
line of battle refused any longer to be held back by a fringe of
skirmishers, it became a serious question whether friend and foe
might not enter the Union lines together.  Then, when Emory saw
that his line was formed, he gave to word to Kinsey to retire.
For some seconds his skirmishers masked fire of their own lines,
but, as the Confederates followed with great impetuosity, Dwight's
whole line, kneeling, waiting, and ready, opened a fierce fire at
point-blank range and soon threw off the attack with heavy loss to
their assailants.  The brunt of the attack was borne by the 28th
Maine, holding the centre and the road.  An attempt followed to
turn Emory's right flank; in this Dwight's right was pressed so
heavily that Emory was obliged to deploy McMillan nearly at right
angles to the main front, and thus the onset was easily checked.
About the same time the Confederates, whose line was longer than
Emory's, made a like attempt to turn the left, but Benedict held
on firmly, and although his position was a bad one, soon drove off
his assailants.  The whole fight was over in twenty minutes, but
while it lasted it was sharp.  It rolled back the pursuit and
changed the fortunes of the evil day.

In no other battle of the war was so little use made of artillery.
In Ransom's fight only a few guns could be brought into action on
either side, though these indeed were served with vigor.  As for
Emory, he left his batteries and his baggage to the safekeeping of
the 153d New York and swept to the front with all the rest of his
infantry, while the same jam of wagons that entrapped the guns of
Lee and Ransom likewise held back the guns of Taylor.  Thus Emory's
fight was fought by infantry alone against infantry and dismounted
cavalry, and no roar of cannon was heard to break the rattle and
the wail of the musketry.

So great a change had these few hours wrought that the same sun
rose upon an army marching full of confidence that within two days
Shreveport would be in its grasp, and set up the same army defeated,
brought to bay, its campaign ruined, saved only by a triumph of
valor and discipline on the part of a single division and of skill
on the part of its intrepid commander from complete destruction at
the hands of an enemy inferior in everything and outnumbered almost
as two to one.  The passage of a wood is the passage of a defile;
there, then, was a blind defile, where of six divisions four were
suffered to be taken in detail and attacked in fractions on ground
of the enemy's choosing.  Hardly any tactical error was wanting to
complete the discomfiture.  Ransom was overwhelmed and double
outflanked by two or three times his numbers; even Emory had but
five thousand against a force reduced by casualties and straggling,
yet still half as large again as his and flushed with victory;
moreover, his position was, whether for offence or defence, worthless
beyond the passing hour.

Banks's losses in the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads were as follows:

                            Killed.  Wounded.  Missing.  Total.
  Cavalry Division . . . .      39     250       144        433
  Cameron's "    . . . . .      24      99       195        318
  Landram's "    . . . . .      28     148       909      1,085
  Emory's   "    . . . . .      24     148       175        347
  Staff of Nineteenth Corps      0       3         0          3
                              ____    ____     _____     ______
                 In all . . .  115     648     1,423      2,186

By Taylor the action is called the battle of Mansfield.  He puts
his losses at 1,000, all told.  Foremost among the slain, while
leading the fierce onset against Ransom's right, Mouton fell, a
regimental color in his hand, and with him perished many of his
brave Louisianians.

Clearly the next thing, whatever might be the next after, was to
concentrate and reform on the first fair ground in the rear.  Such
were Banks's orders.  Accordingly at midnight Emory marched in
orderly retreat, with all his material intact, and at eight o'clock
the next morning, the 9th of April, went into bivouac at Pleasant
Hill, where A. J. Smith was found near his resting-place of the
night before, and with him Gooding.  Thither Lee and the shattered
remnants of Ransom's Corps, now under Cameron, had already retired,
and there they now reformed in comparative order.


CHAPTER XXV.
PLEASANT HILL.

The scenes and events of the 8th produced a deep effect on Banks.
At first he was disposed to look on the campaign as lost.  Whatever
hope he might have had that morning of taking or even reaching
Shreveport within the time fixed for the breaking up of the
expedition, was at an end before night fell.  Not only must A. J.
Smith be sent back to Vicksburg within two days, but Banks himself
must be on the Mississippi with his whole force ready to move
against Mobile by the 1st of May.  Such were his orders from Grant,
peremptory and repeated.  Therefore Banks at once made up his mind
to retreat to Grand Ecore, and sent messenger after messenger across
the country to tell Kilby Smith and Porter what had happened and
what he was about to do.  In thus deciding he chose the second best
course, and the one that Taylor wished for; it would have been far
better to cover Blair's Landing and thus make sure of the safety
as well as the support of the gunboats and Kilby Smith.

Pleasant Hill was a village of a dozen houses dispersed about a
knoll in a clearing.  Beside the main highway between Natchitoches
and Shreveport, by which Banks had come and was now going back,
fairly good roads radiate to Fort Jesup and Many on the south to
the crossings of the Sabine on the west, and on the north and east
towards the Red River.  The nearest point on the river was Blair's
Landing, distant sixteen miles from Pleasant Hill by the road and
forty-five miles by water above Grand Ecore.

Though a good place to fight a battle, Pleasant Hill was not a
position that could be held for any length of time, even if there
had been an object in holding it.  It was too far even from the
immediate base of supplies, and there was no water to be had save
from the cisterns in the village.  These were merely sufficient,
in ordinary times, for the storage of rain water for the daily use
of the inhabitants.  Now two armies had been drawing from them,
and there was not enough left in them to supply the wants of Banks's
men, to say nothing of the animals, for a single day; and for this
reason, if for no other, it was impossible for the army to stay
there an hour longer than was really necessary to cover a safe and
orderly withdrawal of the train.

Accordingly, early on the 9th of April, Banks gave orders for the
wagon train to be set in motion toward Grand Ecore, escorted by
Lee with the cavalry and Dickey's colored brigade, and put his army
into position at Pleasant Hill to cover the movement.

Churchill with Tappan and Parsons had accomplished the march of
twenty miles from Keachie to Mansfield too late in the evening of
the 8th to take any part in the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads.  At
two o'clock the next morning he marched toward the front in order
to arrive on the ground in time to renew the fight.  By the earliest
light of morning Taylor saw that his adversary had already left
the field.  Then he promptly advanced his whole force, feeling his
way as he went.  Green led with the cavalry; next came Churchill
with his own division, under Tappan; then Parsons, Walker, and
Polignac.  The morning was wellnigh spent, when Taylor with the
head of his column drew near Pleasant Hill and discovered his
adversary in position.  The last of his infantry did not come up
until after noon.  Churchill's men were so fagged by their early
start and their long march of forty-five miles since the morning
of the 8th that Taylor thought it best to give them two hours' rest
before attempting anything more.

Two miles to the southward, across the main road, stood Emory,
firmly holding the right of the Union lines.  Dwight's brigade
formed the extreme right flank, thrown back and resting on a wooded
ravine that runs almost parallel with the road.  Squarely across
the road and somewhat more advanced, in the skirt of the wood before
the village, commanding an open approach,