History of the Forty-second regiment infantry, Massachusetts volunteers, 1862, 1863, 1864

by Charles P. Bosson

CHARGE THIRD.

“Conduct to the prejudice of Good Order and Military Discipline.”

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Specification—“In this: that he, Captain Davis W. Bailey, Company H, Forty-Second Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, when informed by Captain Leonard, senior captain of Companies C and H, Forty-Second Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, that the lieutenant-colonel had sent an order for the Descriptive Books of said companies, did, then and there, at or near his quarters at Camp Parapet, Louisiana, and in the presence of Captain Leonard and at least two enlisted men of the Forty-Second Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, refuse to send his Descriptive Book, averring in substance as follows: ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman or no other man can have my company books.’ All this at Camp Parapet, Louisiana, on or about the thirteenth day of April, 1863.”

To all of which charges and specifications the accused pleaded “not guilty.”

The Court, after mature deliberation on the evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:

Of the specification, first charge—“Not guilty.”
Of the first charge—“Not guilty.”
Of the first specification, second charge—“Not guilty.”
Of the second specification, second charge—“Not guilty.”
Of the second charge—“Not guilty.”
Of the specification, third charge—“Not guilty.”
Of the third charge—“Not guilty.”

And does therefore acquit him.

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The case was clear and charges filed correctly, but, on his trial before a general court-martial, held in New Orleans, March 25th, the charges were not sustained; a material witness failed to remember anything.

The proceedings of this court-martial were approved by General Banks in General Orders of June 9th, when Captain Bailey was acquitted, released from arrest and returned to duty; the orders did not take effect until July 20th, when they reached the regiment.

At a general court-martial convened in New Orleans, January 27th, 1863, of which Major F. Frye, Ninth Connecticut Volunteers, was president, the following enlisted men of the Forty-Second were tried, in addition to the case of Private Denny, Company E, already mentioned:

Private William H. Thomas, Company B, for “sleeping on post.”

Private Frank L. Fisher, Company B, for “sleeping on post.”

Privates Thomas and Fisher when found asleep, were awakened and cautioned by the officer of the guard as to the penalty they would incur by going to sleep while on sentry duty. Notwithstanding the caution they allowed themselves to fall asleep again while on guard, and in the same relief.

The findings of this Court were not promulgated in General Orders until March 7th. In the case of Thomas, he was found asleep on post 13, in front of regimental headquarters at Gentilly Bayou, between the hours of one and half-past one o’clock on the morning of February 12th. He pleaded “guilty” to the charge and specification. His plea was accepted, and, as it appeared that he was sick at the time and excused from duty by the surgeon, it was recommended that he be returned to duty.

Private Fisher was found asleep on post 15, at the stable and quartermasters’ department at Gentilly Bayou, between the hours of one and two o’clock on the morning of February 10th. He pleaded “not guilty” to both charge and specification, and the Court on the evidence adduced found him “not guilty,” and recommended that he be returned to duty. Fisher and Thomas, confined since February 12th, were released from confinement in the guard-house March 18th.

Private Freeman Doane, Company F, was also found asleep on post at Lakeport on the twenty-ninth of April, and placed in arrest. Upon examination of the case Captain Cogswell was so well satisfied that Doane was sick and not fit to have been placed on sentry duty, being under the surgeon’s care, that he asked for and obtained his release the next day.

Lieutenant Albert E. Proctor, Company G, acting regimental quartermaster, met with a very serious accident on the morning of the twentieth by being thrown from his horse, in front of headquarters, immediately after mounting, preparatory to proceeding to the city on official business, sustaining a fracture of the right arm near the socket of the shoulder, which incapacitated him from further duty with the regiment during its term of service.

A moment before he left headquarters in fine spirits, and when brought in looking deathly pale everybody present was dumfounded. Luckily, Assistant-Surgeon Heintzelman was present on duty with the regiment, having reported at camp March 1st. He immediately made a careful examination of the fracture, properly bandaged it, and prepared everything to make Proctor comfortable until he arrived at the hospital in New Orleans, where he was sent the same day and had his arm reset. Lieutenant Proctor showed true fortitude throughout the day. Not a groan escaped his lips, although the pain he suffered was excruciating. He gave proper directions for the continued performance of his duties and what disposition to make of unfinished business he had on hand with utmost sang-froid.

Lieutenant Proctor was a twin brother of Captain Alfred N. Proctor, Company G, then a prisoner of war in Texas. It was difficult to say who was who, even when seen together. The lieutenant remarked, soon after the accident to himself, that his brother Alfred had met with an accident also. His reason for thinking so was because a sympathetic feeling had always existed between them. As a matter of fact, Captain Proctor did have one of the bones of an ankle broken while wrestling with Sergeant Wentworth, March 27th.

Until May 20th, when Quartermaster Burrell reported back for duty, having been relieved as acting brigade-quartermaster, when Colonel Cahill, Ninth Connecticut Volunteers, superseded Colonel Farr, the active duties of the position were well performed by Acting Quartermaster-Sergeant Alonzo I. Hodsdon, corporal in Company D.

The regiment was fortunate in having good quartermasters during the term of service, and in obtaining supplies of proper food. The salt meats, coffee, potatoes, bread, etc., were of excellent quality. It was necessary only once (May 15th) during the entire term of service to call for a Board of Survey to examine into the quality of subsistence stores received from the Commissary Department. Quartermaster Burrell was socially one of the best of men, with business qualifications for his duty of a high order. Acting-Quartermaster Proctor was also adapted to fill the position, and was a jovial man. Corporal Hodsdon, without a business training to fit him to hold such a position at once, had mastered the details to such extent from his connection with the department that during the time he performed the duties everything went along smoothly.

At the close of April there were present for duty in the four companies at Gentilly Bayou and vicinity, thirteen officers and three hundred and fifty-six men. Sick in regimental hospital: one officer (Lieutenant Harding, Company K, who arrived April 27th, sick with fever), and twenty-one men. Thirteen men were sick in quarters. The average sick per day for the month had been: taken sick, four; returned to duty, four; in hospital, twenty; in quarters, fourteen. One man died at the camp hospital of typhoid fever, Private Frank Covell, Company G, a paroled prisoner, April 22d. The body was embalmed and sent home. Private Covell, quite young in years, was careless of his health. He would insist on sleeping at night in the open air instead of under tent cover, exposed unprotected to change in the atmosphere, usually very rapid after nine o’clock. Repeated cautions not to do so were given him. Company G was unfortunate at this camp in the loss of men by death from disease. The other companies of paroled men, D and I, did not lose a man.

At Bayou Gentilly the night air was treacherous and dangerous. In good weather the days, at this season of the year, would be hot and sultry up to about ten o’clock in the night, when changes would commence to occur, becoming damp and hazy. About midnight sentinels were obliged to wear their great-coats. Many men would persist in sleeping upon the ground in the open air, regardless of repeated warnings not to do so. When the midnight change took place, if they by chance awoke, they would occupy their tents. This careless habit caused much sickness in the regiment from bowel complaints and fevers, that was charged by the sufferers to bad quality of rations issued.

Discipline of the camp continued good, and the paroled men behaved well under their enforced idleness. Very few men absented themselves without leave. Corporal Clapp, Privates Holt, Barnard and Davis, all from Company G, tried it on and were picked up by the patrol in New Orleans, April 4th. Privates Dolan, Dellanty, Contillon and Morgan, all from Company I, were bagged by the patrol on the fifth, and Private Marshall, Company G, was arrested by the police of New Orleans, April 12th. These men were returned to camp by the provost-marshal in one or two days after their arrest.

Two deserters reported back to the regiment this month: Private Chauncy Converse, Company K, on the eleventh; Private Lewis Buffum, Company B, on the twenty-fifth.

While able to furnish details of skilled mechanics, if wanted, on a call for telegraph operators, made on the twenty-ninth, to do duty in the Defences of New Orleans, a careful inquiry failed to find any—the only request ever made by a general officer, either of brigade or division, that the Forty-Second Regiment was not able to meet.

CHAPTER IX.
At Bayou Gentilly—May.

After hot weather fairly set in not much time was occupied in drill at Gentilly Camp. When the many details for regular camp and extra duty had been provided, there were few men left to go on drill. Most of the drills were by company, after Companies A and F had been detached. Previous to that time a battalion drill was in order every morning, after guard-mounting, either in command of the lieutenant-colonel or the major.

On the seventh General Sherman inspected the regiment in camp and the detachments at Batteries Gentilly and St. John. The number of men under inspection was not large, but they looked well and in good condition. The next day, eighth, to relieve the dull routine of camp life, Companies B and E, then remaining in camp, were marched along the Ponchartrain Railroad to Lakeport, there joined by men from Companies A and F, and an exhibition dress parade gone through with. After lying in the close camp at the bayou, this change, even for a short time, to the cool breezes of the lake shore, was very agreeable.

Orders were received at 9.15 A.M., May 9th, from division headquarters, for all men that could be mustered of the detached portions of the second division to immediately report, in heavy marching order, on Canal Street, in New Orleans, for review. The men were at once got under arms and marched into the city, arriving fifteen minutes too late to take part. One brigade (the Third) was absent on a reconnoissance; only the First and Second Brigades were in line. They made a handsome appearance. The One Hundred and Sixty-Fifth New York Infantry (Second Duryea Zouaves), Lieutenant-Colonel Smith in command, carried off the honors for best condition in everything.

Various rumors were in circulation in the city about this review, some people insisting upon it that the army under General Banks had fallen back from the Teche campaign, and the troops under review were a part of that army. Others said that General Banks had met with a bad defeat, and the troops were under orders to reënforce him. Numerous citizens industriously asked questions of the men at every opportunity; but, to give credit where it is due, the news they received must have puzzled if it did not mislead them. The men got the hang very quickly of what they were after, and acted accordingly. If instructions had been issued to cover such an attempt of the enemy’s spies to obtain information, they could not have been obeyed any better than was the case.

The true cause of such a hurried review of this division was soon apparent. General Sherman had received orders to report at Baton Rouge with two brigades. His three brigades, assigned to the Defences of New Orleans, were scattered along the various forts and entrances to the city, while the brigade not on review was distant some thirty miles on a reconnoissance; yet, in thirty-six hours after receipt of his orders, General Sherman had been rejoined by his Third Brigade, transferred some regiments of the Second to the First and Third, leaving the Second Brigade in the Defences, and was on his way, via the river, to Baton Rouge with two brigades to join General Augur in a demonstration against Port Hudson.

During the entire month men at Gentilly Camp and picket-stations on the lake were kept in a condition to move in twenty-four hours’ notice, in obedience to an order issued by the division commander. This was supplemented on the twenty-eighth by a confidential circular issued, to keep a careful watch and supervision at each camp and post, in such a manner as not to attract attention or excite alarm. All officers and men were obliged to remain in camp ready for any duty. Nothing of importance transpired during this time to furnish a key to these instructions. Perfect order and quiet reigned within the limits of the Defences of New Orleans.

Some changes in the commanding officers took place: Colonel Cahill, Ninth Connecticut Infantry, assumed command of the brigade on the ninth, and General Emory assumed command of the Defences New Orleans on the nineteenth.

No changes took place in the stations occupied by the Forty-Second. Companies A and F remained on picket at the lake. By Department General Orders, No. 35, issued April 27th, registered enemies of the United States were ordered, peremptorily, to leave the Department on or before May 15th. Many of them were sent by the provost-marshal-general via the lake. This placed extra duty on the men of the Forty-Second stationed there, as all of their baggage had to be overhauled and inspected upon the wharf before leaving, and guards furnished to steamers transporting them to points across the lake and on the Gulf shore. Large numbers were taken to Madisonville, Manderville, Pass Christian, Biloxi, Mississippi City, Pascagoula, and to Mobile.

Many captures were made of small boats endeavoring to get across the lake with supplies for the enemy. The occupants in every case escaped, for Department General Orders, No. 37, issued April 29th, announced that any person convicted before the commanding general of furnishing supplies to the enemy would suffer the penalty of death. In spite of this order attempts were constantly made, but the parties engaged in such acts lost no time in taking to the swamps when discovered at it.

The routine of guard and picket duty at this time is explained by the following letter to General Sherman:

“Headquarters 42d Regiment, Mass. Vols.,
“Camp Farr, Bayou Gentilly, La., May 5th, 1863.

“Sir,—I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your communication of the fourth instant. I would respectfully report the following facts concerning the guard duties at the mouth of Bayou St. John. Captain H. S. Coburn, of Company A, has under his command at that place: one sergeant, four corporals and thirty privates. He furnishes three sentinel-posts: one, a picket of three men at the extreme end of the bayou, who are relieved every twenty-four hours, one man being on duty all the time; the second post is at the quarters of the captain, and the third on the drawbridge across the bayou. These two posts are relieved every two hours by rotation of the men in the command. This manner of relieving the men at the last two posts is resorted to on account of the small command and to allow the men good rest between each tour of duty, for it often happens that six or ten men are called out in the night on extra duty, either to arrest some suspicious character or to watch for smugglers of contraband goods. One non-commissioned officer is detailed each day and has charge of the guard for the twenty-four hours, and his whole duty is to carefully observe all that is going on and to relieve the sentinels at proper hours. The reason of only five men appearing to be on duty at the time of the inspection was because the balance of the command was in line.

“In reference to the absence of the commanding officer at Bayou St. John, I have ascertained that he was away on Saturday afternoon at the lake-end of the bayou.

“Captain Coburn has frequently occasion to visit the office of the provost-marshal-general, and he had been away that day. It is found necessary to keep one commissioned officer at the mouth of the bayou all the time, for the purpose of examining passes, vessels, etc., going into and out of the bayou. Lieutenant Burrell has been in the habit of aiding Captain Coburn at times when he was in the city, and he was absent that day for this purpose, Captain Coburn having returned from General Bowen’s office a short time previous to your visit.

“Lieutenant Burrell has at Battery St. John thirty men. In reference to the absence of ten of his men, he reports as follows: two were away at Camp Farr for rations; three were at the lake-end of the bayou for a few days on account of sickness, and the surgeon considered a change good for them; two were in the city for a few hours on a pass; the remaining three were absent for a short time preparing a boat for use, in duty at the bayou.

“In regard to the strength of the guards within my command and the posts, I would respectfully report as follows:

“I have in this camp two companies for duty, viz., B and E. The number of effective enlisted men by this day’s report is one hundred and eighteen; commissioned officers, five. At this camp and from these companies I mount a daily guard, consisting of one commissioned officer, five non-commissioned officers and twenty-seven privates. This guard furnishes nine sentinel-posts. Five of these posts are a camp-guard, one at headquarters, one over the quartermaster’s stores, one at the crossing of the Ponchartrain Railroad and the Gentilly road, and one picket-station on the railroad in the direction of the city.

“At Battery Gentilly, near this camp, I have a detachment of Company A, consisting of one commissioned officer, two sergeants, three corporals and twenty privates. This detachment mans the guns, and for a guard mounts each day one non-commissioned officer and six men, furnishing two sentinel-posts: one on the parapet over the guns, and one as a picket-guard on the railroad and to prevent people from passing within the lines of the fort.

“At Lakeport Company F is stationed, under command of Captain J. D. Cogswell. He has at the present time eighty effective men, including non-commissioned officers. For a guard he mounts daily twelve men, having four sentinel-posts: two of these posts are on the wharf, for the purpose of observing all that transpires within sight on the lake and to detain all boats and persons from leaving the wharf without a proper pass; the second is at the entrance to the wharf, to keep order in the day-time, and to keep all persons from the wharf after nine p.m.; the third post is a picket-post and is rather more than a mile from the village, on the shore of the lake, at the “White House,” so called, for the purpose of observing all that transpires within sight of the lake, and to stop smugglers, etc.

“Besides these he sends a picket of six men and one sergeant to Bayou Cashon (eight miles distant), and these are relieved weekly. This picket is supplied with a small boat and sail, and can thus have communication with the commanding officer at any time.

“The schooner Hortense is sent to this picket-station every other day with fresh water and rations. In addition to the above sentinels and pickets, one corporal and four men are kept on the schooner Hortense at all times, ready for duty; also, two picket-boats have each a picked crew of one non-commissioned officer and two men, ready for duty at any time; at night they cruise back and forth (one on each side), from a point off the end of the wharf to points two miles from the wharf, for the purpose of intercepting smugglers of contraband goods.

“I believe the number of sentinels and location of all the posts in my command have now been stated, and I respectfully submit this report.

“I have neglected to state the number of sentinels at Battery St. John. At that place a daily guard of two privates and one non-commissioned officer is detailed. This guard is increased by one man every night. The first post is upon the bridge on the west side, the second upon the bridge on the east side of the fort; the extra man at night is placed on the parapet over the guns.

“I have the honor to remain,

“Respectfully, your obedient servant, “J. STEDMAN, Lieutenant-Colonel, “commanding 42d Regt., Mass. Vols.

“To Captain Wickham Hoffman, A. A. General,
“Second Division, 19th Army Corps, New Orleans.”

From the main camp at the bayou various details of men were made for all sorts of duty:

On the seventeenth—Company E proceeded to New Orleans and acted as a funeral escort to the remains of Captain Albert Coan, Company A, Twelfth Maine, who was buried from the St. James Hospital.

On the nineteenth—Sergeant Turner, Corporals Lowey and Turner, and seven privates of Company B, Corporal Lovly and five privates of Company E, in heavy marching order, relieved a guard of the One Hundred and Sixty-Fifth New York at the University Hospital, on Baronne Street, New Orleans; relieved in turn, on the twenty-seventh, by Sergeant Emerson, Corporal Southworth and six privates of Company E, and Corporals Fales, Wales, and six privates of Company B.

On the twenty-second—Two corporals and two privates from Company E, with four privates from Company B, were detailed for guard duty at the headquarters of General Emory, in the city.

The extra-duty detailed men were few:

May 13th—Corporal Henry Mellen, Company E, was made orderly at brigade headquarters, serving until relieved in July.

May 24th—Private Frank A. Smith, Company F, was made orderly at brigade headquarters, serving until relieved in July.

April 28th—Private Chauncey K. Bullock, Company D, was placed on duty as hostler at brigade headquarters until relieved May 19th.

Some men of the paroled camp, to vary the tedium of their life, began to trespass upon private property in the neighborhood. It was trivial in its nature, but, on complaint being made, orders were issued, April 1st, to stop such trespassing. This order not having the desired effect, a Board of Inquiry was held May 10th, at the paroled camp, to ascertain the basis of complaints that were made of destruction of fences and depredations upon property. The result was to locate the breach of orders on a few unprincipled paroled men, and to clearly establish that the greater number were behaving in a most praiseworthy manner.

On the seventeenth of June Privates Thomas F. Igo, Thomas P. Contillon and Thomas Dellanty, paroled men of Company I, were placed in arrest on a charge of disturbing persons and property near the camp; the only cases where discipline had to be enforced to stop it.

The bad feeling displayed by the Ninth Connecticut men at Lakeport towards Company F was renewed by men of that regiment detailed for provost-guard in New Orleans, towards men from the Forty-Second who were in the city on furlough. It culminated in a cowardly attack on Sergeant Waterman, Company D, and was the cause of another complaint being made on the twelfth of May, this time to the provost-marshal. The facts are set forth in the following letter:

“Headquarters Forty-Second Mass. Vols.,
“Camp Farr, Bayou Gentilly, La., May 12th, 1863.

“Sir,—I would respectfully bring to your notice and attention the manner in which one of the members of the provost-guard treated several enlisted men of this command after having demanded their passes, seen them, and pronounced them correct. The circumstances are as follows:

“Orderly-Sergeant Waterman, Sergeants Hewins and Sawyer, Corporal Merrill, and two privates of this regiment, paroled but unexchanged prisoners of war, were in New Orleans on Saturday, the ninth inst., for the purpose of witnessing the brigade review on that day, and, when coming down St. Charles Street, a soldier with a musket stopped them and demanded their passes; they were shown and pronounced correct. This man, representing himself as a member of the patrol, made some insulting remarks to Orderly-Sergeant Waterman and then seized him by the throat, whereupon the sergeant shook him off. The patrol then fixed his bayonet and charged upon Sergeant Waterman, striking him in the breast and inflicting a slight flesh wound, at the same time calling the sergeant ’a d—n son of a b—h’; at this point an officer came across the street and sent the whole party away. Up to the time of the officer making his appearance no other members of the patrol had been seen by any of the party alluded to, and the man who stopped them had no stripes or insignia of office on his clothing. The name of this patrol has since been ascertained to be Corporal James Gibbens, Company I, Ninth Connecticut Volunteers.

“The same day of the above occurrence Sergeant Waterman went up to the square to learn the name of the man who had assaulted him, and the lieutenant who commanded the guard that day refused to give it to him. After his interview with the lieutenant, this man, Gibbens, came along, and seizing Sergeant Waterman by the collar pushed him out of the square, at the same time calling him ‘a nine-months’ conscript son of a b—h,’ also using much profane language. Other members of Gibbens’ company stood looking on, advising him to kick the sergeant, break his head, etc. All this time Sergeant Waterman did not resist in any manner, or make any retaliatory reply.

“I believe that I can prove that said Gibbens has several times before this stopped soldiers in the street and demanded their passes, even when he had no arms and was entirely unaccompanied by any patrol or member of the provost-guard. Trusting that this matter may receive a rigid investigation,

“I have the honor to remain,

“Very respectfully, your obedient servant, “J. STEDMAN, Lieutenant-Colonel, “commanding 42d Regt., Mass. Vols.

“To Major Von Herman,
“commanding Provost-Guard, New Orleans.”

The provost-marshal promised to look into the affair and report what was done about it. Nothing further was heard about the matter.

With warm weather rapidly setting in, the unacclimated officers and men of the Forty-Second began to swell the sick list. Assistant-Surgeon Hitchcock, in charge of the regimental hospital, had been ordered to Berwick Bay on special duty April 19th, where a large number of sick and convalescent men from the army operating in the Teche district were in hospitals. On his departure, Assistant-Surgeon Heintzelman assumed charge of the regimental hospital at Bayou Gentilly, with the following organization: Private Charles H. Warren, Company F, acting hospital-steward; Private Thomas M. Lewis, Company D, ward-master; Private James Mitchell, Company B, nurse; Private William F. Lacount, Company F, nurse; Private Edwin Rycroft, Company K, nurse; Private John W. Robinson, Company K, nurse; Private Hiram B. Douglass, Company K, nurse; Private William Harris, Jr., Company I, cook; Private Archibald McDollen, Company E, cook. The arrangements of the hospital under Surgeon Heintzelman were excellent. He won the good opinion of all the men, with the exception of those who failed to play their points upon him by playing sick. His experience and knowledge promptly detected all such cases at surgeon’s call in the morning; the men being promptly returned back to their companies as fit for duty. These qualities in any officer never fails to command the good will, respect and confidence of the majority of men over whom he has control, for they feel that no shirks can cause extra duty to fall on other shoulders, because they cannot successfully evade it.

Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman and Major Stiles were on the sick list; the major in May and through June. Lieutenant Harding recovered and went to Port Hudson, May 25th, to join his company.

At the close of May there was present for duty, under orders of the lieutenant-colonel, seventeen officers and three hundred and fifty-seven men. Sick in regimental hospital, twenty-five men; and in quarters, ten men. The average sick per day for the month had been: taken sick, four; returned to duty, four; sick in hospital, twenty-four; sick in quarters, thirteen. On the seventeenth there were fifteen men of Company K in hospital, and on the twenty-third seventeen men of that company; nine of them were returned to duty on the twenty-sixth. About all sickness this month was among the men on duty. The paroled prisoners were in good health. Only one man of Company D was in hospital May 31st. Companies G and I did not have a case.

One death occurred. Private John H. Cary, Company G, May 6th, from delirium tremens, and he was buried near the camp. The case of Private Cary was the result of hard drinking. His body was found, badly decomposed, in the swamp by the roadside, not far from camp, on the thirteenth of May. Cary had been a hard drinker ever since his return from Texas, and shown such symptoms of delirium as to cause a watch to be kept on him. On the evening of the sixth he managed to get out of his tent without attracting the attention of any one, and immediately, it would seem, took to the swamp in the place where found, and there died. He was missed soon after disappearing, and for a week diligent search was made to find him. An impure odor, caused by decomposition of the body, attracted the attention of some members of the regiment passing by upon the road; they searched the swamp and found him. He was sitting at the foot of a tree, grasping with both hands the roots, with his legs immersed in mud almost to the knees. Thick bushes bordering on the swamp edge, by the roadside, screened him from being seen and prevented an earlier discovery. Cary was put in a box by the help of an old colored man, called John, who chopped wood in the camp. No one else could be induced to touch the body; but old John said: “I not afraid of a ’Yankee’ soger, sah! No sah, dead or alive, sah!” The remains were buried the same day with appropriate ceremonies.

This negro, John, was a camp follower from the time the regiment went into camp at Gentilly until it embarked for the North. He was formerly a slave, and lived a long distance from camp, but was always on hand at reveille, remaining until Peas on a Trencher, doing all the hard work of camp, splitting wood, getting water, etc., etc., and would work steady in the hottest sun, with perspiration coming from the pores of his skin like water. He worked for small pay; for a small sum of money sang the old religious hymns the negroes in that locality sang at their prayer meetings, danced as plantation darkies can dance, and was the jolliest old negro there was in camp. Old John’s wife did a large amount of washing for the boys, which brought additional picayunes to his wallet, and, although he made a few bad debts—some of the unprincipled men taking advantage of his ignorance to cheat him—on the whole, John made a good living from his labor for the Forty-Second. His boy was also a hanger-on at camp, but could not be made to do much work. This boy was a great imitator, and would watch attentively the drummers at practice, and soon became able to handle a drum with skill.

CHAPTER X.
Bayou Gentilly—June—Farewell to Gentilly Camp—In New Orleans.

The month of May passed rapidly without the occurrence of any event of importance to the regiment. With the commencement of June affairs in the Department began to assume such a shape as to lead officers of the Forty-Second to think the regiment was to get some service.

Affairs at Port Hudson reached a stage when reënforcements were needed to maintain the effective strength of the army, and to continue the siege. Troops from Brashear City and Ship Island were ordered to Port Hudson, and from Key West and Pensacola to New Orleans, while the small garrison in the Defences of New Orleans had to be ready for instant service at all hours. It was evident to all hands the regiment was about to be concentrated, as far as possible, to be able to meet any emergency, and soon was it verified.

The detachment at Battery St. John, about sixty men of Company A, was relieved by a detachment Fifteenth Massachusetts Battery, and returned to the regiment June 1st. On the third the detachment under Lieutenant Martin Burrell, Jr., at Battery Gentilly, about twenty men, was also relieved by a detachment Fifteenth Massachusetts Battery, and returned to the regiment. On the sixth Companies C and H marched into camp with about one hundred and forty men, from Camp Parapet, having been relieved from engineer service. With the exception of a detachment Company A, about forty men, at Lake-end Bayou St. John, Company F at Lakeport, and Company K at Port Hudson, the regiment was again united.

Upon receipt of orders from brigade headquarters to draw as many men as possible from the post at Lakeport, in case the regiment was ordered to move, leaving only a small picket-guard upon the Lake shore and a camp-guard to look after regimental property and the hospital at Gentilly, drills were immediately resumed to an extent allowed by hot weather, and inspections made to see if every man was in proper condition for duty. All parades of ceremony, drill and guard-mounting had to be made before eight o’clock A.M. or after six o’clock P. M. The sentinels had to have sun shelters erected, or were posted in the shade so far as practicable.

The exact state of affairs was not generally known. A majority of the men refused to believe that any danger existed, or that the regiment would do any field duty, arguing that concentration meant the regiment was to proceed home promptly on the expiration of its time of enlistment, June 25th, as they claimed. This was not so, and could not be.

At this time the entire Second Brigade, Second Division, Nineteenth Corps, composed of two New York batteries, three Massachusetts batteries, not equipped, one squadron cavalry, the Twenty-Sixth, Forty-Second and Forty-Seventh Massachusetts Infantry, Ninth Connecticut Infantry, a detachment One Hundred and Seventy-Fifth New York Infantry and Twenty-Eighth Maine Infantry, with some smaller detachments of troops, composed the garrison in New Orleans and its defences, who were under standing orders to be ready to move immediately with one hundred rounds of ammunition to each infantry-man.

On the ninth, after a mixed detachment of one hundred men under Captain Cook had left camp for Brashear City, everybody woke up and began to think there was music in the air, causing them to feel anxious for something to come next. Their anxiety was increased when Captain Cook and Lieutenant Clifford reported at the regimental hospital on sick leave, and told what a hole the detachment was in.

The case of Captain Cook was singular. Other than a thick-coated tongue, the captain did not show any signs or symptoms of illness. He did not go into the hospital, but lived in his company tent, ate heartily, and acted in every way like a well man. Surgeon Heintzelman said, as his private opinion, that the case was one of fright. It is true that Captain Cook did not do any more duty during the regiment’s term of service, but remained on the sick list.

Two men were noticed lurking around camp on the nineteenth, and were recognized by some of the paroled men as Texans from the Confederate army. They were arrested, and claimed to have left the service and had taken the oath of allegiance. As General Emory had issued orders on the fourteenth to arrest and send to him any person found lurking around the forts or intrenched positions, they were sent to his headquarters for examination. What became of them is not known.

Positive information having been received that the enemy was raiding on the west bank of the river and threatened to cut communication with Brashear City, on the nineteenth all troops of the Second Brigade were again ordered to have two days cooked rations on hand, and be in readiness to move any moment, and Colonel Cahill was ordered to concentrate the brigade as much as possible. All officers and men, of all arms, whether on detached service, provost duty, or other duty, were under orders to hold themselves ready to move, with cooked rations and one hundred rounds each man. All outlying companies were to be ready to move into the city at a moment’s notice, except the guard over prisoners at Algiers and the troops at Pass Manchac. All leaves of absence were absolutely stopped, and every officer and man obliged to remain at their quarters.

By the sudden departure of all available troops at New Orleans to reënforce Colonel Stickney at La-Fourche Crossing, orders were received at noon on the twenty-first, at the Forty-Second camp, to immediately report in Lafayette Square to General Emory, in heavy marching order. The picket-posts at Lakeport and Bayou St. John were also ordered to be weakened, that as many men as possible should join the regiment. At two P.M., having packed baggage and struck camp, leaving behind the surplus baggage, a hospital-guard and the paroled men of Companies D, G and I, the regiment proceeded by rail to the city, with a total effective strength of about two hundred men.

On first receipt of marching orders a general impression prevailed in the ranks that they were en-route for Port Hudson. The prospect of active field duty was hailed by every one with feelings of lively satisfaction. After lying inactive in camp for nearly the whole term of enlistment everybody thought the regiment was to see a little service before going home, and perhaps taste powder in a different way than by biting cartridges when loading for guard duty. These feelings were dispelled on arriving at Lafayette Square, where the regiment was ordered to take possession of the Ninth Connecticut Infantry camp and to do provost duty in the city; a few days after joined by a detachment Twenty-Eighth Maine Infantry, from Camp Parapet.

All convalescent men and stragglers in the city capable of bearing arms were collected together and made ready for duty in case of necessity. Private instructions were given Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman, by General Emory, to have every available man in quarters ready for any emergency at a moment’s notice. The regiment was kept so, for there could not have been over five hundred soldiers in the city from the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth.

The city was remarkably quiet at this time. Movements of the troops were made so quietly the citizens were not aware of what was going on. There was no indication among the populace that the enemy were near, or expected to get near. Some of them must have been aware of it, but gave no outward sign.

When the enemy ceased to seriously menace New Orleans, on the twenty-sixth, most of the troops at Boutee Station, on the Opelousas Railroad, returned to the city, including a part of the detachment Forty-Second, in command of Lieutenant Tinkham, and the Ninth Connecticut Volunteers. They brought with them a small number of Texan prisoners, who looked more like Mexicans than Americans. They looked clean, were well clothed in loose-fitting trousers and jackets of gray cloth, with large, slouchy-looking, gray felt hats. Their blankets, carried slung over the shoulder, were of the best quality, in fact, better than those in use by men of the Forty-Second. The complexion of these prisoners was quite dark, and they had a savage look in their faces.

Some slight disturbances, soon quieted, occurred between men of the Ninth Connecticut and Forty-Second Massachusetts, growing out of disputes as to who should occupy the tents in Lafayette Square. On this occasion the Ninth Connecticut again behaved in a disgraceful manner, more like rowdies and bullies than soldiers, and it appeared as though the line officers had no control over their men.

The Forty-Second marched back to its old camp-ground at Bayou Gentilly, five miles in a hot sun, on the afternoon of June 27th. Camp was put in order and arrangements made for a long stay, the picket-post detachments rejoined their stations, when, the next morning, twenty-eighth, orders were received, by a mounted orderly, to report at once in the city at the Custom House and occupy quarters vacated by the Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts Infantry. The entire regiment, with the exception of small detachments left on picket-stations, arrived at the Custom House during the afternoon.

This was a final farewell to Bayou Gentilly. The duty detachments left behind on this second breaking up of this camp were: two sergeants, four corporals and thirteen men of Company A, under Captain Coburn (who was not in condition for field duty), on picket at Bayou St. John; four sergeants, three corporals and thirty-four men of Company F on picket at Lakeport; Private Rufus C. Greene, Company G, placed on detached service June 25th, in command of picket-schooner Hortense; a hospital-guard of one sergeant, two corporals, and eighteen men of Company A. These picket-posts, the Gentilly Camp and paroled men were under command of Major Stiles, then not well and unfit for active duty. There were fifty-eight men under the surgeon’s care June 28th; twelve were returned to duty, and there was left, when the regiment moved, twenty-six men sick in hospital and twenty men sick in quarters.

The accommodations for troops at the Custom House were not good, and it seems a pity and a shame men were obliged to occupy such dark, damp and feverish quarters for any length of time. No surgeon could sanction the quartering of troops in the manner they were placed at this Custom House, except under the most pressing circumstances. The men were distributed in quarters, the guard of the Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts relieved, and by sunset the Forty-Second was in full possession of the New Orleans Custom House, with regimental headquarters established in a room formerly occupied by Major-General Butler. A few officers, who did not like their quarters, provided for themselves elsewhere in the neighborhood. This could not be tolerated at the time, owing to the peculiar position of affairs; General Emory insisted on all officers quartering with their men.

At midnight, on the twenty-ninth, the long-roll called the regiment to arms, and crossing Algiers Ferry to Algiers, a reconnoissance was made for some miles to find the enemy’s cavalry, reported to be on the river road below that town. None were found, or any traces of them, and at eight o’clock A.M. next day the regiment was back in quarters again. On this occasion Company C was thrown out in skirmishing order to move down the road and over fields that bordered on a woody swamp, and here they first discovered those watermelon patches which they afterwards despoiled of the luscious fruit. That night march, who can forget it? Awakened from a sound sleep, clothes and equipments put on quick, ferried across to Algiers, and then marched down a lonely road for several miles on a hunt for an imaginary foe. Lucky was the man who wore his overcoat, for the air was damp and chilly, though it was in June. Every sentry on guard at storehouses along the river front of Algiers was dressed in his great-coat; experience had taught them to fear the treacherous midnight air.

An effort was made by General Banks to reënlist men from the nine months’ troops for one, two, or three years, at their option. For some reason it was not successful. From the Forty-Second the only man who reënlisted was Musician Bernard McKenna, Company C, who was discharged May 25th to reënlist as a bugler in the Twenty-Sixth New York Battery. The same date, Lewis Eddy, drummer in Company D, was discharged by Department orders, and returned home.

In connection with this reënlistment attempt, more men from the Forty-Second would have done so but were unable, on account of disqualifications or irregularity on the part of recruiting officers. Privates Diomede Roseline, Company G, Luigi Briana, Company D, and John Brown, Company G, offered to enlist in a battalion called the First Louisiana Sharpshooters. Roseline and Brown were under parole and could not do so until duly exchanged, and Briana was not a member of the regiment. Somebody had given an alias to Captain Salla, commanding the First Louisiana; who it was could not be ascertained. Privates Charles Slattery and George Ward, Company C, were claimed by Lieutenant Whitaker, Second Rhode Island Cavalry, as having reënlisted in that regiment, but they changed their minds before they could be mustered in.

At the close of June there was present for duty in New Orleans, twelve officers and three hundred and eighty-two men. Sick in hospital and quarters, five officers and forty-six men. Twenty-nine of the men were in the regimental hospital at Bayou Gentilly. The officers sick and not on duty were: Adjutant Davis, Captain Cook, Company B, Captain Emerson, Company E, and Lieutenant Tinkham, Company B. Adjutant Davis was absent from June 25th to July 9th; Lieutenant Powers, who was relieved from charge of the paroled camp by Major Stiles, acted as adjutant during that time.

The average sick per day for the month had been: taken sick, five; returned to duty, four; sick in hospital, twenty-one; sick in quarters, thirteen.

The extra-duty details for June were:

June 8th—Sergeant T. M. Turner, Company B, and Sergeant George Bell, Company C, as color-bearers.

June 8th—Privates Everett A. Denny, Company E, and John A. Paige, Company B, as clerks at headquarters Defences of New Orleans. Private Paige returned to his company for duty June 26th.

June 14th—Corporal Alfred Thayer was made chief-wagoner, vice Wagoner John Willy, Company B, ordered to his company. Private George A. Davis, Company D, on duty in Company E, was made wagoner. Private Warren A. Clark, Company B, was made wagoner.

The deaths in June were:

June 5th—Private Nelson Wright, Company E, typhoid fever.

June 13th—Private Buckley Waters, Company E, chronic diarrhœa.

June 19th—Private Lewis E. Wales, Company B, typhoid fever.

June 30th—Private Benjamin Gould, Company G, congestion of the brain.

The case of Private Waters was not considered fatal up to the time of his death. The surgeons were inclined to think he was suffering more from home-sickness than disease. He died quietly in the evening, as the glee club, composed of Sergeant Hunt, Company I, Sergeant Waterman, Company D, Quartermaster Burrell, and Lieutenant Powers, Company F, were singing an appropriate song in the headquarters office, adjoining the hospital ward. They did not know that Waters was dying, and when the nurse asked some one in the ward to stop it Waters requested them not to do so, as he preferred to listen to the song.

Notwithstanding the general orders issued April 24th by General Sherman, to prevent sending North bodies of deceased persons until after decomposition had ceased, in order to prevent any quarantine to Government vessels, the bodies of Privates Nelson Wright and Lewis E. Wales were prepared and partially embalmed by the regimental surgeons for transportation home.

The operation was performed in the rear of the hospital, a guard being posted to prevent men from coming near who had curiosity to witness it. The skin upon the chest was first cut, and after removing a small bone in the upper part was laid back upon each side a sufficient distance for work. Interior parts of the chest were then taken out and examined, followed by removing the bowels; the vacant space thus left was filled with charcoal, the skin replaced and sewed together. The body was then packed in liquor, with the heart separate, and was ready to be sent home. The parts of bodies removed were properly buried. This process is similar to that of dressing cattle for market.

Private Wright, according to the surgeons’ testimony who examined his lungs, could not have lived much more than a year longer, as they were diseased.

Of those men who were curious to witness these operations, some would stand, eyes wide open, with no evidence of any feeling more than of wonder that the surgeons could handle their knives with so much composure; others would evince so much interest and desire to get near, in order to learn such secrets of the human system as they could, that they troubled the guards; while others had a look of sorrow on their countenances, and after a short stay would saunter slowly away in deep thought. No man knew whether he would or not be treated in the same manner in case he sickened and died.

Bodies sent home were invariably escorted a certain distance from camp by the regular Guard of Honor detail, according to the rank held by the deceased, with arms reversed, followed by the regiment with side arms, as mourners, the band playing a dirge. On arrival at the prescribed distance three volleys were fired over the remains, when the regiment marched back to camp, while the body was carried to New Orleans in an ambulance, attended by a few members of the company to which the deceased belonged, and put aboard some steamer for New York. In all such cases burial service was held in front of the hospital, in presence of the regiment.

The dead that were buried near camp were escorted to the grave, and burial service held there. After the service all passed around the coffin to take a last look of the remains before committal to the earth. Burials were solemn occasions, and it was plain to see such scenes were not without some influence on the men. He must be a hardened man who can gaze upon the remains of a departed comrade, perhaps a few weeks and sometimes only days before as full of life and hope as himself, but now cold, rigid and at rest, without some mysterious sensation creeping over him. The chances were that any one was as likely in a short time to be an inhabitant of the same ground as the one just buried.

All coffins were made of pine board, painted a dark brown color, filled with shavings on which to rest the body. They were very good for the kind, and answered the purpose for which they were intended. Each grave was marked with a head-board, on which was inscribed the name of deceased, rank, company, regiment, age, and time of death.

Privates John H. Cary, Benjamin Gould, and Sergeant Philip P. Hackett, of Company G, Private Buckley Waters, Company E, Private Rufus G. Hildreth, Company C, and Private Thomas J. Clements, Company H, were buried at Bayou Gentilly. Their graves were situated near three large oak trees, between them and the swamp, at the end of the Gentilly race-course, looking towards it from the Ponchartrain Railroad. Some three or four soldiers of a native guard regiment (Union colored troops) were also buried at the same spot.

Chaplain Sanger officiated at these burial services. His remarks were generally to the point and well delivered. A brief resume of the deceased soldier’s life, as far as known, was usually given, and a prayer offered for his relations. The chaplain always attended to notifying relations of their loss, forwarding the personal effects, any rings or valuables, together with locks of hair taken from the person before burial. This duty was done well and conscientiously. It is not pleasant, however, to record that Chaplain Sanger was not popular with the command. A feeling was first manifested by the Galveston prisoners, and by them communicated to the rest of the regiment. The only reason for this, so far as could be ascertained, was that they did not like his behavior when the prisoners were marched from Texas to the Union lines. They accused him of neglect to their sick and suffering when he should have at least tried to do something for them; of currying favor with the Confederate officers in such a manner to lead them to suppose he was deficient in manly bearing.

On this march Chaplain Sanger was sick with diarrhœa, and remained so for some time after reaching regimental headquarters, a fact sufficient to account for any lack of energy he did display. He always spoke well of the men, was anxious to do for their good and to gain their esteem. That he did not do so was a misfortune for both. Many regarded the chaplain as ranking among some of the best that left Massachusetts. Except a rather quick temper, his personal behavior was in keeping with his profession.

Private William F. Lacount, Company F, a hospital nurse, acted as chaplain on Sundays from the time the regiment arrived in Louisiana, in December, until Chaplain Sanger returned with the paroled men, afterwards conducting divine service on the Sabbath at the paroled camp; the chaplain officiating at the regimental camp. It was thought proper to have these separate services on account of the feeling prevalent. Private Lacount deserves much credit, more than he received, for the able and intelligent manner in which he performed these volunteer duties. He displayed a true Christian spirit and was satisfied in doing good.

CHAPTER XI.
BRASHEAR CITY.
On Active Service—Action of June Twenty-third—Captured—Paroled and Returned to Algiers.

Colonel Cahill, Ninth Connecticut Infantry, commanding Second Brigade, Second Division, Nineteenth Army Corps, issued, June 9th, 1863, Special Orders No. 97, for Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman to have Company B, with details from other companies sufficient to make the full strength three officers and one hundred men, with one day’s cooked rations in the haversacks and at least forty rounds of ammunition to each man, proceed at once to Algiers and report to Captain Schenck, ordnance officer at the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western Railroad depot, for transportation to Brashear City, and there report to Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney, Forty-Seventh Massachusetts Infantry, commanding the post.

Regimental Special Orders No. 107 were immediately issued, detailing Sergeant Charles L. Truchon, Corporal Francis N. Luce and eighteen privates of Company E, Corporals Charles M. Marden, —— Smith and twenty-three privates of Company H, Corporal John F. Cushing and eleven privates of Company A, to report to Captain Cook, commanding Company B. The lieutenants who accompanied the detachment were First-Lieutenant Benjamin C. Tinkham and Second-Lieutenant Joseph C. Clifford, both of Company B.

In heavy marching order this detachment left Gentilly Camp about half-past two o’clock the same afternoon orders were issued, and took the train for New Orleans, proceeding at once to Algiers, where a train made up of box and platform cars carried the men to Brashear City. They started about five o’clock and arrived about midnight, after a tiresome ride of eighty miles. In passing through New Orleans to the Algiers Ferry suspicious actions of two privates in the detachment were noticed, and Sergeant T. M. Turner, Company B, was ordered to keep in the rear and watch them, to prevent their desertion, an object they evidently had in view.

When General Banks made his first campaign through the Teche country towards Red River, in April and May, 1863, a garrison was left at Brashear City, and Berwick on the opposite side of the Atchafalaya River; Colonel Walker, Fourth Massachusetts Infantry, in command of the post, with his own regiment, and the Sixteenth New Hampshire Infantry forming a part of the garrison. The post was a base of supplies for the army in the field, and contained general hospitals to relieve the field hospitals of sick and wounded men, who are always sent to the rear as fast as possible. Naturally, a large amount of army material would accumulate at such a post.

From Algiers to La-Fourche the posts upon the railroad line were occupied by the Twenty-Third Connecticut Infantry, and the posts from Terrebonne to Brashear were in charge of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Infantry.

All was quiet at these various posts until the latter part of May, the detachments on duty having what soldiers call “a soft thing.” On the twenty-first of May Colonel Chickering, commanding Forty-First Massachusetts Infantry, and other troops, convoying an immense train of six hundred wagons, three thousand horses and mules, one thousand five hundred head of cattle, with six thousand negro camp followers, who expected to locate on Government plantations in La-Fourche and adjoining parishes, left Barre’s Landing at daybreak on the march for Berwick, where he arrived May 26th, closely followed by the Confederate forces operating under the command of Major-General “Dick” Taylor. By the thirtieth all of this force under Colonel Chickering had proceeded to Port Hudson, including the Fourth Massachusetts and Sixteenth New Hampshire Regiments. On June 1st Colonel Holmes, Twenty-Third Connecticut, assumed command of Brashear City, with portions of his own regiment and that of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York in occupancy of the post.

In a few days Colonel Holmes was taken sick, and, as Colonel Nott, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, was also sick, the command fell to Lieutenant-Colonel ----, Twenty-Third Connecticut. He, frightened by the situation of affairs and deficient in nerve, was relieved by General Emory, who sent Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney from New Orleans to take command. Stickney was on detached service from his regiment, having been made inspector-general of the Defences of New Orleans June 6th, with orders to commence a thorough inspection of convalescent and other camps.

The troops on duty in Brashear under Stickney comprised detachments from the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, Twenty-Third Connecticut and Forty-Second Massachusetts Infantry, Twenty-First Indiana Artillery, one company of the Corps de’Afrique (colored troops), and various cavalry squads, in all about six hundred effective men. Adjutant Whiting, Twenty-Third Connecticut, was post-adjutant; Quartermaster Kimball, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, post-quartermaster; Lieutenant Kinsley, Forty-Seventh Massachusetts, was serving as an aide-de-camp.

The post hospital contained many sick and wounded soldiers, who were removed to New Orleans when able to undergo the journey. At one time near one thousand convalescent soldiers, capable of bearing arms in an emergency, were in camp at Brashear. A large amount of baggage, commissary, quartermaster and medical stores, cannon, arms and ammunition was stored in various buildings and places. Part of the baggage and stores was removed to Algiers previous to June 21st.

Passing the night of their arrival in bivouac about the depot, next day the detachment was ordered by Stickney to quarter in the depot building, and do picket duty upon the railroad line and guard a water tank used by locomotives of the road. Excursions across the river to Berwick were in order almost every day, to drive out cavalry scouts of the enemy and obtain cattle. The enemy always returned when the way was clear for them to do so, and an exchange of shots across the river was of frequent occurrence. The weather was extremely hot. There was some movement made by the troops each day, with guard, patrol and picket duty to be done at night. Mosquitos were thick and blood-thirsty enough to cause refreshing sleep to be an impossibility. With difficulty could food be obtained to serve out with any semblance of regularity. Food was plenty, but there was no system in delivering rations. The men were gradually becoming worn out.

The time and energy of all troops at the post was frittered away in this manner without any good accruing from it; instead of devoting the same time and labor to what was absolutely needed, i. e., to prepare defences for use in case of emergency, with plenty of idle convalescent men at hand capable of rendering assistance, besides a large number of negroes whose labor could be utilized. No intelligent attempt was made to organize the convalescent men for service, or to render efficient a number of field-guns that were in Brashear, posted on the river front.

The enemy was active in an annoying sort of way across the river, on the Berwick side, after it had been abandoned by troops of the garrison, and on the line of the Atchafalaya River. Danger of an attack existed from the first day of June.[10] The officers of the Forty-Second detachment soon learned from various sources that the situation was rather ticklish. Even privates came into possession of information, from the many negroes in and around Brashear, that the enemy was up to mischief, and trying to get in between Brashear and New Orleans, upon the line of railroad.

[10] The official report of General Banks mentions the fact that the officials at Brashear City were fully warned of danger, by orders, and the disaster was due to the carelessness and disobedience of subordinates. General Emory sent word by a steamer (after the telegraph line was severed) to hold out to the last. The place was captured before this steamer could arrive.

Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney was not a man calculated to inspire confidence as to his military abilities. He had a habit of riding around, often alone, to give verbal orders for all sorts of petty things, and to find fault with trifles. As to perfecting the organization of what troops he had, or establishing any system out of the chaos that existed, there seems to be but one verdict from those on duty under him. He did nothing. No one knew what the position of other bodies of troops would be in case of an attack; no one knew what was expected or required to be done in case the enemy appeared. No one knew where to expect support in case of need, or to whom or how to render such support if wanted. Lieutenant Tinkham reports that there did not seem to be a head to anything. First-Sergeant Ballou reports that most of his time was occupied in finding food for the detachment, and that it appeared to him as though the Forty-Second were visitors who had remained too long, but did not leave because there was no one to tell them to go. The testimony of all the observing men is of a like nature.

All the various detachments on duty had no knowledge of each other, were acting without concert, had never before co-operated, were entirely destitute of esprit de corps, while a half-regiment on duty would have had all of these essentials, so requisite to a body of men expected to defend an important post in daily danger of an attack. It would be safe to say, not in a boastful spirit, had the four or six companies of the Forty-Second Regiment, in camp at Bayou Gentilly and at the posts on Lake Ponchartrain, been at Brashear, that place would not have been lost without a fight of some duration. Under their own officers, the companies well acquainted with each other and of excellent material, cohesion and confidence would have existed, that made a gallant stand not only possible but almost certain. When Sir John Moore organized and disciplined the British army at Shorncliffe, it was on the basis of the regimental system. The object of this system was to make each regiment a living unit, by making officers and men thoroughly acquainted with each other. This engenders a feeling of close comradeship which is exemplified even now in the many regimental reunions that annually take place, where old times are revived and talked over without regard to present station in life.

The Forty-Second Regiment, since the days of Readville Camp, had shown on several occasions this feeling of comradeship. The men knew their officers (some of those officers better than they knew themselves), and with the companies at Gentilly Bayou were officers who had only to say what they wanted done, when the men would have done it without hesitation or fear.

Under the circumstances, as they existed, the congregation of troops at Brashear could not be expected to have done any better than they did.

June 14th Captain Cook obtained sick leave, and returned to the regiment at Bayou Gentilly. The men said, “his boots hurt him.” This hit can be appreciated by those who remember the elaborate high-top boots the captain was wont to wear. June 18th Lieutenant Clifford and a few enlisted men did the same thing. Lieutenant Clifford suggested to Lieutenant Tinkham how easily he could obtain sick leave also, if he desired; but Tinkham refused to entertain such an idea, preferring to stand by his men, and remained, the only commissioned officer with the detachment. The same day Clifford left, Sergeant Albert L. Clark, Company B, then at Gentilly, was ordered to his company at Brashear. In view of what subsequently happened, it seems a pity that two officers from the regiment of sound judgment and undoubted courage were not ordered to Brashear also.

The most extended scout in which any part of the detachment participated was on June 17th, when the steamer Kepper and gunboat Hollyhock, three guns, which had arrived on the sixteenth, carried a company One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, a few cavalry, and a detachment Forty-Second Massachusetts, under Lieutenant Clifford, the entire force in command of a captain, One Hundred Seventy-Sixth New York, for a trip up the Bayou Teche to Pattersonville, on a foraging expedition. This expedition started at four o’clock in the morning. On landing, a skirmish line was formed and marched inland from the bayou. The line was then swung around in half-circle form, driving in all live stock that was found, aggregating some one hundred head of horses, mules, and cattle of all kinds. The day was, as usual, extremely hot, and when they arrived on the bayou the cattle were allowed a rest previous to attempting to make them take the water and be swum across. When a large bull had been caught, and by aid of boat and rope pulled into the water, with an encouraging prospect that the rest would follow, word was given by a lookout on the Hollyhock, “the enemy’s cavalry are coming!” The usual exaggerated stories were afloat at once. The report gained credence that their force was five thousand strong. A cool head would have known better. As a matter of fact the enemy was not over one hundred strong, probably nearer fifty men, while the Federals numbered about one hundred and fifty men.

Ordered to cease work, the troops hastened on board the Kepper, leaving the cattle to roam back to their homes and be picked up by the planters, who had followed the troops, protesting against taking their stock, for they were good Union men; at the same time they undoubtedly conveyed word to the enemy of what was going on. On arrival at Brashear, about five o’clock in the afternoon, it was found that quite a number of men were missing. The Kepper took aboard two guns, as an addition to her small armament, and volunteers were called for, to go back as a guard and assist in finding the stragglers. Tired and hungry as they were, without food all day (rations had not been carried in haversacks), volunteers were numerous. Going back a few miles, an exchange of shots with the enemy’s cavalry took place. The infantry upon the Kepper fired away most of their ammunition without doing any execution, because the Confederate cavalry kept at a respectful distance. A hail from the right bank of the river disclosed all of the stragglers, about twenty and mostly New York men, who were taken on board.

On the way back to Brashear a sad accident happened to a private of the New York company, who was leaning upon his rifle, when it was by some accident discharged; the ball entered his head, causing instant death. There were no other casualties during the day, unless what happened to Corporal Lowery, of Company B, can be so called. The corporal was out with a forage party when they came to a high board fence, and instead of lending a hand to break it down he chose to jump over at a place that was rather low, to land on the other side in a bee-hive. The bees stung him badly before he could get away from them. It was sport for lookers-on, but no fun for the corporal.

On the morning of the twentieth, shortly after midnight, Sergeant Ballou with twenty men was sent upon the gunboat Hollyhock to assist in obtaining and removing three heavy cannon that were in battery upon an island in the river, some few miles below Brashear City, where an earthwork had been constructed named Fort Chene, garrisoned by a detachment of the Twenty-First Indiana Artillery, under Lieutenant Sherfy, and one company, about thirty men, of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, under Lieutenant Kerby. It was understood that, by orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney, the fort was to be evacuated and destroyed, and the garrison, with the cannon, was to proceed to Bayou Bœuff.

Lieutenant Tinkham, with all the business on his hands that one man would care to undertake, had not been able to obtain any sleep for many hours, and had just lain down to take some needed rest, immediately after the detail of men for the gunboat had started, when a train of cars was run into the depot. Thinking it strange, with his curiosity aroused to learn what was taking place, caused him to remain wide awake while the rest of his men slumbered. Very soon after detachments of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York and Twenty-Third Connecticut Infantry, without music, quietly filed into the depot in light marching order. Still watching what was going on, Stickney approached and wanted to know why the men of the Forty-Second were not ready to board the train. No orders had been received to that effect from any source, and so Tinkham informed him. Stickney disputed this, and curtly gave the detachment a limited number of minutes to get ready. The time was extremely short, and without rations the lieutenant with about fifty men, all there was with him at the time, took the train and left Brashear City for La-Fourche. Orders were left with the sentries on duty for Sergeant Ballou to follow as soon as possible with the balance of the detachment. General Emory had telegraphed from New Orleans for Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney, with all of his available force, to proceed to La-Fourche, as the enemy might attempt to sever communications.

The departure of Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney left Major Anthony, Second Rhode Island Cavalry, in command of the post. It seems that Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney, for some trivial matter, had placed Lieutenant-Colonel Duganne, commanding One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, under arrest on the sixteenth, but had released him from arrest on the evening of the eighteenth, with an understanding that Duganne would report for duty in a few days, that officer pleading illness as a reason for not returning to duty immediately. Abruptly ordered away at midnight, before Duganne was on duty, caused Stickney to place the post in command of Major Anthony, the next senior officer fit for duty in Brashear. This should not have prevented Duganne, by virtue of his senior rank, assuming command the next day, twentieth, when he returned to duty. Lieutenant-Colonel Duganne was in command of troops in the garrison; Major Anthony was not. Even if Duganne had done so, that any prompt measures for defence, backed up by pluck and determination, would have been attempted is very doubtful. The defence of Bayou Bœuff by this officer answers the doubt.

Major Anthony did not possess the qualities to make a successful soldier. There were line officers in the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, on duty under him, more competent to assume command. A good idea of the kind of soldier Major Anthony was is afforded by an incident that occurred on a scout made on the Berwick side. Some of the Forty-Second detachment on this scout, under Captain Cook, inclined to have some fun out of it, on the sly would dig the pigs in their vicinity, that were running around loose, with the points of their bayonets, causing them to give an occasional squeal. To this amusement the major took exceptions, and because Captain Cook could not detect men in the act, or cause them to stop, he was threatened with arrest by the gallant major.

What did it matter if a few pigs were touched up with bayonets? there was work to do of more importance than to fret and fume over a thing so insignificant; but so it was with the post-commanders at Brashear in June, 1863. Instead of bending their energies and giving their time and thought to the critical situation of affairs, they preferred and did do nothing but put on airs about trifles.

Sergeant Ballou, with his men, arrived at the depot from Fort Chene about daylight with the guns. The guard, about twenty men under Sergeant Turner, that had been sent out early on the morning of the nineteenth for twenty-four hours duty at the water tank, situated nearly a mile from the depot upon the railroad line, came in about the same time. The men were mustered and found to number forty-five.

Everything had the appearance that morning of an intention to vacate Brashear. The remaining cars, about fifty, mostly box cars, were made up into a train, with half of them loaded with stores of all kinds, the other half occupied by all of the men who could go. With the locomotive La-Fourche attached, it was about four o’clock in the afternoon when a start was made. Upon stopping at Bayou Bœuff, seven miles out, the rumor was current there, among the troops and people, that the force which left Brashear early that morning had been taken prisoners at La-Fourche, the track torn up, and the enemy waiting for the next train to come along. The train was run some thirteen miles further and then stopped near Chucahoula by some whites and blacks, who signalled the engineer.

As previously instructed, on coming to a stop, one-half of the troops formed upon each side of the train and awaited orders. No reconnoissance was made. A Captain Bailey, deputy provost-marshal at Houma, had arrived at Brashear during the day and reported “rebs” upon the road between Houma and Tigerville. This report was undoubtedly true, for the enemy scouted continually upon all of the roads in La-Fourche Parish; still an armed reconnoissance by the troops might have developed a fighting chance to get through by a bold dash. As it was, no enemy was seen, although they may have been in ambush. Most of the soldiers were chagrined at going back without an attempt to push through to La-Fourche Crossing, eight miles further on. Telegraphic communication had been severed between Brashear and La-Fourche during the day, and the report that a rebel battery and cavalry commanded the track was accepted as gospel truth by some of the officers, and in a short time the train was ran back slowly to Brashear, arriving about ten o’clock the same evening. The Forty-Second detachment again occupied the depot building, without orders from any source.

Berwick City was shelled, set on fire, and partially destroyed by the gunboat Hollyhock during the afternoon, after the train left Brashear. The light of burning buildings was visible to those upon the train as they were returning. It is supposed that the gunboat commander considered the evacuation completed when the train started, and that it would run through without any trouble; then shelling Berwick, in retaliation for the annoyance from there by the enemy, and taking on board a few officers and men, had steamed down the river out of the enemy’s range and there remained to watch further Confederate movements.

A heavy rain-storm set in the next day, Sunday, June 21st, in the afternoon, continuing that day and all night. Some of the negroes were armed, equipped, and organized into a company, by a few of the non-commissioned officers of the Forty-Second detachment. Late in the afternoon Lieutenant-Colonel Duganne collected all the men of his regiment he could and proceeded to Bayou Bœuff, in accordance with an understanding with Major Anthony. Captain Hopkins, with a company Twenty-Third Connecticut, was stationed at Bayou Ramos, six miles from Brashear, to guard the railroad bridge. These dispositions appear to have been foolishly made. They were thus strung seven miles out from Brashear, without any food supply except what could be daily sent to them by cars, instead of concentrating at Brashear, where danger existed, and all of the necessary equipment was on hand for defence and to subsist, if properly applied.[11]

[11] Duganne, on his arrival at the Bœuff, received information from Lieutenant Robens, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, who was deputy provost-marshal at Tigerville, that a Union fugitive from Alexandria had, on the preceding Thursday, informed him that General Taylor, with fifteen thousand men (how figures do swell as they travel), was moving down the Teche River for a movement upon New Orleans.

When Stickney left for La-Fourche with all of the troops not on duty as guards, pickets, or were straggling, the force of duty men left behind was quite small. When Duganne went to Bayou Bœuff, this force was so reduced that there were in Brashear, on the morning of the twenty-second, the convalescent soldiers, some colored troops, about one hundred men of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Infantry and Twenty-First Indiana Artillery Regiments at Fort Buchanan, forty-five men of the Forty-Second Massachusetts at the depot, and various small squads of guards over property. The fort mounted ten heavy siege-guns, for use on the water face only, commanding the rivers Teche and Atchafalaya, from a point above the fort where they make a junction. These guns were of no use whatever to repel a land attack, as they could not be swung around. No attempt was ever made to throw up breastworks to cover the open rear. The only guard against a rear attack was to station pickets in the wooded swamp.

During the twenty-second, the Forty-Second men subsisted as best they could, appropriating provisions found in the depot and vicinity. No orders from any officer were received by Sergeant Ballou, who was in a quandary as to what he should do. The post-commandant had two platform cars arranged with a barricade of railroad sleepers, with two 12 Pr. howitzers mounted upon them. These cars were sent out late in the morning, under command of Lieutenant Stevenson, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, with a small force of infantry acting as sharpshooters, to reconnoitre upon the railroad. This train returned in about two hours, after proceeding to Terrebonne, three miles from La-Fourche, where the enemy was found tearing up rails, and a few shots exchanged with a battery commanding the track.

About nine o’clock that night, Lieutenant Robens, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, was sent by Duganne from Bayou Bœuff to report to Major Anthony that a scout had brought in the intelligence of boats seen crossing Lake Pelourde; a movement which threatened both Brashear and the Bœuff, in the rear, but no steps were taken to meet it.[12]

[12] The Confederates, under Major Hunter, started at six P.M. on the twenty-second, in forty-eight skiffs and flats, from the mouth of the Teche, up the Atchafalaya into Grand Lake, where oars were muffled, and then a pull of about eight hours landed them in rear of Brashear City.

Near sunrise on the morning of the twenty-third the four-gun Confederate (Valverde) battery opened fire from Berwick upon the depot building, situated upon the river front with a wharf attached. A few solid shot crashed through that structure, and some shells reached the wharf and convalescent camp. The men under Sergeant Ballou turned out promptly, attempting to silence the battery by opening fire from the railroad wharf, but their Springfield smooth-bore guns would not carry bullets across. The gunboat fired a few rounds and then proceeded down the river without further effort to silence the battery. Some Confederate riflemen, in support of the battery, joined in the fun, blazing away lively, sending some shots well across the water (about eight hundred yards), without inflicting any serious loss. Of the Forty-Second, Sergeant Turner, Company B, had a bullet go through his blouse sleeve at the elbow. An old iron 6 Pr. gun, which was mounted upon the wharf, trained upon the Berwick side, was put into use without effect.

About an hour after this amusement commenced a few men of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, under Lieutenant Stevenson, commander of the provost-guard, hauled a 24 Pr. gun, from the river front below, to the depot, and placed it into position, opening a fire with shells, which soon caused the Confederate battery to limber up and get out of the way. At this period there was a mixed assemblage around the depot, composed, in part, of infantry men belonging to the Forty-Second, yet Sergeant Ballou received no orders or instructions. He was ignorant of how matters stood, or the positions of what few troops remained at the post, and as to any knowledge if the post-commandant was in existence an unborn child was as learned.

Not long after this, about six o’clock, Privates Lovell and Redmond, Company A, who were on their regular tour of duty watching the surrounding country from the cupola of the depot building, saw the Confederates dash out from the woods between Fort Buchanan and the convalescent camp. Fort Buchanan was about two miles from the depot, while the camp was about one-quarter of a mile away. Giving the alarm, they joined their comrades below. In not over thirty minutes the enemy was seen coming from the direction of the fort, while some of the convalescent soldiers ran down from their camp at the same moment, shouting: “the rebs are coming!”

Major Sherod Hunter (of Baylor’s Texas Cavalry), with a small force of three hundred and twenty-five Texans (picked men), had got in from the swamps, situated in rear of the tented camps that were between the depot and fort, meeting with a slight resistance. Hunter got through about four o’clock A.M., when, on arrival in view of an imposing display made by the tents of the convalescent camps and those occupied by the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York and Twenty-Third Connecticut, left standing when the men went to La-Fourche and the Bœuff, with all of their baggage in them, including knapsacks, blankets and extra clothing, his men fancied a large army was before them, and fled back to the swamps from whence they came, but Hunter succeeded in rallying them in season to make the attack as stated.[13]

[13] Major Hunter does not mention this fact in his official report. His men did say so, however, and it is the enlisted men who state facts seldom found in official reports. All of the Confederate documents relating to Brashear City, Bayou Bœuff and La-Fourche are an eulogy of their own prowess.

When the alarm by the lookout was given, Sergeant Ballou did not know what to do. Neither himself or the detachment had been under fire at close quarters. He thought of the train upon the track, loaded and ready, to be moved to Algiers if an opportunity offered, but could not find any matches handy with which to fire it. Then he thought of deploying the men as skirmishers, hold the enemy in check, retreat gradually, and try to escape capture. Not knowing the country, he finally concluded to get his men into line upon the railroad track and do the best he could with them.

What defence was made by other troops seems to have been in the use of artillery by small detachments, and scattered squads of infantry. All of these isolated attempts to fight showed good pluck and courage, a sure sign that if handled properly in a body it would not have been a holiday affair for the enemy. Captain Cutter, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, on the sick list and in hospital, was killed while rallying men among the tents. The isolated squads of brave fellows were soon put to flight. Major Anthony had been down to the depot when the battery opened fire from Berwick, also Captain Noblett, artillery commander at Fort Buchanan, but both started for the fort when the dash was made from the woods. Major Anthony got there; Captain Noblett had his horse shot, was dismounted, and sought refuge in the hospital. Beyond an endeavor, crowned with success, to get a gun from the fort into position to use upon the land side, and firing a few shots, no defence was made by troops in the fort. Lieutenant Stevenson and his men in charge of the 24 Pr. gun attempted to use it against the enemy, but were shot down and captured.

The Forty-Second detachment, with a number of other soldiers on duty, also some convalescent men, took position in a small ditch alongside the railroad track, behind box cars, while what colored troops were on the right occupied the barricaded platform cars, and a few men were left in the depot building to defend the door.

The enemy skirmished up to within ten paces of the train; a skirmish fire continued for about half an hour. On the Confederate side, their firing was wild for a time, most of their shots going over the cars. From the Federals the firing was also rather wild, but they managed to do some execution, about forty of the enemy being killed and wounded.[14] At the end of a half hour the colored troops suddenly stampeded to the woods, the enemy got into the depot and around the head of the train, opening a fire upon the flanks and rear. A few men had fallen previous to this time, and now, under this cross-fire, they commenced to drop quick, most of the casualties among convalescent men.

[14] Hunter says he lost three killed, eighteen wounded. His orders were to concentrate at the railroad buildings. He says the forts made but a feeble resistance, and each column pressed on the point of concentration. At the depot the fighting was severe, but of short duration. He claims the Federals lost forty-six killed, forty wounded.

In the absence of any orders, with no sign or hope of assistance, Sergeant Ballou sang out: “Boys, take care of yourselves!” when the men broke, some for the woods and swamp, a short distance away, a few to fall back, under Sergeant Turner, maintaining a fire from behind trees and buildings until they reached a saw-mill on the river, where a number of unarmed sick and convalescent men had taken refuge to be out of danger. Here an officer of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York with some men of that regiment were found, and a fusillade with the enemy was kept up for some time. Two convalescent men were wounded by this scattered fire, when the officer, who did not stand up to his duty (preferring to lie down), raised a white handkerchief upon his sword-point and surrendered the party about nine o’clock.

Privates Redmond, Company A, and Albee, Company B, in company with a few One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York soldiers, fell back to a breastwork to make a further stand. As there was no possibility of making a successful defence, and no way of escape except by swimming the river, it was decided to surrender, in turn. A handkerchief was raised by Albee, attached to his musket, from which the lock had been shot off without his knowing it, and a surrender was made of this knot of men.

Private Lovell, Company A, and six men of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York escaped in the only boat to be found at this point, landing at Fort Chene, thence going aboard the gunboat. Lovell jumped into the boat just as it was pulled off and nearly capsized the party. Little Franklin Borden, fourteen years old, fifer for Company B, who was on duty with the detachment, managed to get a small skiff and also escaped to the gunboat. He was fired upon by Texans, shot striking the water all around him, their only effect to cause the little fellow to hurry up and get out of range as soon as possible and to yell like an Indian. The eight men who escaped were put on board a steam-transport from New Orleans that was met in the river, bound for Brashear to assist in removing material of war, and were brought to New Orleans.

Before he ordered his men to take care of themselves, Sergeant Ballou was severely wounded by a rifle-ball in the left arm, near the wrist, and Private Cook received his fatal wound. Ballou asked Private George Kingsbury, Company B, to assist him in binding up his arm, and while doing so about twenty Texans made a rush upon them, with a demand for their surrender. A Confederate lieutenant gave orders to shoot them down, because there was a flag of truce displayed while the firing continued. An appeal to Major Hunter was necessary to prevent this barbarity, the sergeant not being aware of any flag of truce having been raised, and informed the major that he did not raise one. This was settled satisfactorily, and the few men left with Ballou were taken prisoners.

Corporal Fales, Company B, had noticed the flag of truce when it was raised near the railroad wharf, by whom nobody knew, either at that time or after. If it was not a trick of the enemy, famous at such games in small actions, then it must have been done by some of the other men on duty, or from convalescents who wished to surrender. In either case it had no reference to or binding force upon the men who had the courage to make a fight. Each knot of men act for themselves in an action of this character. Fales spoke to Private Young, Company B, saying: “It is foolish to stand where we are and be shot down or to surrender with the flag of truce,” and both fell back behind a house near by, from there ran into the woods and swamp, and were joined by Privates Nathaniel Ide, David Robinson, George S. Rice, a private of the Twenty-First Indiana, and a sergeant of the Twenty-Third Connecticut. They endeavored to travel southward in the swamp, with an idea of reaching Shell Island, expecting to be able to escape from there towards Algiers. Their food gave out, and finally, after trying to live upon uncooked green corn with salt pork, not daring to make a fire, they surrendered to Colonel Baylor at Bayou Bœuff, on Sunday, the twenty-eighth, after five days’ life in the swamp. About eleven men escaped by the railroad track to Bayou Bœuff, and reported for duty to Lieutenant-Colonel Duganne, commanding post.

The casualties to the detachment were:

Private Lawson Comey, Company H, twenty-five years old, shot in the head and killed before the detachment scattered.

Private William E. Cook, Company B, twenty years old, wounded in abdomen, dying the same day.

First-Sergeant George W. Ballou, Company B, severely wounded in left arm just before the detachment scattered.

Private George E. Clark, Company B, severely wounded in calf of left leg.

Several men had narrow escapes from wounds or death, for bullets grazed clothing, muskets, and accoutrements.

At Bayou Bœuff, on the morning of the twenty-fourth, Lieutenant-Colonel Duganne found he had only seventy-two infantry and forty artillery men for duty, instead of two hundred and fifty men with him the day before. This does not speak well for the officers on duty, that over one hundred men should have disappeared during the night. Everything was entangled. When an engineer ran two locomotives into the Bœuff the morning before, bringing news of the capture of Brashear City, and men who had escaped capture came straggling in and corroborated the engineer’s story, the post-commander made some preparatory measures for a proper defence. He had three siege-guns and one brass howitzer. Slight earthworks were thrown up. Captain Hopkins burned the bridge at Bayou Ramos early on the evening of the twenty-third, and joined Duganne with his men. The situation of the post was bad, with an enemy in front and rear. An officer of experience and courage who, when his determination was fixed to defend the post, had decision of character sufficient to make the attempt, could possibly so arrange his plans of defence as to enable him to have kept the enemy at bay for a few days at least. The men were reliable, if under an officer in whom they had confidence. The food supply was one day’s rations to each man, but this could have been eked out to last two or three days, if any skill had been applied. The ammunition was plenty for a proper defence. Many times in the history of wars have small bodies of soldiers been placed in worse positions, yet, by a heroic defence, saved themselves and prevented the intentions of an enemy from being carried out. There was no defence of Bayou Bœuff. The fact that relief was likely to come from New Orleans was ignored. On the very day Lieutenant-Colonel Duganne surrendered, a force of five companies Ninth Connecticut Infantry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgibbons, advanced to Chucahoula in the afternoon, within nine miles of the Bœuff, before a Confederate force was met. Had Duganne kept them at bay for one day, letting his guns tell the story, their reverberation along the narrow, densely-wooded railroad line would have brought down upon them the whole Federal force then at La-Fourche.

Early on the morning of the twenty-fourth a council of officers was held and decided to surrender. A sugar-house with outlying sheds, filled with army supplies, officers’ baggage, arms, and military appurtenances of all kinds, stored by some of the brigades of the army, was burned during the evening of the twenty-third. The two locomotives were rendered unfit for immediate use, but not destroyed. What negroes had been armed to assist in the defence were disarmed, that the enemy might have no reason to maltreat them. Some of these negroes were excellent shots, anxious and ready to fight.

Shortly after dawn the Confederates appeared from Brashear and opened a parley. While debating whether to accept the terms of unconditional surrender demanded, Colonel Major and his men appeared on the other side; a parley was opened, Colonel Major crossing the railroad bridge with a flag of truce, and while discussing the preliminaries of surrender, before the truce was withdrawn, Major’s men got into the post without a gun being fired, and the Federal troops were prisoners before they knew it. The enemy appropriated everything, as usual, and the prisoners were marched to Brashear the same day, joining their comrades at Fort Buchanan the same night. To use an expression frequently made by the enlisted men, it was a “sell out,” and they expected it from the method adopted to organize and prepare for defence.

---

About two hundred and fifty enlisted men were taken prisoners at Bayou Bœuff, and the following officers:

Lieutenant-Colonel	A. J. Duganne,	176th New York.
Lieutenant	Charles Kerby,	“
“	John F. Kimball,	“
Captain	Julius Sanford,	23d Connecticut.
“	A. D. Hopkins,	“
“	Alfred Wells,	“
Lieutenant	John F. Peck,	“
“	Charles D. Hurlbutt,	“
“	John A. Woodward,	“
“	Frank Sherfy,	21st Indiana.
The following officers were made prisoners at Brashear City:
Major	R. C. Anthony,	2d Rhode Island Cavalry.
Lieutenant	Caleb Brennan,	“
Colonel	Charles C. Nott,	176th New York.
Captain	William P. Coe,	“
“	S. E. Thomason,	“
Lieutenant	John Babcock,	“
“	David G. Wellington,	“
“	J. D. Fry,	“
“	J. P. Robens,	“
“	Daniel G. Gillette,	“
“	T. Foster Petrie,	“
“	Louis W. Stevenson,	“
“	Charles Sherman,	“
Captain	F. W. Noblett,	21st Indiana.
“	Albert Allen,	1st U. S. Vols., “Corps d’Afrique.”
Lieutenant	Charles E. Page, 4th U. S. Vols.,	“
Captain	S. G. Bailey,	23d Connecticut.
“	George S. Crofut,	“
“	James R. Jenkins,	“
Lieutenant	O. H. Hibbard,	“
“	John G. Stevens,	“
“	Charles Bailey,	“
“	John W. Buckingham,	“
“	James DeLamater,	91st New York.
“	Charles Avery,	25th Connecticut.
	“	George W. Hugg,	“
“	Henry W. Morse,	4th Massachusetts.
“	James M. Sampson,	“
“	Henry Humble,	“
Surgeon	James Waldock,	“
“	David Hershy,	4th U. S. Volunteers.
“	A. J. Willets,	176th New York.
Assistant-Surgeon	—— Throop,	176th New York.

After a full list of the prisoners was made up for parole, there was found to be between twelve and thirteen hundred, including officers, enlisted men on duty, sick and convalescent men, some few citizens, and about one hundred railroad laborers.

---

The following men of the Forty-Second Regiment detachment were paroled:

Company A.
1.	Corporal	John F. Cushing.
2.	Private	Charles S. Redmond.
3.	Private	James G. Raymond.
4.	Private	George W. Tirrell.
5.	Private	Charles S. Williams.
Company E.
6.	Corporal	Francis N. Luce.
7.	Private	Robert Whiteside.
8.	Private	Francis T. Jones.
9.	Private	David F. Cummings.
10.	Private	John H. Hildreth.
11.	Private	Patrick Fitzpatrick.
Company B.
12.	1st Serg’t	George W. Ballou.
13.	2d Serg’t	Thaddeus M. Turner.
14.	4th Serg’t	Frederick D. Morse.
15.	Corporal	Henry J. Daniels.
16.	“	Silas E. Fales.
17.	Private	Daniel Akley.
18.	“	Erastus Adams.
19.	“	D. Newton Blake.
20.	“	Albert E. Bullard.
21.	“	George E. Clark.
22.	“	Sewall J. Clark.
23.	“	Frank L. Fisher.
24.	“	George H. Fisher.
25.	“	Harrison E. Harwood.
26.	“	Nathaniel Ide.
27.	“	George A. Kingsbury.
28.	“	Charles M. Morris.
29.	“	George S. Rice.
30.	“	Henry S. Richardson.
31.	“	David Robinson.
32.	“	Orson D. Young.
33.	“	Albert Albee.
Company H.
34.	Private	John Davis.
35.	“	James Healey.
36.	“	William A. Ragan.
37.	“	Calvin W. Woods.
38.	“	Lovett B. Hayden.
39.	“	Charles McLaughlin.
40.	“	John Barrett.
41.	“	Henry A. Watkins.

And Private Joseph P. Snow, Company K, sick in hospital.

After fighting at Brashear City was over the prisoners were collected at Fort Buchanan and wounded sent to the hospital, where appearances indicated that as many of the enemy were wounded as upon the Federal side. The Confederate troops at once commenced to loot the town and camps, and get drunk. The rank and file were a good-natured, motley crowd, apparently without discipline or organization. After General Taylor arrived (twenty-fourth) with the balance of his command, the force was seen to be well mounted and armed, most of the men owning their horses and equipments. The general understanding among them was that each man was entitled to keep what he captured. No attempt was made to maintain uniformity in dress or arms. Privates were seen wearing the uniform of a Federal officer, with sword, belt and sash, while officers were seen dressed in a red shirt and striped trowsers.

Sergeant Turner got Major Hunter to allow him, with a guard for protection, to look around the post and find the missing men of his detachment. Visiting the hospital first, Private Cook was found laid out upon the grass beside a dozen others, having died from his wound. Sergeant Ballou was found back of the hospital, suffering great pain from his wound. His blanket had been stolen, and he was very thirsty and hungry. Turner obtained a blanket and did what he could for his comfort. At the depot, where he expected to find the knapsacks, the enemy’s troops were in force, and had seized everything left there. In the village a few dead New York soldiers were to be seen and one soldier of the Fourth Massachusetts, supposed to have been shot down where they lay. Private George Clark was found at a house, in comfortable condition, receiving good care from two pretty girls. They were told to keep him there, and kept their promise to do so, baffling all attempts made to take him to the hospital.

On the way back to the fort a Confederate officer halted the party. During a conversation that ensued he noticed the figures forty-two on Turner’s cap, and inquired if he belonged to the Forty-Second Massachusetts. Turner answered, “Yes;” the officer then said he was present at the capture of Galveston with the Forty-Second Regiment; that the men were paroled, and he would have to look into his case. It was hard work to make the fool understand that only three companies of the regiment were made prisoners at Galveston, and not the entire regiment.

Sergeant Ballou went to the hospital about ten o’clock in the forenoon to have his arm looked after, and was informed that it was done up so well he could wait better than other wounded men, for an amputation. It was late in the afternoon and dark when the surgeon requested the sergeant to get upon the table and have his arm taken off. A request to save the arm, if possible, caused the surgeon to make another examination, but he gave an opinion that it was impossible to save it. Ballou, however, insisted upon making the attempt, and the surgeon proceeded to its attention. He found about two and one-half inches of the large bone in the wrist was shot away and the small bone broken. With the cavity made by the wound stuffed with lint and bound up, the suffering that night from pain endured by Ballou was terrible. He fortunately found Surgeon Willets, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, the next morning, who carefully removed the lint bandage, examined the wound, set the broken small bone, put on a board support, and attended to it assiduously. Sergeant Ballou saved his arm and hand, but the hand has never been of use to him. In refusing to submit to the loss of his arm it is probable that he also saved his life, for with one exception every man died who suffered amputation. Hot weather and no ice to be had, gangrene would set in and the patients die. With the exception of a short allowance of food, the wounded were well treated while in the enemy’s hands.

On Saturday, June 27th, the enlisted men having been paroled, searched, and deprived of everything except what they wore, a haversack and woollen blanket, started at five o’clock in the afternoon to march for the Union lines. A curious feature in regard to prisoners taken at Brashear is that no negro soldiers were among them. As no one saw or heard of any cut-throat actions towards colored Federal soldiers, the supposition would seem to be well founded that they all escaped capture in some way through the wooded swamps. Sergeant Turner, on receiving his parole, was complimented by an officer who represented the United States forces, and thanked for what defence the detachment made. The tenor of his remarks were, that if there had been a few more men like those composing the Forty-Second detachment the shameful surprise, with attendant consequences, would not have occurred.

The following men were left at Brashear, not able to march:

First-Sergeant George W. Ballou, Company B, wounded.

Private George E. Clark, Company B, wounded.

Private George H. Fisher, Company B, sick.

Private Patrick Fitzpatrick, Company E, sick.

Many convalescent and sick soldiers not able to march, but anxious to reach the Federal lines, attempted to do so with their fellow prisoners. They gave out day by day from sickness and fatigue, caused by debility, hot weather, poor drinking-water, and insufficient rations, to be left on the line of march all the way from Brashear to New Orleans. Quite a number died. Many were in a condition to give out any moment, but pluckily kept on and reached the lines. From the Forty-Second detachment Privates Henry Richardson and George Kingsbury, Company B, sickened, and had to be left at Thibodeaux.

At first the Confederate guard was a company of Louisiana infantry, soon relieved by a cavalry company of Colonel Baylor’s Rangers, because the infantry could not keep up with the impatient prisoners. The guard was kind in treatment of their charge, while under strict orders to shoot down any man attempting to straggle or forage without permission. As to rations, they fared no better than their prisoners, making an equal division of what they had so long as it lasted.

The route of march was upon the railroad road-bed which ran through a swampy, thickly-wooded country a greater part of the way. The atmosphere was stifling. The first night was passed at Bayou Ramos, about six miles out from Brashear; the second night upon a plantation beyond Bayou Bœuff, where Corporal Fales and five men came in and surrendered. Starting at four o’clock on the morning of the twenty-ninth, after a march of eighteen miles, the prisoners reached Terrebonne, remaining over night. On the thirtieth they continued on to Thibodeaux and beyond, to remain over night near the La-Fourche railroad bridge. July 1st, after an early start in the morning, while en-route, the men found the hospital in which was Private Woodman, Company B, wounded in the action of June 21st. A halt for the night was made at Raceland, midway between Brashear and Algiers. Very little progress was made the next day as rations had given out, causing a delay until provisions expected from Brashear should be forwarded; meanwhile the men had to get along with what they could forage. July 3d the Federal pickets were found just before reaching Boutte Station—where the advanced troops were stationed charged with the Defences of New Orleans—and the prisoners delivered over to Federal officers.

The Confederate guard attempted to play a sharp trick that night. After turning over their prisoners, with a Texan yell they departed, but not to go far, for they hung around until night, when they made a raid upon the picket-posts. Their design had been suspected and the posts were on the alert, prepared for them; the consequence was that instead of capturing the posts many of them were made prisoners instead, and sent to New Orleans, where they arrived before the paroled men whom they had under guard from Brashear to Boutte.

The duty performed by this Forty-Second detachment, with all the necessary exposure attending it, told upon the men. On their return, July 4th, to Algiers, where they were quartered in the Iron Works building (a very dirty place), receiving poor treatment, most of them were suffering from diarrhœa, dysentery, or chills and fever, some men having a combination of these complaints. Efforts were at once made to have the Forty-Second Regiment men sent to the paroled camp at Bayou Gentilly, which was not accomplished until July 8th.

Sergeant Ballou, with Privates Clark and Fisher, remained at Brashear City five days after the Confederate troops departed, on July 22d, when two Federal gunboats arrived. These men proceeded to New Orleans by water, going into the University Hospital, and then reported to the regiment at Algiers July 28th.

With one dollar and forty cents in his pocket when made prisoner, the sergeant was fortunately enabled to borrow twenty dollars from a soldier of a Connecticut regiment. With this money he was able to subsist until carried to New Orleans, securing board with a German woman, who furnished him with one meal a day for twenty-five cents. Several of the Texan troops took meals at her house, for which she made them pay one dollar a meal. She claimed to be a good, true Unionist, and was not at all backward in saying so. Unlike many of the so-called Southern Unionists with whom the army often came in contact, this woman was as outspoken before Confederates as she was before Federals. She made no attempt to disguise her sentiments.

At Brashear Sergeant Ballou had excellent opportunities to see what was going on. Taylor and his men came down the river to Brashear in five steamboats, except the artillery, which marched overland. They had several batteries; one called the Valverde Battery they considered the best equipped in the Confederate service. They were five days removing contents of railroad cars and other material found at Brashear, carrying the same across the river to Berwick, thence to their various depots. The cars, when emptied, were ran about half a mile out upon the track and set on fire. After the fire was well under way the locomotive La-Fourche, under a full head of steam, was started from the depot and ran into the burning train, jumping some ten feet in the air when it struck.

The spoils obtained by the enemy consisted of heavy cannon and field-guns (about fifteen), small arms, ammunition, tents, baggage, commissary and quartermaster stores, with large medical supplies of great value to them. The colors of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Regiment were also lost.

The gift of Brashear City to the enemy, with this valuable property, was without an excuse. There is but one explanation of the failure to properly defend the post: incompetency and cowardice of the senior officers. A determined stand by half the number of the raiding force under Major Hunter would have easily driven them back. Had the naval vessel remained in the river to co-operate whenever an opportunity offered Hunter would not have had easy work in forcing his men to make the attack; many of them declared that if the gunboat had not moved down the river they would not have attempted to get in. This may or may not have proved to be the case. The Texans under Colonel Green, when they attacked Donaldsonville upon the twenty-eighth, were not deterred from it even with three gunboats present, but a defeat was given them there, with severe loss to them.

A repulse of the attack made by Hunter’s raiding party would have given time to decide upon a course of action to be adopted before General Taylor made his appearance. Had it been decided to evacuate, then the train with its valuable load and other property in Brashear could have been destroyed, the garrison, with all sick men able to be moved, could have been taken by water to New Orleans, for ample facilities were at Brashear. On Monday the Hollyhock had brought around from Bayou Bœuff a number of flatboats, which were added to those already at Brashear, then there was the gunboat, the small ferry steamers used to ply across from Brashear to Berwick, with the transport-steamer that was coming up river on the morning of surrender. The flatboats were put in use by the enemy to remove captured property.

The entire force of duty men were nine months’ troops. They were what are termed raw troops, with unseasoned officers. The freshness of troops does not matter so much if they can be officered by men of experience. What fresh troops need most, in action, is to be informed of the situation of affairs, the location of other troops, and general instructions as to what they have got to do, or what is expected of them. Old troops soon acquire the art of finding out all this without being told, understanding that the least danger lies in holding together, face to the enemy, and that a stampede is running headlong into danger.

In consequence of the loss of medical stores in Brashear, the medical purveyor’s stock became too small for army necessities, with men rapidly swelling the sick lists and the hot weather in season. To replenish supplies, the transport-steamer New Brunswick, a light-draft side-wheeler, nine hundred and thirty tons burthen, manned by a fine crew, was loaded with coal and despatched to New York in July or August. Her captain had orders to drive her with all possible speed and spare nothing in order to make a quick passage North, and return. Fortunately good weather prevailed, with the exception of a stiff blow off Hatteras and a short gale on the return trip. This transport made what was then called “the famous passage.” The exact time is now lost, but it was between six and seven days. Everything on board that could be utilized was used for fuel; her chief-engineer, Wesley Allen, to whom the credit is due for her quick passages, although he had as assistants two efficient men, stood by his engines almost the entire time, pushing the wheels to twenty-two revolutions a minute, and so maintained them. They ordinarily made from seventeen to nineteen. Allen is said to have slept not more than twenty hours on each passage. He fully understood that many lives could be saved by each day gained, and was a man, every inch of him.

The New Brunswick arrived at New York early one morning, was loaded with medical and hospital stores the same day, and at night was on her way back to New Orleans, passing a mail steamer at Sandy Hook, bound in, that she parted company with and left at the Passes of the Mississippi River. Coal and stores were rushed on board with a run. Coal was dumped upon the open deck forward, instead of wasting time to fill up her hold. Fires were not drawn from the boilers, and they only had the water blown out while fresh water ran in. No time was lost in fancy oiling of machinery, for it was slapped on without regard to appearances, in order that no part should become heated. Among the firemen life below deck was a hard lot, as her blowers were never turned off from the boiler fires.

The round trip was made in a little less than two weeks, ruining her boilers in so doing.

CHAPTER XII.
Action at La-Fourche Crossing.

About six o’clock Saturday morning, twentieth June, 1863, the train which left Brashear City for La-Fourche a few hours before, arrived at the railroad bridge crossing Bayou La-Fourche, twenty-eight miles from Brashear, fifty-two miles from Algiers, then a suburb of New Orleans, upon the west bank of the Mississippi River.

Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney had under his command on the train: one hundred and fifteen men One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Infantry, Major Morgans in command; seventy-five men Twenty-Third Connecticut Infantry, Major Miller in command; forty-six men Forty-Second Massachusetts Infantry, Lieutenant Tinkham in command; and two pieces of artillery, a 6 Pr. gun and a 12 Pr. howitzer. This force was in light marching order, having left at Brashear City all knapsacks, extra clothing, and many of them their blankets.

There was posted at Terrebonne and La-Fourche, guarding the railroad bridge, a force of about two hundred and fifty men with one 12 Pr. gun and one 12 Pr. howitzer. This force, joined with the reënforcements from Brashear, made Stickney’s command about five hundred and two men, as follows: — companies, one hundred and ninety-five men, Twenty-Third Connecticut Infantry; — companies, one hundred and fifty-four men, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Infantry; one company, forty-six men, Forty-Second Massachusetts Infantry; one company, thirty-seven men, Twenty-Sixth Maine Infantry, under Captain Fletcher; one company, fifty men, First Louisiana Cavalry, under Captain Blober; and about twenty artillery-men, mostly from the Twenty-First Indiana Artillery.

Upon disembarking from the train, the commanding officer of the post appeared to be much surprised at this appearance of additional troops, and asked what was to be done. When informed that the post was threatened by the enemy he laughed heartily, and told Stickney no enemy had been seen around there for six months.

Captain Blober, on his return from a scout made the day before, ordered by Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney by telegraph from Brashear, reported no signs whatever of any force on the Bayou La-Fourche. Blober, ordered to be sure and scout as far as Napoleonville, and beyond if possible, only proceeded a mile or two beyond Labadieville, about twelve miles from La-Fourche and nine miles from Thibodeaux. He reported that people from Napoleonville said no force was in that direction; the reason, probably, why he did not carry out his orders. This company of the First Louisiana Cavalry was composed of raw recruits, without much drill or discipline. In his official report of the action Stickney says: “Had their scouting been properly done, there was no necessity whatever of the infantry force at Thibodeaux being captured.”

Colonel Major[15] with three regiments of Confederate Texan mounted men was at that very moment on his way down from Plaquemine—forty miles from Thibodeaux—and could not have been many miles away. On the nineteenth June General “Dick” Taylor was at the Fausse Riviere, an ancient bed of the Mississippi, some miles west of the present channel and opposite Port Hudson, in company with Colonel Major and his men. He had heard from some ladies of his acquaintance there, recently from New Orleans, that the Federal force in that city was not over one thousand men, and with the exception of a small garrison in the fort at Donaldsonville there were no troops on the west bank of the river. This was not true. There was scattered in the Parish towns on the west bank a respectable force of detached Federal troops on guard and provost duty. Taylor ordered Major to proceed at once, for the express purpose of reaching the rear of Brashear City by the twenty-third, and to pass Plaquemine at night to escape observation. Major could not do this. His men, hungry for spoils, raided into that town, capturing some prisoners and burning two steamers. Lieutenant White, of the Forty-Second Massachusetts, with his unarmed colored engineer troops barely escaped capture at the time.

[15] Colonel James P. Major commanded the Second Cavalry Brigade, composed of mounted infantry, artillery and cavalry. His official report, dated June 30th, 1863, does not give the strength of his command, but enough is gleaned from it to know that he had regiments commanded by Colonels W. P. Lane, B. W. Stone, and Joseph Phillip, Colonel C. L. Pyron’s Second Texas Cavalry, and Captain O. J. Semmes’ battery.

Major captured Plaquemine June 18th, was at Bayou Goula at daylight on the nineteenth, at dark sent a force under Colonel Lane through a swamp direct to Thibodeaux, and at midnight followed with the rest of his men, arriving at 3.30 A.M. on the twenty-first. The rest of his report on this action does not agree with the facts.

The men lay around carelessly until afternoon, as it was extremely hot and nothing could be had to eat. Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney, when he left Brashear, did not apprehend any attack on that place for some days, and intended to return as soon as possible. Not hearing from Captain Blober, who had again been ordered to scout and cover the roads about Thibodeaux, about four o’clock he got ready to go back to Brashear upon the same train that brought him. An order was given Lieutenant Tinkham to remain at La-Fourche with his detachment, as a reënforcement to the post; Stickney remarked he did not dare to leave without doing so. Orders had also been received from New Orleans to return two companies infantry to Brashear.

As the men were about to board the cars up rode a cavalry-man in hot haste, with bare breath enough to say, “the rebs are coming, three divisions of them,” and told that they were already at Thibodeaux. Blober’s cavalry detachment came in shortly after, with a loss of two men in a close pursuit by the enemy. With no wish to weaken his force just then, but desirous to increase it, the train was hastily despatched to Terrebonne, three miles distant on the railroad, with orders for Captain Barber, Company K, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, posted with about sixty men and one piece of artillery in a stockade, to evacuate. The gun and detachment of gunners left for La-Fourche during the morning.

Throughout the morning crowds of colored people kept coming along the road, from the direction of Thibodeaux, with reports that the enemy were coming. Failing to obtain satisfactory news from these people Captain Barber rode to that town to find out the facts, arriving just as the cavalry scouts started for La-Fourche, and with them the captain went. This left young Lieutenant Phœbus W. Lyon, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, in command, without proper information of what to expect. When the Confederate troopers appeared they did not dare to attack the stockade, as they expected that the field-gun was there. They showed the convenient flag of truce. To the sergeant who was sent out to meet it a demand was made to see the commanding officer. Lieutenant Lyon, alone, went to meet them some three hundred yards from the stockade, and refused their demand for a surrender of the post, when the Confederate commander pulled out a revolver, placed it behind an ear of the lieutenant and demanded that he should go along with him. To the charge of violating a flag of truce by such a demand no attention was paid, and entirely at their mercy Lieutenant Lyon had to go with them, a prisoner of war. The enemy made a feint to charge upon the stockade, and then withdrew some distance. Without molestation the Federal troops embarked upon the train, which arrived shortly after all this occurred, and Lieutenant Lyon had to witness the evacuation, from the woods where he was held, with chagrin.

At Thibodeaux the Confederates captured all the infantry stationed there, also about one hundred men upon plantations in the vicinity (forty-seven men of the Twelfth Maine, with Lieutenants Freeman H. Chase and John W. Dana, convalescents sent by Stickney from Brashear; forty others, also convalescents from Brashear; about ten men Company D, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York; and a few plantation guards). At Terrebonne Captain William H. May, Twenty-Third Connecticut, was taken prisoner.

When the cavalry-man had made his report all of the troops were ordered to “fall in,” and a line of battle was formed. The position taken is described by Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney in his official report as follows: “The levee of the Bayou La-Fourche is about twelve feet high; the railroad crosses the bayou over the top of the levee, nearly in a direction perpendicular to that of the bayou, and is about twelve feet above the level of the surrounding country. For five or six miles to the east of La-Fourche Crossing a carriage-road runs up and down the bayou on both sides close to the levee, passing under the railroad on both sides of the bayou. We were on the east side of the bayou and north of the railroad, our front being parallel with the railroad, extending about one hundred and fifty yards from the levee, and being about two hundred yards from the railroad. From the right of our front I had a line of defence running perpendicular to and resting upon the railroad. I was obliged to have my front farther from the railroad than it otherwise would have been, on account of trees standing, which could not be cut down. The country around was level, affording full play for the artillery, and was covered with tall grass, which I subsequently had cut down, as it concealed, in a measure, movements in our front.

“A detachment of about fifty men of the Twenty-Third Connecticut, under command of Major Miller, was posted in the tall grass on both sides of the road along the levee, lying down, about four hundred and fifty yards in advance of the battle line.

“The remainder of the infantry was drawn up in line, with the right flank in reverse, excepting the company of convalescent men, under Captain Fletcher, Twenty-Sixth Maine, who were posted at the railroad bridge.

“Captain Blober and his cavalry-men were posted so as to guard against the turning of the right flank, with the detachment Forty-Second Massachusetts in their front, and to the rear of the centre of the battle line.

“The artillery was posted as follows: a 12 Pr. gun upon the railroad bridge, near the left bank of the bayou; two 12 Pr. howitzers and one 6 Pr. gun on the battle line front, one of the howitzers being so placed upon the extreme right so that its fire could be directed to the front or right flank.”

These movements were the first indication of an action in which this detachment of the Forty-Second had seen an opportunity to participate. Not without reason Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney rode up to Lieutenant Tinkham and asked him what he thought about the behavior of his men under fire; the lieutenant answered, he did not know, but thought they would fight. Cavalry-Captain Blober, a plucky little German, was boiling over for a fight. He was just the man to put courage into any one a little weak in the knees. Later in the day this captain captured a Confederate bugler upon the road.

With nothing to eat since the evening before, a hot, dusty and tedious ride in the cars early that morning, lounging around all day in a hot sun, no wonder there were many anxious inquiries, at all hours of the day, for some stimulant. Those who had it in their possession kept still, and the welcome friend was hard to find. However, no sooner had position in line been taken to meet the expected enemy, when out came the secreted whiskey, and was passed around to those in need of it.

About five o’clock the enemy came marching down the bayou road, mounted, in column of fours, and as soon as the head of the column was in sight a shot was fired from the gun upon the bridge, causing them to halt and retire. They soon advanced about one hundred skirmishers, who drove in the Federal pickets and moved on until encountering the detachment Twenty-Third Connecticut, hid in tall grass, who, after an exchange of shots, fell back upon the right flank of the main line without loss.

The artillery gave them a few solid shot and shell, when the enemy retired towards Thibodeaux with their killed and wounded.

Even here, almost before a gun was fired, the malady which seemed to have attacked some officers on duty in this section was made manifest. Major Miller, Twenty-Third Connecticut, during the day had spoken to Major Morgans and Lieutenant Tinkham about a surrender to the enemy; said he was in favor of it, and that it was of no use to make a fight. He got an unfavorable response from these officers, but the major continued panic-struck, for, after the first fire by the enemy upon the Twenty-Third Connecticut in the grass, as Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney says in his official report: “I found Major Miller, some distance to the rear of his command, crouching in the high weeds on the levee. I ordered him under arrest, and put in command of this detachment the next senior officer, who faithfully executed my order.”

Soon after the enemy’s disappearance, instead of promptly throwing out his skirmishers to follow up their retrograde movement and ascertain what they were doing, Stickney sent a flag of truce to obtain permission to remove his hospital stores and sick from the hospital, which was in front of his lines and exposed to his fire. The truce party went two and one-half miles on the road before meeting the Confederate pickets. True to their own cowardly use of flags of truce, they refused to comply with Stickney’s request. This made no difference, however, as they could not interfere where they were, and the hospital contents were removed to the Federal rear, and, just before dark, the building was burned, to prevent interference with the range of fire. A building upon the other side of the bayou was also set on fire, to enable movements of the enemy to be seen, as it was feared they might come down on that side and attempt to cross the railroad bridge.

The position in line of battle was maintained all night, ready to repel at any moment an attack: the men rested upon the ground as best they could; pickets were thrown out about four hundred yards to the front; squads of cavalry kept scouting to the right and rear; everything upon this Johnson Plantation that could be used for fuel was torn down to keep fires going.

About eleven o’clock at night a train arrived from Algiers with five companies, three hundred and six men, Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts Infantry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Sawtelle. Being the senior officer, Stickney tendered him the command, which Lieutenant-Colonel Sawtelle refused. The Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts went into line on the front. No demonstrations were made by the enemy during the night.

The next morning, Sunday, June 21st, Captain Grow with one section of the Twenty-Fifth New York Battery and thirty men arrived from Algiers. One gun went into position on the extreme left of the line to cover the bayou road, and one gun was held in reserve, where it could be moved to the front or upon the right flank, as occasion should require. Slight earthworks were thrown up, at no point over two feet high, but they extended only a few yards in either direction from the angle formed on the right flank by the two fronts.

During the morning Confederate mounted troops appeared in small bodies within range of the outposts, to reconnoitre the position. About four o’clock in the afternoon nearly one hundred and fifty Confederates, mounted and dismounted, attacked the outposts and pickets, but made no attempt to advance in force. A desultory fire was maintained for one hour and a half, when the enemy retired.

Shortly after noon a heavy rain commenced, and continued until about half-past six o’clock, drenching the men to the skin, who maintained a battle line the greater part of the day as they had during the night. Stickney claims this was necessary, as he could not depend on the men falling into position with sufficient alacrity at the least warning.

The Federal position at dusk was about the same as on the previous day, except that two companies of the Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts were added to the front line, two companies on the right flank in reverse, and one company upon the railroad bridge in support of the gun placed there.

Between five and six o’clock Lieutenant Tinkham was ordered to advance on the road to a point about one-quarter of a mile in front, with his Forty-Second Massachusetts detachment and some fifty negroes, to take down a rail fence that somewhat obstructed the view. While engaged in this work the enemy could be seen about another quarter of a mile up the road, somewhat covered by the woods. Captain Blober tried his best to draw them on, by riding towards them and circling around as the ground would permit, without effect. Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney rode up and wanted a volley fired at them, but Lieutenant Tinkham informed him it would do no good, as his men were armed with Springfield smooth-bore guns that would not reach the distance. Finally a volley was fired, without effect, when Stickney told the lieutenant to hold on and he would send out a field-gun, which was done.

It was shortly after this fence was levelled that the enemy, dismounted, with a yell, and opening fire at the same time, made a charge. The field-gun, after three discharges of canister shot, was abandoned by the Twenty-Fifth New York artillery-men, although Lieutenant Tinkham suggested to the gunner in command to fire in retreat. The gunner was either a coward or too frightened to listen to any orders or suggestions, and the gun was left. As the gunners retreated Lieutenant Tinkham, who had his men in line to the rear in support, upon one side of the road, wheeled the detachment into line across the bayou road and gave the enemy a volley from his smooth-bores, carrying a ball and three buckshot to each musket, almost point-blank in their faces. They were not over ten paces distant. This volley staggered them for a few minutes, as well it might, for an uglier weapon to face at close quarters than those Springfield smooth-bore muskets, even in the hands of raw troops, could not be found in the entire army at that time.

Promptly faced about, the detachment was double-quicked back to the battle line as fast as the mud and slippery condition of the road would allow, for the rain had caused the Louisiana soil of that region to assume the consistency of a sticky paste, so well known to all campaigners in the Gulf Department. With this uncertain footing, the close proximity of the enemy, fairly on their heels,[16] yelling and firing, and the balance of the Federal force in line of battle also opening fire, placing the detachment between two lines of fire, it is remarkable that the casualties were so few at this time. Not a man was taken prisoner. Major Morgans did not expect the detachment would be able to get back, but reserved the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York fire as long as he dared, and then opened an oblique firing, to prevent any harm to the detachment, if possible.

[16] One of the curious events of the action, which also proves the close proximity of the enemy, was that a Confederate lieutenant-colonel, mounted upon an iron-grey horse, who must have distanced his men in the charge they made, got around and ahead, by the flank, and led the Forty-Second detachment on its retreat to the main line. This officer came in contact with men of the Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts, who made him a prisoner, as related later on in this chapter.

The Forty-Second detachment was not out as skirmishers, and did not have that formation. It was on a special duty and had performed that duty. No orders were given the lieutenant except to support the field-gun. What had become of the pickets and outposts Lieutenant Tinkham did not know. The enemy were upon him almost without warning, for they had crept up in the tall grass on his front. In his official report Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney says: “The enemy advanced rapidly and soon compelled the pickets to fall back on the main line, which they reached in rather a straggling condition at our left wing.” This could not mean the detachment Forty-Second Massachusetts, for they did nothing of the kind. The detachment ran in, maintaining as good an alignment as the slippery soil would allow.

A ridiculous proceeding occurred just after the detachment reached the line. A second-lieutenant, an acting staff-officer, came up in an excited manner and ordered Lieutenant Tinkham to go back and retake the abandoned gun. Tinkham replied he would see him d—d first, and to go and get it himself. With the darkness, fire opened on the enemy in front, the bad condition of the ground and the uncertainty just where the gun was at that moment, made the undertaking foolhardy, without a chance for success; in reality giving the enemy a present of so many prisoners. It was another instance of that want of judgment in an inexperienced officer, of which many examples were furnished in the whole history of General “Dick” Taylor’s raid towards New Orleans.

After reaching the line the detachment was posted on the extreme left, resting on the bayou and covering the road. Firing was continuate until about eight o’clock. The artillery used canister; there not being any canister for the 6 Pr. gun, packages of musket ammunition were used instead. The infantry were ordered to fire by rank, and opened in that manner, soon substituting firing at will. The smoke became quite dense and would not lift readily, on account of the dampness of the atmosphere. Nothing could be seen in front, not even flashes of the enemy’s guns; nothing to be heard, except continued reports of artillery and musketry-firing.

When the order was given “cease firing,” pickets were thrown out, and the abandoned gun, near the rail fence, left by the enemy when they withdrew, was brought in to the Federal lines. The wounded within reach were carried to a field-hospital that had been established in a planter’s house, about one-quarter of a mile in the rear. The Federals rested upon their arms, remaining in line of battle all night, with what sleep they could obtain under the circumstances. Moans and cries of the wounded, well to the front, could be distinctly heard. Totally destitute of provisions, and hungry, having been without food of any consequence for forty-eight hours, worn out by loss of sleep and fatigue, nothing but the excitement could have held the men up so long and prevented them from breaking down completely.

That many of the Confederates were crazy drunk and in no condition to continue a steady fight seems to be fully established by the information obtained on Tuesday, when an advance to Thibodeaux was made. They were capable of making a bold dash, but no more; repulsed, they could not maintain a destructive fire. What firing came from their side was wild and high, as the total casualties to the entire Federal force engaged amply testifies.

Notwithstanding General “Dick” Taylor, in his book called “Destruction and Reconstruction,” says that Colonel Major had no artillery with him, they fired a few shots from one field-gun while Tinkham and his men were at the rail fence. Whether they ceased firing because their ammunition was bad or damaged by rain, or compelled to do so by shots from a gun of the Twenty-Fifth New York Battery that was placed in position upon the right to engage their gun, is not known. Prisoners stated that they had other guns in position, but the rain prevented their use.

There were many sensational stories told next day of what was done along the line. Some men of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York claimed to have performed special feats of valor. A careful inspection of the ground in front soon put to flight all belief in these camp yarns. The enemy never got dangerously close, except in a few individual cases. An attempt made by them to gain the rear and turn the right flank caused the gunners of the Twenty-Fifth New York Battery to become panic stricken and abandon their gun, a 12 Pr. howitzer, posted at the angle made by the front and right flank thrown in reverse. This made two guns that the Twenty-Fifth New York artillery-men abandoned in this action, though only one came into possession of the enemy.

The actual Federal force in this action was eight hundred and thirty-eight men; about six hundred were engaged; the balance were posted upon the railroad bridge and to protect the right. The Federal loss in this action was: three killed, ten wounded, Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts Infantry; two killed, twelve wounded, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Infantry; one killed, three wounded, Forty-Second Massachusetts Infantry; two killed, sixteen wounded, Twenty-Third Connecticut Infantry.

Lieutenant Starr, Twenty-Third Connecticut, was the only commissioned officer injured in the action. He was wounded in the thigh, and afterwards died in consequence of amputation.

The force of Confederates engaged is estimated to have been six hundred men of the Second Texas Mounted Rangers, Colonel Pyron, claiming to be the oldest regiment in the Confederate service, and that they never before had been whipped in action.

As General Taylor has published that only two hundred men under Colonel Pyron made an attack on La-Fourche Crossing, the attack being repulsed with a loss to the Confederates of only fifty-five killed and wounded,[17] the official report of Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney is again quoted: “The enemy were engaged during the night in carrying away their killed and wounded who were outside of our lines, and the following morning fifty-three of their dead were counted inside of our pickets. When we entered Thibodeaux, Tuesday morning, nearly sixty wounded were found in the hospitals, from which I conclude that their loss in killed and wounded must have been three hundred, taking fifty as the number of their killed, and reckoning the ratio of killed to wounded as one to four.”

[17] General Taylor relies on the official report of Colonel Major for this statement. As a specimen of Confederate reports on their operations west of the Mississippi River during June and July, the following extract of Major’s report of this action is given:

“At Paincourtville received a despatch from Colonel Lane stating he had captured the town, taking one hundred and forty prisoners and a large amount of stores, also a small force at Terrebonne Station, and that there was a force in strong position, with artillery, at La-Fourche Crossing. I pushed on and arrived at Thibodeaux at 3.30 A.M., on the twenty-first. Pickets reported reënforcements from New Orleans during the night, and at sun-up reported the enemy advancing. I posted Pyron’s regiment, West’s battery and two squadrons cavalry on east bank La-Fourche, and moved them down towards the railroad bridge. Lane, Stone and Phillip were posted at Terrebonne Station, and they were moved forward to La-Fourche Crossing. The enemy fell back, and my pursuit was checked by one of the heaviest rains I ever saw fall. It rained until five P.M., and having only thirty rounds of ammunition to the man when I started, and not over one hundred cartridge boxes in the entire command, my ammunition was nearly all ruined, and I found myself with an enemy in front, rear, and on the flank, with only three rounds of ammunition to the man. I directed Pyron, as soon as it stopped raining, to strengthen his picket and feel the enemy, find his position, and test his strength, giving him some discretion in the matter. He advanced his picket, driving the enemy into his stronghold, and then charged his works, taking four guns and causing a great many of the Federals to surrender. But night had come on; it was very dark, the ammunition nearly all gone, and just at that moment a train with about three hundred fresh men arrived from New Orleans, and Pyron was forced to retire from a position won by a daring assault, unequalled, I think, in this war. Had I known his intention to assault the works I could have sent him such reënforcements as would have insured success. Pyron’s strength in the attack was two hundred and six. The enemy’s force, reported by themselves, was over one thousand.”

Some of these statements will cause a smile to spread o’er the face of men on the Federal side who were in this action.

Probably this is not an exaggeration, but many of the wounded must have been slightly so, not going into the hospitals, except for occasional treatment, else a larger number would have been captured. They left some badly wounded upon the field. One poor fellow was found bleeding to death from wounds, in a trench not over fifty feet in front of the line.

Whether Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney is correct or not, in regard to the Confederate dead, Lieutenant Cooke, Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts, reports the following facts, viz.: “On the morning of the twenty-second, when a lookout, stationed upon a house, reported a flag of truce coming, I happened to be standing near Stickney, who immediately turned to me and said: ‘Meet them as far outside of our picket line as you possibly can, and I will despatch another officer immediately to act as messenger.’ I was upon my horse instantly, and galloped up the bayou road, running my sword-point through my handkerchief corners to make a flag of truce, meeting the party so far from our lines as to cause, I fancied, a shade of disappointment to pass over the face of an officer in charge, which quickly changed to a smile as we drew rein and saluted; he introduced himself as Captain Johnson, of Texas, and remarked that it was a singular coincidence that both sides should start out at the same time for a truce, and was much astonished when I said that I had come to meet him, having seen him approaching. He stated that he was sent by Colonel Major to ask permission to drive upon the battle field with their wagons and carry away their dead. The request was carried to Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney, who replied that it was impossible to grant it, but if they would send their wagons to the point of negotiation he would receive and return them to the same point loaded. This was a necessity, for the majority of their dead lay so near our battle line had they been permitted to come near they would have gained an accurate knowledge of our position and numbers. Colonel Major assented to this modification of his request, and wagons soon began to arrive and the work went on. After the transfer was made I inquired of those who were engaged in the work how many dead they found, and was told one hundred and sixty. These are the figures written in my diary at the time. I was also told that in one place fifteen bodies were found in such close proximity as to justify the statement that they were slain in a heap. At my interview with Captain Johnson, he complimented our forces in very flattering terms for the courage and steadiness with which they met and repelled the assault; that had it been known we had such a large and well-disciplined force their action would have been less hasty and impetuous.”

The ground was cut at regular intervals by irrigating ditches, a probable reason why the enemy made their attack dismounted. These ditches made the ground unfavorable for cavalry.

Two of the unwounded prisoners captured (sixteen in number) came in and surrendered to Lieutenant Tinkham, after the firing had ceased. They must have secreted themselves under the lee of the bayou bank.

The killed and wounded of the Forty-Second detachment were:

Private Reuben Dyson, Company E, wounded fatally in the abdomen and hip, and died in a short time after he was carried to the rear. When wounded he clasped both hands across his abdomen and exclaimed: “What have I done that they should hit me!”

Sergeant Edmand A. Jones, Company B, was slightly wounded in the left shoulder.

Private William Whiting, Company B, was wounded by a bullet in the back of his neck which passed out of his mouth, taking three teeth in its course.

Private Daniel S. Woodman, Company B, was wounded in the right hand, losing one finger and part of the thumb joint; also, shot in the right breast, the ball entering about two inches above the right nipple, passed through the upper part of his lung and came out through the shoulder blade.

Private Dyson was buried on the field at La-Fourche. Private Woodman, too dangerously wounded to be removed, was left in an abandoned planter’s house in care of an old planter. Woodman had lain upon the field all night; was carried to the hospital about noon next day, where his wounds were dressed by surgeons of the Twenty-Third Connecticut and Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts. His clothes were removed, as they were very bloody, and he lay naked almost a week, when a comrade procured some old, ragged clothing for him. He was brought from La-Fourche July 31st, and came home with the regiment.

Early on the morning of Monday, June 22d, the enemy were found to have retired near to Thibodeaux. Among the debris picked up upon the field was found some muskets that were identified as belonging to the three companies Forty-Second, captured at Galveston. The wounded were cared for and the Federal dead buried.

A Confederate flag of truce came with a request for permission to bury their dead and carry away their wounded. This was granted on condition that all of their wounded men outside the camp lines should be paroled, that none of their drivers should come within the outposts, and that all wounded within the camp should be retained. They agreed to these conditions, and men were engaged throughout the morning, with carts and wagons furnished by the enemy, in carrying their dead to Thibodeaux.

Very early in the morning there reached the crossing about six hundred men Fifteenth Maine Infantry, Colonel Isaac Dyer, a fresh regiment from Pensacola and Key West, under orders to reënforce the troops at Brashear City, and about eleven o’clock Colonel Cahill arrived from New Orleans with the Ninth Connecticut Infantry, two additional companies Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts, and another section of the Twenty-Fifth New York Battery. Colonel Cahill assumed command of the forces at La-Fourche.

The men who comprised the detachment Forty-Second Massachusetts behaved admirably in this, their maiden action, with the exception of Sergeant Albert L. Clark and Private John Donnelly, both of Company B, who attempted to desert from their comrades, without leave, and board a train about to start for Algiers. They threw away their guns, and did not report to the detachment until Tuesday.

Lieutenant Clifford was not in this action, as he rejoined the detachment from leave of absence after the action was over.

Other men, attached to the several commands, showed the white feather, and the official report of Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney says: “Their wounded in our hands thought that our troops must be regulars, so steadily did they stand at their posts; but I regret to say that the train in waiting on the track left at the commencement of the fight, without orders, carrying away some cowardly soldiers, and that during the battle some few left their ranks and sought shelter near and behind the railroad.”

Among those who left by this train was the Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts color-bearer with his flag. He was ordered back to his regiment in a peremptory manner by General Emory, commanding the Defences of New Orleans. A word of defence is due this color-bearer. A brave, honorable and worthy man; when the darkness came on he was ordered by his commanding officer to retire from the line and remain with his color at a house just to the rear. Those panic-stricken men who ran away from the ranks passed this house towards the railroad, shouting: “All is lost, the rebs are inside of our lines and gobbling up the whole force.” He supposed it to be true, and animated with a desire to save his flag also ran to the railroad, tearing his flag from the lance to secrete it upon his person. He felt the disgrace keenly, suffered mental agony, and died from the effect upon him in September following. None of his comrades thought him guilty of cowardice, rather a victim to circumstances, for he could not see the true situation.

Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney officially makes special mention of two officers and one private. He says: “Major Morgans, commanding the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Regiment, through the action encouraged his men, and to him is due, in a great degree, the fine conduct that they showed. Captain Jenkins, commanding the Twenty-Third Connecticut, displayed the greatest bravery and coolness. A Confederate officer seized him by the throat, demanding a surrender. The assault was immediately returned in precisely the same manner, when one of Captain Jenkins’ men bayoneted the Confederate. I desire particularly to mention Sergeant John Allyn, Company A, Forty-Seventh Massachusetts Regiment, who has been with me since I was ordered to Brashear City, and has at all times rendered the most valuable service, going on dangerous scouts, once inside the enemy’s lines, and showing at all times the greatest courage and remarkable sound judgment. His thorough knowledge of the country and habit of reporting facts only were of the greatest assistance to me.”

Two companion incidents to the hand-to-hand scrape of Captain Jenkins are these: Lieutenant Cooke, acting adjutant Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts, the action still in progress, was startled by the sudden appearance before him, inside of the battle line, of a Confederate lieutenant-colonel, who said: “Captain, I am badly wounded, will you be kind enough to take me to the rear.” The lieutenant informed him he would do so, when he felt justified in taking men from the ranks to act as a guard, and conducted the wounded officer to a tent, standing not more than twenty yards to the rear, and saw him comfortably stretched out upon the straw. After the action was over, with no prospect of its renewal, Lieutenant Cooke went to this tent for his prisoner, to find him gone, without a clew to be obtained of his whereabouts. On the reconnoissance to Thibodeaux, twenty-third, this wounded officer was found in hospital, and paroled. He stated that while lying in the tent it occurred to him that in the darkness he might walk out of our lines, and did so without difficulty.

Another case of foolhardy bravery was exhibited by a fiery Texan lieutenant, who rushed up to a field-gun, placing his hand upon it, in face of a dozen men, and demanded its surrender. Three men answered him; one with a bayonet, one with a musket ball, the other with the butt of his gun, to send him down to mother earth fatally wounded, and with curses upon his lips of the men who did their duty. He was carried to the hospital, and lived four hours.

No further hostile movement was made by either combatants on Monday, except at about dark the Confederates fired a few rounds from one field-gun. On Tuesday, June 23d, an advance was made to Thibodeaux by a part of the troops, now commanded by Colonel Cahill, to find the enemy had gone. Colonel Major with his Texans were well on their way towards the rear of Brashear City. At night the Fifteenth Maine Infantry was sent back to New Orleans.

Wednesday morning, June 24th, at eight o’clock, five companies Ninth Connecticut, under Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgibbon, proceeded to Terrebonne Station as guard to a construction train, repairing the track for one mile beyond. Proceeding towards Chucahoula, twelve miles from Bayou Bœuff, the bridge, one mile from the station, was found to be on fire. This was extinguished, and the bridge repaired. Skirmishers were then deployed and advanced towards the station, where the enemy was found on the open land, behind buildings and fences, who at once commenced a sharp fire. Confined to the narrow track, a thickly-wooded swamp upon both sides, after engaging the enemy for one hour Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgibbon deemed it prudent to retire, also being recalled by a signal-gun fired at La-Fourche Crossing, nine miles distant, which the lieutenant-colonel says he heard. The Federal loss was three wounded, and two men taken prisoners by the enemy.

Port Hudson still holding out, with work enough in prospect to occupy the attention of all the available forces in the Department, the troops that composed the force under General Emory, charged with the defence of New Orleans, reduced to a low number, and Brashear City lost, with all of the troops on duty between that place and La-Fourche Crossing, there existed no further necessity for holding the railroad line to Brashear. The ill-luck experienced by General Emory in losing post after post, through cowardice and inefficiency of regimental officers, surrendering without firing a gun, was not assuring as to how far he could trust the balance of his force. Prudence dictated to withdraw his troops close to the city where protection of the navy could be given.

The Confederates pushed up from Brashear, bold and fearless, offering many opportunities to inflict some hard blows against their undisciplined troops if any equally bold officers had been with the Federal soldiers. This was not the case, and on June 26th the Federal force fell back to Boutee Station, twenty-four miles from Algiers, after they had spiked and abandoned three field-guns and some old iron guns; an absurd gift to the enemy, without any valid excuse.

With the energy displayed by the enemy, which the Federals did not meet with counter efforts, it was undoubtedly sound policy to allow them to dash against the fortified defences whenever they felt so disposed. They moved quickly from place to place, leaving stragglers and scouting squads occupying all of the roads in the region of country upon the left bank held by them, looting where they could. Many of them could easily have been bagged by small forces equally as bold; by so doing thrown them into much the same state of uncertainty where to look for a blow as existed among the Federal officers.

While at Boutee Station orders from Colonel Cahill directed the Forty-Second detachment to be temporarily attached to the Fifteenth Maine and to proceed to the Metairie race-course, in New Orleans, where a camp was formed, comprised of detachments One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, Twenty-Third Connecticut and Fifteenth Maine, with Grow’s battery; Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney in command of the force. These orders were countermanded on the same day and the detachment ordered to rejoin the regiment, then in New Orleans, and did so June 29th, bringing under guard to the provost-marshal some sixty prisoners taken at La-Fourche and vicinity.

On the thirtieth June the Federal force drew back to Jefferson Station, eight miles from Algiers, where fortifications of a formidable character were thrown up by large gangs of negroes. This station was an outpost to the Defences of New Orleans for some weeks, with pickets upon the roads and railroad line back to Algiers, and the river patroled by gunboats between Company Canal and Donaldsonville.

While the Confederates under General Taylor raided on the various posts in the Parishes between the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi Rivers, picking up all scattered troops found, to send them on parole to New Orleans, the garrison in the defences of the city was quite small. General Banks had drawn all the men he dared to take in front of Port Hudson, even bringing troops from Ship Island and Pensacola. To offset this General Emory had all troops in the garrison, on whatever duty, kept ready from the nineteenth June until all danger was over to move readily at any moment with two days cooked rations and one hundred rounds per man. The Second Brigade, Second Division, was concentrated as far as possible; all passes or leaves of absence were absolutely stopped; convalescent soldiers were got together and organized, and colored regiments, recruited from intelligent blacks of the city, were organized for sixty days service, under colored officers. In this manner were sufficient troops obtained to do the needed garrison duty, furnish required guards and patrol service, while the regular forces attended to the extreme outposts. The First Texas Cavalry, Colonel Davis, did all of the scouting service, under direct orders from General Emory.

This action at La-Fourche Crossing must not be confounded with the disastrous engagement of July 13th at Bayou La-Fourche, in which the Forty-Eighth, Forty-Ninth and Thirtieth Massachusetts Regiments formed a part of the Federal forces; Colonel Dudley in command.

CHAPTER XIII.
July—In New Orleans—At Algiers.

New Orleans on a Sunday during the summer of 1863 would have shocked those staid old New Englanders who believed in a proper observance of the day. Army and navy officers, soldiers and sailors, who could obtain furloughs, did not hesitate to use the day for a grand spree. All the elements were there to have a merry time, and upon the Shell-road there was seen a cosmopolite crowd bent on enjoyment of the day. The colored population was always out in full force. Until one got so used to it that the novelty was gone, all this excitement, in endless variety, was not to be lost by those who could take part.

The Fourth of July was made a gala-day. Salutes were fired morning, noon and night. A street parade was made by the Forty-Second Massachusetts and a few small companies from the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York, Twenty-Third Connecticut Infantry and Twenty-Fifth New York Battery, with two squadrons cavalry, as an escort to a procession of citizens, mostly dark colored. Fireworks in front of the Custom House at night closed the jubilations of the day.

At the Custom House the regiment remained until July 14th, on provost duty and on guard over Confederate prisoners, confined in the best part of the building. The treatment of these prisoners was good; their food was the same furnished to the regiment on guard, and except deprivation of their liberty they had no reason to complain. It was a hot time the day these Confederate officers arrived from Port Hudson. A large crowd of sympathizers were on hand to welcome them, so boisterous in behavior the cavalry-men, who assisted the infantry guard, in a number of cases lost their temper and drove the people into stores and houses by backing their horses into the crowd; sabres were also used a few times. The crowd threatened at one time to make an attempt to seize some stacked arms in a street near the Custom House, after the prisoners were placed in quarters. In a day or two quiet was restored and all expressions of sympathy ceased.

While on duty in the city all drills were suspended; parades of ceremony, guard-mounting and dress parade, took place on the reserved ground in the centre of Canal Street. These parades were gone through with in an indifferent manner on account of hot weather and debility, which began to affect a great majority of the men. Not being acclimated the extreme hot weather told on their health in a marked degree; not exactly in a condition to be called sick, they did not feel well; what duty had to be done was made easy as possible. Guards for hospitals, men for patrol, funeral escorts, and regular sentry duty at quarters kept at work every man able to do duty. One funeral escort was furnished every day, always at six o’clock in the afternoon.

After several assaults had been made upon solitary unarmed soldiers by the rough element in the city, an order was issued July 11th for every officer and soldier to wear his side-arms whenever upon the street. Several men had been roughly handled, and reports were current of the assassination of two men in the suburbs, but of the truth of this report there is no definite knowledge. The night patrol had orders to prevent more than three persons assembling together and to arrest all officers and men of the army without side-arms. The patrol furnished by the Forty-Second consisted of one lieutenant and eighteen men, who covered all streets within the limits of—from St. Mary’s Market to Eliseum Field Street, to Dauphin Street, to Canal Street, to St. Charles Street, to Julia Street, to Tchoupitoulas Street, and to Custom House Street. These limits covered many questionable places of resort and afforded night patrols an opportunity to see very curious incidents. At reunions of the regiment these incidents form the basis of a large number of amusing anecdotes.

To while away care and to lighten the burden of duty a few officers and men conceived an idea of forming a mock Sons of Malta Lodge. Prominent in this amusement were Captain Leonard, Lieutenants Sanderson and Phillips, Sergeant-Major Bosson, Sergeants Nichols, Vialle, Attwell, and others. The first move was to secure a victim for an initiation ceremony. It was decided to try Sergeant John Binney, of Company A, a man well known to all on duty at the Custom House. After broaching the subject in a careful way to the sergeant, he was anxious to join such a lodge, which he was informed had already been formed, and thought it an excellent idea. He was kept in suspense a few days on the plea that his name would have to go before the lodge, and if not black-balled he would be admitted on a certain evening. Binney caught at the bait like a hungry fish.

When everything was ready the pseudo-lodge members assembled, masked, in a dimly-lighted room in the Custom House, prepared for fun. A bugle, trombone, bass-drum and cymbals were procured from the band, officers appointed, and the sergeant, blindfolded, was admitted after passing through certain mock forms at the door. All worked well; the questions and answers and chorus from lodge members were carried out with due decorum until the moment the embrace of fellowship was to be given.

There was attached to Company C, as cook, an immense large negro, a regular old plantation hand, tall, burly looking, black as coal, with an odor about him as bad as from a skunk. With some difficulty, and not without threats, this negro was got into the room and made to strip naked to the waist. As the arms of Binney were placed around this negro and his head laid upon the bare, black breast the whole ceremony came near being spoiled by those present bursting into a roar of laughter; fortunately this was stifled, and amid a crashing din, made by band instruments, gas was turned on and the bandage removed from the eyes of candidate Binney. For a moment dead silence reigned, while Binney stared around and then at the negro in such a manner those present can never forget. Suddenly he kicked him, and with an exclamation more forcible than polite he proceeded to kick him out of the room amid peals of laughter. The negro did not lose any time in escaping from Binney’s wrath, for the poor fellow had been almost frightened out of his wits during the initiation; large drops of sweat stood out upon his face and breast like moisture on a well-filled ice pitcher.

Binney was mad. It was some time before he was cooled down. Finally he saw the joke, took it good-naturedly, and had his revenge in assisting at the initiation of others. Quite a number were “put through,” but as the proceedings leaked out candidates became scarce, and the lodge adjourned sine die.

While at Bayou Gentilly there was much discussion among some officers and men about their time of enlistment, caused by a regimental order, issued May 19th, promulgating the time of service for the regiment to expire on July 14th. Opinions varied, and naturally the men inclined to believe that theory which made their time for discharge come early. Some company officers allowed themselves to display their ignorance by agreeing with the short-term men, and did all in their power to keep up that belief. Those who knew better did not try to stop this short-term theory by informing the men of the true facts in the case. By a decision of the War Department, promulgated at the time when nine months regiments were called for, and modified at various times so that it was at last expressly stated that companies could be mustered when full, the men to draw pay from time of enlistment, though it be a month or two before their company was mustered; that when ten companies were mustered and formed into a regiment, then the field and staff were to be mustered, and the time of the regiment would date from the time the tenth company was mustered into service. This should have been known by all officers. Men in the companies who did not have the correct information imparted to them had an idea their term expired from date of muster of each company, and thought they could be sent home by companies. These men seemed to think of nothing but to get home as soon as possible, and they did not show any pride in the duty of a soldier, nor any regard for the cause they were in service for.

A few company commanders sent in to Department headquarters a notification their time would be out on a certain date—which was required by regulations—and received for reply the information, in substance, as issued by the War Department. Notwithstanding this official information they still refused to believe such to be the case, and took no steps to quell a mutinous sentiment which prevailed to a great extent; men swearing they would rather be shot than do another day’s duty, and similar foolish remarks.

This feeling reached a climax on the morning of July 14th. In the morning orders had been received to have the companies in readiness to move at a moment’s notice, in light marching order. The men and a few officers declared the time of the regiment had expired, and refused to do further duty. It was necessary to notify General Emory. The day before it was with difficulty a detachment of seventy-three men was furnished Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgibbon, who ordered the detail.

The men on duty were assembled upon the top of the Custom House and addressed by Lieutenant-Colonel W. D. Smith, One Hundred and Tenth New York Volunteers, acting assistant-adjutant-general on the staff of the general commanding. The trouble was mortifying, besides interfering with plans of the general, and it is no wonder Lieutenant-Colonel Smith could not control his temper, and used threats, combined with entreaty, to bring the men to a proper sense of their duty. The state of affairs was told to them, with a warning of what to expect if a refusal to do duty was persisted in. One officer, Lieutenant Duncan, Company F, protested, claiming that his time had expired, and asked in the name of justice that he and his men be sent home. He was promptly placed in arrest and his sword taken from him. This summary action was well-timed, for Lieutenant Duncan was a special champion of the “want to go home” men. It was proof to the men to butt against the Government was not an easy matter. When the Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts marched into the Custom House in the afternoon, to occupy their old quarters and relieve the Forty-Second, ordered to Algiers, the men thought and so expressed themselves that the commanding officer intended to coerce the regiment into doing duty, if it was found necessary. Fortunately, without further difficulty, the regiment went over to Algiers in the afternoon. Lieutenant Duncan was released from arrest and his sword returned, after an apology for his hasty, ill-timed behavior.

A history of the regiment would not be correct, and the truth not told, without recording these events, though it is unpleasant to do so. All true friends of the Forty-Second have every reason to be thankful nothing further took place to bring discredit on the regiment. This ebullition of sentiment about expiration of time of enlistment is the only act the enlisted men, as a body, have reason to feel ashamed about during their term of service.

From the fourteenth to the twenty-ninth the regiment was on picket duty upon the Opelousas and Gulf Railroad. Headquarters of troops on the west bank of the Mississippi River were at Company Canal, Brigadier-General McMillan in command (from July 21st, when he relieved Colonel Plumley) of all troops from Algiers to Des Allemands, and troops were pushed forward to La-Fourche Crossing, repairing the track and bridges to that point. The picket-detail usually consisted of from thirty to forty men, who were out on duty forty-eight hours, carrying rations for that time, their blankets and mosquito bars. The bars did not prove effective protection, and it was generally the case these men could not obtain any sleep, for they were obliged to keep awake and fight the terribly annoying insects. This was all of the fighting done on picket.

This picket duty extended to Jefferson Station, eight miles from Algiers, where two companies of Colonel Desanger’s regiment of sixty-day free colored troops and a battery of artillery were on duty. These colored troops were neatly dressed in the United States regulation uniform, and to all appearances were doing their duty well. Besides this picket-detail a guard was retained on duty, comprising nine men from Company A, eight men from Company B, nine men from Company C, five men from Company E, seven men from Company F, seven men from Company H, forty-five men in all, and acting Lieutenant George G. Nichols, Company G, under the command of Lieutenant White, Company C, who were sent to the Bellevue Iron Works in Algiers, July 13th, to relieve a guard from the Ninth Connecticut over Confederate prisoners of war confined there.

Another permanent guard was detailed for duty at Canal Street and French Market Ferries from New Orleans. Their duty was to prevent soldiers or citizens from crossing over without passes and to arrest suspicious persons.

Algiers and vicinity would not have pleased a tourist, with its dilapidated and uncared-for buildings, abandoned and neglected plantations and small population. All drills were stopped. Men not on duty could stroll where they pleased. A mixed contraband camp, not far away, was a favorite spot for many men to pass their spare hours. The men raided on all watermelon patches within a radius of several miles until complaints were made to the provost-marshal. In more than one case did these melons effect a cure of that scourge in armies—chronic diarrhœa. Singular as it may seem several men with this complaint, unable to get relief from the surgeons, were completely cured by eating these melons.

Quarters were taken in an old salt warehouse close to the river, with all the companies located in the building, space allotted each company, every man making himself comfortable upon the floor. Doors and windows torn out, there was no trouble about ventilation in the extreme hot weather that prevailed. The guard occupied tents on the opposite side of the road; the company cooks[18] and kitchens were in tents upon the levee. A house situated within a fine orchard, not far from the men’s quarters, was used by the surgeons for a hospital, the grounds in front for the field and staff-officers’ tents.

[18] One day a negro cook of Company C (the same man who took a part in the Sons of Malta ceremonies at the New Orleans Custom House) got into a difficulty with a camp-follower colored boy. Bantered into frenzy by this little devil the cook got a small dagger, and would have committed a murder had not the sergeant-major and Private John Davis, Company H, seized him, as he was about to stab the boy. A short struggle took place before this dagger was obtained. For punishment the negro cook was kicked for some distance down the road. Whatever became of the burly, quick-tempered negro has often been a subject of speculation among those who remember him.

Each night, after taps, the men made this salt warehouse ring with fun and music up to midnight. Many rough remarks were passed to and fro with special reference to the lieutenant-colonel, who, the men thought, was not exerting himself to obtain transportation home. As great injustice was done Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman while at Algiers, it is proper some of the correspondence in relation to securing passage North should be read by the regiment. At first he endeavored to have the paroled men sent home; affairs in the Department would not warrant an application to send home those men able to do duty, as every man was wanted.

“Headquarters 42d Regiment, Mass. Vols.,
“Custom House, New Orleans, La., July 5th, 1863.

“Sir,—I would respectfully present the following facts to the attention of the commanding general of the Defences of New Orleans:

“January 1st, 1863, three companies of the Forty-Second Massachusetts Volunteers, viz., D, G and I, under Colonel I. S. Burrell, were taken prisoners at Galveston, Texas. These men were taken to Houston and kept several weeks, when they were sent to our lines at Baton Rouge and paroled. February 25th they arrived in New Orleans and were ordered by General Sherman to report to me at the camp of the Forty-Second Regiment at Gentilly Crossing, on the Ponchartrain Railroad, since which time they have been in camp at that place.

“These men have had nothing to do or to engage their attention, and as a consequence they have become very low spirited and much reduced in bodily vigor. Several of them have lately died very suddenly, and several are daily taken sick. One sergeant taken sick July 3d was buried July 4th.

“The time of this regiment expires the fourteenth of this month, according to the rule established by the War Department for the service of the nine months troops, this date being nine months from the date of muster of the last company in the regiment. In view of these circumstances and of the fact that these men have been of no service to the Government in their present condition, I would respectfully ask the commanding general that they be sent to their homes as soon as possible.

“Many of these men are from the best families in Boston and vicinity, and their friends are deeply anxious that they should be sent North, and personally I am deeply interested that their case may be acted on at an early day, for if they are kept in this climate even a few weeks longer many more will be lost by reason of sickness, not only to their friends but for future use to the country.

“There are also at Algiers forty-four men from different companies of this regiment who are paroled, having been taken at Brashear City; these with those first spoken of make a total of two hundred and seventy-six paroled men of this regiment.

“By allowing these men to be sent to their homes not only a humane act will be accomplished but a great and never-to-be-forgotten favor will be bestowed on these men, who faithfully served their country when in service, and on many true friends of the Union in Massachusetts.

“With the highest consideration,

“I remain, your obedient servant, “J. STEDMAN, Lieutenant-Colonel, “commanding 42d Mass. Vols.

“To Lieut.-Col. W. D. Smith, A. A. General, “Defences New Orleans.”

The transport-steamer F. A. Scott was partially promised by Provost-Marshal-General Bowen, but on July 11th he wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman as follows: “General Emory, in view of the altered condition of affairs since the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, revokes the order for the transportation of the paroled soldiers of the Forty-Second Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers to New York.” This letter was the first intimation that an early return North could be expected of all nine months regiments whose time had expired. Until the two Confederate strongholds surrendered they would have been retained in the Department.

As a matter of form a letter was sent to the Department commander June 19th, stating the time of expiration of service, with a request for transportation to Massachusetts.

The two following letters explain themselves:

“Headquarters Forty-Second Regt., Mass. Vols.,
“Lafayette Square, New Orleans, June 21st, 1863.

“Sir,—I have the honor to report that your communication of the eighteenth instant, relative to the muster into service of this regiment, is received.

“I would respectfully state that no formal muster was ever made of this regiment, and the field and staff were mustered on the eleventh November, 1862. But the War Department have decided that in the case of the nine months’ troops their time was to expire nine months from the date of muster of the last company, which in this regiment was the fourteenth of October, making our time, as above, the fourteenth of July next.

“I received a short time since an official order from Governor Andrew, based on an order from Secretary Stanton, that the time would be reckoned as above stated.

“I have the honor to remain,

“Very respectfully, your obedient servant, “J. STEDMAN, Lieutenant-Colonel, “commanding 42d Mass. Vols.

“To Lieut.-Col. R. B. Irwin, A. A. General, “19th Army Corps.”

“Headquarters Forty-Second Regt., Mass., Vols.
“Camp at Algiers, La., July 27th, 1863.

“Sir,—The time of service of the Forty-Second Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers having expired the fourteenth instant, I would respectfully request that transportation be furnished the regiment for their return to Massachusetts. I would state for the information of the commanding general that the aggregate strength of the regiment at this time is as follows: on duty with the regiment and on detached service, including sick, five hundred and eighty; paroled enlisted men, two hundred and seventy-five; this making a total of eight hundred and fifty-five officers and enlisted men, for whom I apply for transportation. Of this number from twenty to thirty will be unable to travel with the regiment on account of sickness, and these will need separate transportation. Of the above number I have only about two hundred men fit for duty. Many have become debilitated from exposure and from the effects of the climate (fever and ague being quite prevalent), which incapacitated them for duty at the present time.

“Of all the commissioned officers I have only the adjutant, one captain and nine lieutenants for duty, the balance being either sick, on detached service, or prisoners of war at Huntsville, Texas.

“I have five captains sick, who will probably never get well in this climate. In view of the present condition of the regiment I would urgently request that this matter receive an early consideration from the commanding general, on the ground of humanity, if for no other reason.

“The paroled men have done no duty since their capture at Galveston January 1st, and they have become much debilitated from this constant inactivity, and they have lost a large percentage of their number by death, and many more will be lost, not only to their friends but to their country, if a change of climate is not granted them soon.

“Nothing has yet been asked of the Forty-Second Regiment that they have not fully carried out, and if Port Hudson still remained in the hands of the enemy there is not a man but would volunteer to stay to assist in any manner in accomplishing so desirable a result, as its capture.

“But having been informed that the exigencies do not now exist for our services that prevailed previous to the fourteenth of July, and our time having expired, as above stated, every member of the regiment is more or less anxious that the Government should allow them their right of returning to their homes and friends.

“I have the honor to remain,

“Very respectfully, your obedient servant, “J. STEDMAN, Lieutenant-Colonel, “commanding 42d Mass. Vols.

“To Lieut.-Col. R. B. Irwin, A. A. General,
“19th Army Corps.”

A letter from Brigadier-General McMillan, dated July 28th, stated that the major-general commanding the Department would send all nine months men home in such order as he would select, and as fast as transportation could be obtained; that he would send all at once if he could, and that all petitions and representations would fail to expedite the sending.

July 17th—Paroled men of Companies D, G, I, A, B, E and H arrived at Algiers from Gentilly Camp and were assigned quarters in the warehouse.

July 21st—Company K rejoined the regiment.

On one occasion while at Algiers an act of insubordination had to be summarily dealt with. Details for picket duty had been ordered, and first-sergeants had notified their men for that duty. When the hour arrived to “fall in” and report to the adjutant, the men from Companies C, H and E refused to do so. Their company officers proved powerless to enforce the orders, and the case was reported at regimental headquarters, when the lieutenant-colonel, major, adjutant and sergeant-major went to quarters to straighten matters out. Most of the trouble was in Companies C and H. Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman ordered the first-sergeant of Company C to order his detail to “fall in,” fully equipped. The first man called absolutely refused to do so. He was given five minutes to obey by the lieutenant-colonel, who held his watch in one hand and a pistol in the other. This man reluctantly did as ordered before the time expired, and the rest followed suit. No difficulty was experienced with other company details, and the picket on duty was regularly relieved. This ended all serious trouble of this kind, although Private Lawrence Mannocks, Company I, was placed in arrest July 19th for inciting to mutiny and indulging in blasphemous remarks; it was also necessary, on the twenty-eighth, to reduce to the ranks Corporal Thomas P. Hobart, Company A; a regimental special order was issued to that effect. At Battery St. John Captain Coburn reduced to the ranks Corporal E. C. Crocker, Company A, June 5th.

The guard-house was filled each day by men temporarily placed there for being drunk. They were old, hard, chronic cases, poor soldiers, unfit to be in service. Captain Leonard, Company C, found it necessary, in June and July, to arrest and confine quite a number of his men for disobedience of orders. Of his men, Private Charles F. Towle was in arrest from June 10th to July 13th, for desertion; Private John Myers, for same cause, from July 1st to the 10th. No further action was taken in either case.

Confinements in the guard-house while at Gentilly were few. Privates Owen Fox, Michael Bresneau, Company A, and Thomas Matthews, Company D, frequently got placed there for drunkenness, disobedience of orders, and insolence. Private Fox was once sentenced to carry cannon balls for two days (February 25th and 26th), without a proper hearing into his case in the regular manner. Private Bresneau was once confined a week for insolence. At other times they would be released in a few days, when sober.

At Algiers the men suffered more from sickness than at any other period of service. The regimental hospital was at Bayou Gentilly until July 18th, Surgeon Heintzelman in charge, leaving that part of the regiment at Algiers without a medical-officer, as Surgeon Hitchcock was at Port Hudson on a visit, without orders. Hitchcock always claimed permission was granted him to go there, but the only order received at regimental headquarters which authorized his absence was Special Orders No. 207, Defences New Orleans, issued April 19th, 1863, ordering him to report for duty at Berwick Bay, where he remained for a short time. Department Special Orders No. 185, issued July 30th, read: “Relieved from duty at Berwick Bay.” This want of a surgeon caused a letter to be sent the medical director, Defences New Orleans, which read: “I would respectfully bring to your attention the following facts: many men of this command are sick at this camp, and without any medical attendance. Unless a surgeon can be sent us some of our men will die in forty-eight hours. The reason of our being destitute of a surgeon will be explained by Chaplain Sanger, the bearer of this note. Please send us a good surgeon for temporary service.” Surgeon Hitchcock allowed a personal matter with the lieutenant-colonel to interfere with his duty.

The medical director had the regimental hospital removed to Algiers on the nineteenth, in order to secure the services of Surgeon Heintzelman.

The hospital record tells the following story of sickness in July. At Bayou Gentilly, July 2d, forty-four men were taken sick, most of the cases among the paroled men recently arrived from Brashear City. On the third, of sick in quarters: fourteen were in Company A, twelve in B, six in C, two in D, fourteen in E, and eight in H. July 4th, ninety-five men were sick: twenty-seven in hospital and sixty-eight in quarters. The average sick per day at Gentilly up to July 11th was: taken sick, twelve; returned to duty, ten; in hospital, twenty-seven; in quarters, fifty-five. At Algiers, July 20th, one hundred and seven new cases were reported on the sick list; nearly all were sick in quarters. The largest number sick on any one day was reported by the surgeon in his morning report of July 22d, when one hundred and forty-five men were sick and unfit for duty, in and out of hospital, viz.: Company A, twenty-one; B, twenty-two; C, seventeen; D, two; E, twenty-seven; F, fifteen; G, two; H, eighteen; I, five; K, sixteen. Not until the twenty-third did the paroled men from Galveston begin to show signs of breaking down, when eleven men of Company D, six of G, and eight of I were taken sick. After this date sick in quarters gradually diminished, but the sick in hospital kept that building full. The average sick per day at Algiers was: taken sick, twenty-three; returned to duty, seventeen; in hospital, thirty; in quarters, sixty-two.

Had the regiment remained in the Department another month the deaths would have doubled those in July, owing to the debilitated condition of many men. The deaths were:

July 4th—Sergeant Philip P. Hackett, Company G, congestion of the brain. At Gentilly.

July 7th—Corporal Uriel Josephs, Company A, jaundice. At Marine Hospital, New Orleans.

July 8th—Private Rufus G. Hildreth, Company C, dysentery. At Gentilly.

July 12th—Quartermaster-Sergeant Henry C. Foster, suicide. In New Orleans.

July 17th—Private Thomas J. Clements, Company H, chronic diarrhœa. At Gentilly.

July 17th—Private Welcome Temple, Company H, disease not known. At United States Barracks.

July—Private Patrick Fitzpatrick, Company E, chronic diarrhœa. In New Orleans.

July 26th—Private Ezekiel W. Hanaford, Company H, chills and fever. At St. James Hospital, New Orleans.

July 25th—Private John M. Gates, Company K, chronic diarrhœa. At Algiers.

July 26th—Private William H. Bickers, Company G, swelling of glands. At Algiers.

Sergeant Hackett (at one time an active member of old Barnicoat Engine No. 4, of Boston) was a clever man, full of life and good spirits. His disease was the result of hard drinking.

Corporal Josephs was a thorough believer in the cold-water cure. When his disease first showed its symptoms, about one month before he died, while on duty as ordnance-sergeant, he refused to report to the surgeon, but got permission to hire a room in a house not far distant on the Gentilly road. Every day he would bathe in a tub of water and then go to bed wrapped up in a wet sheet, until the landlady complained at headquarters about the corporal acting like a crazy man in her house, and asked for his removal. As Josephs was found to be very sick, he was removed to the Marine Hospital in the city.

Poor Hildreth lost all courage and hope a month before his death. He was then able to move about, and was cheered up by those who met him, without any effect. Had he shown some strength of will, as others did, he might have reached home and recovered.

The case of Private Gates was sad. Although blind in one eye and quite old when mustered into service, being a good marksman, very enthusiastic to serve, the officers and men of his company assisted him to deceive the mustering officer that he was only forty-two years old. He did duty manfully until his disease took such a hold upon him that he gradually wasted away. At his death he could not have weighed more than fifty pounds.

Private Bickers was unconscious when he died. He was placed on an operating chair in an upright position, a nurse standing near with a fan to stir the air for him to breathe, and drive away swarms of flies infesting the place. Around the room were beds arranged upon the floor, occupied by sick patients, all watching with intense interest poor Bickers draw his last breath. The sight was not calculated to give them courage, for Bickers was sick in the hospital only a short time.

Privates Temple, Fitzpatrick and Hanaford were sent to the general hospitals for better treatment than could be given them in the regimental hospital. During the latter part of July medical supplies became scarce. With difficulty were sufficient quantities of proper medicines obtained to treat a majority of cases; the supply of quinine gave out completely. Such a large quantity of medical stores lost at Brashear City could not be replaced until supplies from New York were received.

Private Hanaford lay upon the warehouse floor for some days, suffering with chills and fever, and nothing could be done for him. When taken with chills, it seemed as though he would shake the breath out of him. His removal to St. James Hospital was not made until nearly dead. This case caused much comment among the men, who freely charged he had been neglected.

About noon, July 12th, word was brought in to the headquarters room by a corporal in charge of the guard stationed at a house on Canal Street, corner of Magazine Street, occupied by the regimental quartermaster, quartermaster-sergeant and commissary-sergeant, that Quartermaster-Sergeant Foster had committed suicide a few minutes before. The news was hardly credited, but an immediate visit to his room, in which the sad event happened, proved it to be a fact. Foster lay upon the floor near the centre of the room, not far from a bureau, feet towards the door, dressed in his flannel shirt, pants and socks, just as he fell; a small pool of blood upon the floor near his head, a small bullet wound in the centre of his forehead, encircled by a small black-and-blue ring, and a pistol upon the floor by his side. Sergeant Foster had not been in good health for some time, and latterly shown great despondency. The reason was not known. His sickness was nothing more than came from extreme debility, and was not dangerous. For a few days previous he had given some evidence of not being exactly in his right mind, but there was nothing exhibited to lead any one to think him not capable of taking care of himself. He occupied a room with acting Quartermaster-Sergeant Hodsdon, both men sleeping in the same bed.

That morning Hodsdon thought Foster spoke and acted queer, without exciting any suspicion however, and when obliged to go out on business Hodsdon, contrary to his usual custom, laid his belt, containing a holster and pistol, upon the bureau, intending to be back in a moment and then wear it. He left the room, leaving Foster upon the bed, and had barely closed the door when he heard the report of a pistol and immediately opened the door again, to see Foster lying upon the floor as described. He never spoke, dying in a few moments.

His effects were taken in charge by the chaplain and sent to his parents, then residing in Dorchester, Massachusetts, from which place Foster enlisted. From a partial examination of his knapsack, where a few letters were found, it was thought the sad act was caused by unwelcome news from home.

The weather being hot, by orders of the commanding general all bodies had to be buried the same day that death occurred. Quartermaster-Sergeant Foster was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, at dusk, on the twelfth, escorted to the cemetery by a proper detail becoming to his rank, under command of Sergeant-Major Bosson, and the customary volleys fired over his grave. The burial party started at half-past three in the afternoon, and reported back to quarters at nine o’clock same evening.

Corporal Alonzo I. Hodsdon was made quartermaster-sergeant, July 13th, vice Foster, deceased.

Special-duty details in July were few:

July 18th—Private William A. Clark, Company B, was placed on duty as a wagoner.

July 23d—Private Leavitt Bates, Company A, was made clerk at regimental headquarters in place of Clark K. Denny, returned to duty with Company F.

July 25th—Private Lewis Buffum, Company B, to be a locomotive engineer on the Opelousas and Great Western Railroad.

CHAPTER XIV.
Companies C and H on Detached Service at Camp Parapet.

Special Orders No. 16, issued from headquarters Defences of New Orleans, January 15th, 1863, detailed Companies C and H for duty in the Department engineer service. The two companies made a skeleton battalion, under command of Senior-Captain Leonard, who, after reporting to Major D. C. Houston, chief-engineer Nineteenth Army Corps, for instructions, on the seventeenth marched them to Camp Parapet, three miles up river, with their camp equipage, and pitched tents upon a level piece of low, muddy land, formerly used as a burial place for soldiers. This Camp Parapet was so called because a large number of troops were in camp near earthworks thrown up a few miles above Carrollton. These works then consisted of a parapet and other fortifications on the east bank, between the river, the swamps and Lake Ponchartrain, with an abandoned Confederate redoubt upon the west bank, re-named Fort Banks.

The camp was moved to a fig grove January 21st, tents provided with floors, and here the battalion remained until relieved from detached duty, without suffering any inconvenience except, when a portion of camp was drowned out, February 15th, by a terrible thunder shower that forced men to seek shelter in barns not far away. Regular Sunday and monthly inspections were maintained, with an occasional drill. The inspections were thorough, as they should always be, and more drills would have been ordered had the details been less heavy. The companies suffered from a lack of commissioned officers. In Company C, Captain Leonard, as battalion commander, occupied the best quarters obtainable in the vicinity, and exercised command as such. Lieutenant White, absent on detached duty a greater part of the time, left but one company officer on duty, Lieutenant Sanderson. In Company H, Captain Bailey took things easy until placed in arrest April 16th, leaving Lieutenant Phillips the only company officer on duty; Lieutenant Gould was on detached service as an acting quartermaster.

There was little sickness among the men in this detachment during their stay at the Parapet. The position of their camp was more favorable for health than others at the post, with the additional good feature of being kept scrupulously neat; the prettiest camp at the post. On the extreme right of the earthworks, near the Jackson Railroad track, ground was so unhealthy it was nicknamed “Camp Death.” Here the One Hundred and Fifty-Sixth New York suffered severely from sickness. This ground, near the railroad, was also a risky place for the troops there stationed on account of shells exploding in the neighborhood, fired from the gunboats when practising to obtain a range of this road. All shells had time fuses and would explode high in air, but fragments occasionally fell where not wanted. On one occasion, March 31st, a shell from the Portsmouth went over the One Hundred and Fifty-Sixth New York camp to explode nearly half a mile away, as every one thought, yet a large fragment was flung into camp and took off the head of a Zouave, who did not dream his death was so near. At another time a shell in passing over Companies C and H camp prematurely exploded overhead; pieces were flung into camp, fortunately without injury to anybody.

Among the few inhabitants who lived near Camp Parapet must have been some treacherous, be-deviled secessionists. Ammunition was occasionally stolen, the empty boxes afterwards found in places where they had been thrown. An attempt was once made by them to cause a break in the levee above the fortifications, by removing pickets placed to keep the levee embankment from giving way. This attempt was discovered before any damage resulted, and guards were afterward placed upon the river banks to prevent other attempts of a like nature.

Private Charles E. Warren, who had been an apothecary clerk in Boston, was detailed by Captain Leonard to act as medical-officer for the two companies. Warren did not take the position from any love for the medical profession, but did so to advance his personal interest and comfort. He was a social, jolly, good fellow, with a certain amount of acquired knowledge how to use medicines, but had no diploma as a graduate from any medical institute authorizing him to assume the practice of medicine.

Other details from the enlisted men were made to serve in various capacities, viz.:

Sergeant Frederick C. Blanchard, Company C, acting adjutant.

Sergeant Edward P. Fiske, Company C, acting sergeant-major.

Sergeant Edward L. Jones, Company H, acting commissary-sergeant.

Sergeant Dennis A. O’Brien, Company H, wagon-master.

Private David N. Phipps, Company H, carpenter.

Corporal William A. Hinds and Private Reuben Smith, Company H, clerks in Commissary Department.

Privates John Davis, Company H, Larry O’Laughlin, Company H, James Haley, Company H, Daniel E. Demeritt, Company C, Solomon Kennison, Company C, and Henry C. Dimond, Company C, overseers of contrabands. Private Henry C. Dimond was also clerk in the superintendent’s office.

Corporals Charles E. Loring, Company H, Charles M. Marden, Company H, and George H. Smith, Company H, clerks in office superintendent of contrabands, Engineer Department.

Private Henry A. Fenner, Company H, orderly to Major Houston, United States Engineers.

Companies C and H contained a queer mixture of men, that made it hard to handle them in good shape. No other companies in the regiment were like them in their personnel. There were good men, with excellent reputations at home and from families of high standing; many men whose reputations were known to be bad, taken from the rough element of cities and towns, whose faces and behavior were enough to stamp them what they were; also many excellent fellows who did their duty manfully, though they did come from the ordinary ranks of society. This much must be said about the tough characters: fight as often and hard as they could among themselves, a frequent occurrence, whenever an outsider molested any comrade belonging to their companies, they came to his rescue, and would stand by each other to the last.

The duty performed by these companies was not arduous. It mainly consisted of guard duty and acting as overseers to gangs of contrabands at work on the fortifications. There was plenty of this kind of work to keep in good order earthworks already finished, change the lines of some portions, raze and rebuild other portions, cut and haul wood, and, under direction of Mr. Long, volunteer United States engineer (the same young officer who was at Galveston), a bastioned redoubt, to form a part of the earthwork defences, was commenced January 30th, and completed before the companies rejoined their regiment.

There were several large contraband camps maintained at the Parapet, known as colonies number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, the Greenville colony and Brickyard colony. Women and children were kept in camps separate from the men. These camps received additional negroes brought from abandoned plantations by details of men sent up river to collect them. A number of men from C and H were detailed in various capacities to assist such officers as were in command of these negro camps, for they had to be governed and fed by the military authorities.

No guard was kept over these contraband colonies, the negroes in them allowed to go and come as they pleased; but over those able-bodied negroes in the engineer camp a line of sentinels was placed, whose orders, at first, allowed them considerable liberty after their day’s work was done. A great many had what they called wives, who were domiciled in the colonies, and at dusk would go to see them, frequently remaining out of camp all night. Sometimes they got on a carouse, and made things lively. A considerable number would attend the numerous religious meetings held every night in the swamps. This exodus, at times, was so great that detachments of men from Companies C and H, mounted upon mules, would be started to hunt them up and bring them into camp, a fact Sergeant Meserve well remembers, because on one of these night hunts his mule became stubborn, and refused to obey the reins or the sergeant, finally landing him upon a tree-limb, where he hung until assisted to get down.

It was thought necessary to have more stringent orders than those in force, and by directions from General Sumner, Engineer Department, the sentries were ordered to shoot any one that attempted to leave without authority to do so. Naturally, this created considerable dissatisfaction among them, especially those who had wives and children in other camps. This state of feeling led some officers to apprehend acts of insubordination several times, and the orders caused an unfortunate affair to happen on the evening of April 17th, when a negro man, while attempting to creep out of the engineer camp, was detected in the ditch and challenged; not responding, he was shot in the back by a sentry from Company H. His wound was an ugly one, and he died the next day, after receiving every attention that could be given. The negro camp was thrown into great excitement by this event, requiring a large force of soldiers on the spot before quiet was restored. Many officers expressed their indignation at the manner in which negroes were restricted and guarded in this camp, as they did not consider these strict rules necessary. To get the case before a court, where their views could be ventilated, Lieutenant White placed the sentry in arrest, insisting that he should stand an inquiry into his conduct; by such action he incurred the displeasure of Company H. The man was released next day by Captain Leonard, for the case was clear that the orders compelled him to fire as he did.

Eleven days later, April 28th, an uproar of voices within this same camp alarmed Private Martin, on sentry duty, who thought trouble was brewing in the camp and raised an alarm, which caused both guard-reliefs to turn out and double-quick to the spot, while the rest of the men also ran down, some with arms, others without, seizing for a weapon anything they could lay hands on, ready and willing to fight anybody if their comrades were in danger. An investigation showed that the contrabands had built a large bonfire, and were singing around it. After these two events no further trouble was given by the negroes on engineer duty.

Thrown in contact with such large numbers of contrabands of both sexes as they were, it would not be Companies C and H if the men did not manage to find amusement in their surroundings. Perhaps the officers could tell a good story in connection with the marriage of Captain Bailey’s negro servant, an occasion they graced with their presence; while enlisted men could spin startling and true tales of pranks they played in these camps when off duty.

First-Sergeant Henry C. Mann, Company C, met with a serious and curious misfortune March 26th. It is surmised he had imbibed freely during the day, a fault common to many enlisted men at this camp, and as acting officer of the guard slept at night in the guard tent, upon the ground, without covering. At daylight he was quite sick from a cold thus contracted, and was unable to speak above a whisper. Nothing was thought of this at the time, as every one supposed upon a recovery from the cold his voice would return. It did not, and Sergeant Mann was incapacitated from further duty with his company during the term of service on account of this infirmity. One year after, while walking on Washington Street, Boston, Mann was seized with a violent coughing spell, and coughed up two pieces of gristle-like matter, when his natural voice suddenly returned. Sergeant Mann afterwards served in an unattached heavy artillery company. He died from consumption several years ago.

Of the officers from the regiment on detached service, Lieutenant White had more adventure than the rest. Immediately after the two companies arrived at Camp Parapet he was detailed, by orders from General Banks, to visit any abandoned plantations he could find within or without the Federal lines, gather together what negroes he could and bring them to the Parapet to work on the fortifications. He usually took from the two companies a detail of ten men as a guard, finally reducing this detail to seven men, for his own convenience and to obviate some difficulty he had experienced in obtaining rations. All of his trips were successful.

The first trip was made January 17th, and resulted in bringing in about four hundred on the nineteenth. The second trip was made on the twenty-seventh, when about six hundred were obtained and brought in January 30th. The third and last trip was made early in February to Donaldsonville and below. The detail for this trip consisted of: Corporal Augustus H. Young, Privates Elbridge G. Martin, Jr., Cornelius Dougherty, and Francis Droll, Company C; Sergeant Joseph J. Whitney, Company H; Private George H. Brown, Company C; and John Scroder, a Boston boy, who had been servant to Captain Leonard.

Complaints had been made by old resident planters in the parish, who remained to work their plantations, that many negroes were gathered on the plantations committing depredations. Major W. O. Fiske, First Louisiana Infantry (white troops), suggested to Lieutenant White that a trip to those plantations be made, and he would be able to get together a considerable number of negroes to bring down; by so doing benefit the planters, if they told the truth in their complaint, and also the Government. Caution was to be exercised, however, as the major did not fully believe the planters wished to have these negroes disturbed, as they had work for them to do upon the plantations. What occurred on the trip would seem to prove this view of the case was correct.

There was a detachment of thirty men, under a lieutenant from the One Hundred and Tenth New York, stationed at Magnolia Plantation, in St. John Parish, for what purpose Major Fiske said he did not understand, but did know this officer was having a fine time there and was on good terms with the planters, a fact that would make it probable he could not be counted on to render any assistance. This proved to be so.

Taking a river boat White and his men arrived at a landing two miles below this plantation about ten o’clock at night. On visiting this lieutenant a pleasant evening was passed without any mention made of the business in hand. Quarters were furnished for the night. Early next morning Lieutenant White, in company of the New York officer, made a round of adjacent plantations to look over the ground carefully. Upon their return White explained what he was after, when the lieutenant stated his position: he was pleasantly situated, well treated, on good terms with the inhabitants, and did not feel like doing a thing to disturb his pleasant life. Lieutenant White at once made up his mind the work must be done without assistance. He quietly gathered his men together and informed them there was considerable work to do, with a hint how easier it was to ride than to walk, then left them for the night. After breakfast, next morning, when he reached the place where his men quartered, he found seven horses ready, bridled and saddled. To his inquiry: “What does this mean?” one of the men replied: “It is White’s cavalry.” As he said it was easier to ride than walk, his men acted on the suggestion and equipped themselves in the night. Without difficulty he procured a mount for himself and proceeded to make a tour of the surrounding plantations, collect the negroes together, and explain what he wanted to do with them. They received the intelligence with delight, and were told to bring all of their effects and families with them, occupy a large storehouse situated by the river bank, where they could live until he could take them down river. They came in large numbers.

White left two men to look after matters at the storehouse, with instructions how to find him in case of need, and with five men started upon another tour on the succeeding day. While absent, a civilian provost-marshal, named Marmillon, or calling himself by that name, rode up to the storehouse, accompanied by a squad of hard-looking characters, fully armed, and demanded to see the lieutenant in charge. Word was despatched to White, who returned and confronted the gang. After some parley, Marmillon demanded that the detail should get out of the parish; said they had no business there; that he had orders of a later date than White’s instructions, which stated that all officers on such detailed duty as his should cease their operations and forthwith join their commands, insisting that White should read the orders, which he refused to do in a positive manner, but informed Marmillon no such orders had been received by him, furthermore, he could not receive them through him as official, and that he was on a service he meant to put through to the best of his ability.

The following orders were all that Marmillon could have had at the time, issued from headquarters of the Department, viz.: a circular of February 16th, 1863, which explained a system of labor adopted for the year in utilizing unemployed negroes, and General Orders No. 17, issued February 18th, 1863, that reads: “No negroes will be taken from the plantations until further orders, by any officer or other person in the service of the United States, without previous authority from these headquarters.”

While the conversation was at its height, with sharp questions and answers upon both sides, the men of “White’s cavalry” became uneasy and were ready for a fight, intimating to Lieutenant White their desire to “clean out” the provost-marshal’s gang. They were held in check, until finally Lieutenant White notified Marmillon it was of no use to talk further about the matter, he did not intend to leave the parish and should not, but the best thing he (Marmillon) could do was to get out himself with his crowd of scallywag cut-throats, about as rascally a set of men as he ever saw, for his own men were a little excited, and if he did not clear out he would not hold himself responsible for the consequences. This appeared to settle the matter, for the provost-marshal and his men went away saying they would be heard from again. That night Marmillon, or somebody, sent to Lieutenant White a threatening letter, with peremptory orders to leave the parish.

The negroes were attentive listeners to all that passed between the two parties. During the evening one of them quietly asked White to go with him to the storehouse, where he found these negroes had made a barricade, with their bedding, baggage, and sundry traps of all kinds, on the three sides approached by land (the fourth side was on the water front), so as to make the building almost bullet proof. In the vicinity were about two hundred negroes, armed with long sugar-cane knives, very excited and full of fight. They said, let the provost-marshal and his gang make an attempt to use force and they would wipe them out of existence.

The situation was not pleasant to contemplate, not knowing what Marmillon with his men would attempt to do, and they could not get away. Repeated attempts to stop boats on the river were failures. The boats hug the east bank as though they feared some trick was attempted upon them. This uncertain state of affairs continued for several days without interference from any quarter, White and his men in the saddle most of the time, raiding around to prevent any attempt to surprise them. Finally Lieutenant White and Corporal Young seized a horse and wagon, drove to Donaldsonville and, by pluck combined with CHEEK, compelled a steamer bound down river to land at the storehouse and take the negroes on board. They were landed at the Parapet and turned over to the proper officers. This detail was absent about thirteen days, unable all that time to communicate with Captain Leonard, who thought the party had been captured by the enemy.

Several other short trips after negroes were made at various times by Lieutenants Phillips and Sanderson without any trouble while performing that duty.

Preliminary steps were taken in March towards enlisting from the negro camps a sufficient number of men to organize the First Regiment Louisiana Engineers, to form a part of the “Corps d’Afrique,” then under consideration, and later on ordered to be organized as proposed in General Orders No. 40, from headquarters Nineteenth Army Corps, issued May 1st, 1863, at Opelousas. In those orders Major-General Banks proposed to organize a corps d’armee of colored troops, to consist ultimately of eighteen regiments, representing all arms—infantry, artillery and cavalry—organized in three divisions of three brigades each, with appropriate corps of engineers, and flying hospitals to each division.

Considering the character and standing of many men who received commissions in these regiments the following part of General Orders No. 40 sounds like buncombe. The extract is as follows:

“In the field the efficiency of every corps depends upon the influence of its officers upon the troops engaged, and the practicable limits of one direct command is generally estimated at one thousand men. The most eminent military historians and commanders, among others Thiers and Chambray, express the opinion, upon a full review of the elements of military power, that the valor of the soldier is rather acquired than natural. Nations whose individual heroism is undisputed have failed as soldiers in the field. The European and American continents exhibit instances of this character, and the military prowess of every nation may be estimated by the centuries it has devoted to military contest, or the traditional passion of its people for military glory. With a race unaccustomed to military service, much more depends on the immediate influence of officers upon individual members than with those that have acquired more or less of warlike habits and spirit by centuries of contest. It is deemed best, therefore, in the organization of the Corps d’Afrique to limit the regiments to the smallest number of men consistent with efficient service in the field, in order to secure the most thorough instruction and discipline, and the largest influence of the officers over the troops. At first they will be limited to five hundred men. The average of American regiments is less than that number.

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The chief defect in organizations of this character has arisen from incorrect ideas of the officers in command. Their discipline has been lax, and in some cases the conduct of the regiments unsatisfactory and discreditable. Controversies unnecessary and injurious to the service have arisen between them and other troops. The organization proposed will reconcile and avoid many of these troubles.”

The First Louisiana Engineers comprised twelve companies of sixty-five men each, in three battalions, under command of Colonel Justin Hodge, U. S. A. This regiment was conceived in the following manner: all negroes employed at work upon the fortifications were in a camp by themselves, styled “the engineer camp.” These negroes were organized into gangs of one hundred and twenty-five men each, commanded by two enlisted men from Companies C and H, each gang numbered one, two, three and so on, the same as companies in a regiment. The gangs were further subdivided into squads of twenty-five men, commanded by the most intelligent negro to be found. Before recruiting for this regiment was thought of, acting under orders these gangs were often drilled in marching, the facings, and other exercises without arms, by the detailed men who commanded them. Contrary to expectation, they took a great interest in these drills and improved rapidly, manifesting considerable intelligence for slaves, one reason why it was easy work to handle them, for they obeyed all orders without causing trouble, accustomed as they had been to doing so for their late masters.

Opinions differ in regard to whether the negroes enlisted of their own free will, fully understanding what they were about, when this regiment was determined upon. Lieutenant White says, that the two companies taken by him to Brashear City were sent away in a hurry, and the manner in which they were mustered into the service was this: the men were drawn up in line, when a German officer, who spoke poor English, said something to them that White could not understand, though he stood near him, and then declared the two companies mustered into service. These negroes afterwards asked what had been going on, and appeared ignorant of the nature of the ceremony. No enlistment papers had been made out or signed that White ever knew. On the other hand, soldiers who were engaged in recruiting for this regiment say, that the men signed enlistment rolls, nearly all by affixing their mark, and that they fully understood what was wanted of them, enlisting of their own free will. This is probably true so far as other companies than the first two are concerned. At all events, it is a fact, none of them ever protested against their enlistment, or mode of muster in, and were wonderfully tickled at the idea of becoming soldiers, proud to belong to the “machinery department,” as they termed it, in their ignorance supposing as a matter of course anybody called an engineer must have something to do with machinery in some manner.

After passing an examination early in April, the following men of the Forty-Second were appointed officers in this engineer regiment, and received their commissions a month later, viz.:

Sergeant Moses Washburn, Company C, to be captain. Commissioned May 23d.

Sergeant Frederick C. Blanchard, Company C, to be captain. Commissioned May 23d.

Private William E. Melvin, Company C, to be captain. Commissioned May 23d.

Sergeant Edward L. Jones, Company H, to be captain. Commissioned May 23d.

Sergeant Samuel H. Everett, Company H, to be captain. Commissioned May 23d.

Sergeant John G. Meserve, Company C, to be first-lieutenant. Commissioned May 21st.

Corporal Joseph McField, Company C, to be first-lieutenant. Commissioned May 21st.

Sergeant James G. Hill, Company K, to be first-lieutenant. Commissioned March 27th.

Sergeant William H. Shepard, Company K, to be second-lieutenant. Commissioned March 27th.

Corporal Augustus H. Young, Company C, to be second-lieutenant. Commissioned May 21st.

Private Edwin G. Sanborn, Company C, to be second-lieutenant. Commissioned May 23d.

Private Charles E. Warren, Company C, made assistant-surgeon, June 24th.

Private George F. Clark, Company C, appointed quartermaster-sergeant, June 26th.

Other men in Companies C and H had commissions tendered to them, which they declined for personal reasons. Some of the above-mentioned promotions were good—men adapted to carry out the spirit of Major-General Banks’ order.

An expedition made February 12th by the Third Division down Plaquemine Bayou, for the purpose of capturing Butte a la Rose, at the head of Grand Lake, was obliged to abandon the attempt on account of timber drifts in the swollen bayous, that made a passage through them impracticable, and returned February 19th. Lieutenant Swift, Thirty-Eighth Massachusetts, had got an idea into his head that he could, with a proper force, remove the greatest obstacle encountered by the Third Division: a completely-packed drift of wood like a raft, about three miles long, situated at the upper end of Bayou Sorrel, in St. Martins and Iberville Parishes, a narrow sheet of water about nine miles long. Swift had received permission, with orders from General Banks, to attempt it.

In winter months it had been the custom for light-draft river boats to make a short cut from Berwick Bay by way of Grand Lake, Lake Chilot, Bayou Sorrel, the Atchafalaya River, and Bayou Plaquemine to the Mississippi River. In summer months this route is almost dry in places, and not navigable for local boats. From Brashear City, via Grand Lake, to Lake Chilot is about thirty miles; Lake Chilot to Bayou Sorrel, about eight miles; through Bayou Sorrel, nine miles; and from Bayou Sorrel to Plaquemine, upon the Mississippi, is about twelve miles.

On April 26th, at the earnest request of Colonel Hodge, Lieutenant White consented to take command of two companies, about one hundred and thirty men, from the colored engineer regiment, under orders to proceed to Brashear City to assist Lieutenant Swift in his project.

The officers in command of these two companies were: Captain Samuel H. Everett, Captain William E. Melvin, Acting Lieutenant David C. Smith and Acting Lieutenant James S. Lovejoy, from Company C, Forty-Second Massachusetts Volunteers, Acting Lieutenant —— Purrington, from Twelfth Maine Volunteers, and Acting Lieutenant ---- McCown, a clerk to Colonel Hodge.

At Brashear City the expedition had to remain some three weeks, until suitable steamers could be furnished from boats in use by the army, then advancing up the Teche. Two small tug boats and two barges were finally provided, with all the equipment and rations supposed to be sufficient for the time it would occupy, calculated by Lieutenant Swift to be ten days. A start was made about May 20th. No surgeon was detailed or medicines provided, although an attempt was made to obtain both in Brashear City. The post hospital officers refused to do anything in the absence of direct orders to do so, although White had a personal request from General Banks to get a couple of panniers, with a full set of surgical instruments and medicines. The bags were obtained, but no instruments and but few medicines. Lieutenant Swift had with him a detail of thirty men, Twelfth Maine Infantry, all practical river lumber drivers. He did not conceal his opinion, that the negro troops were of no use to him in this scheme, and that the men from the Twelfth Maine would make short work of the obstacle.

On arrival at Bayou Sorrel, where they were attacked the first night by guerillas, they went to work with a will for some days, sending the logs right and left floating down towards Lake Chilot, where they again collected together to form a formidable obstacle in their rear, and before they were aware of it they were caught between the obstructions; they could not go ahead or go back. The weather was extremely hot, with mosquitos and flies terribly annoying, and before many days Lieutenant Swift was obliged to call upon Lieutenant White to assist him with the negro troops.

The expedition lay in this bayou between three to four weeks, the water falling steadily until there were places in their rear fordable over sand bars. The men sickened rapidly, measles appeared, and all of the Maine detachment, except five or six men, were on the sick list unfit for duty. Fortunately none died. About sixty-five of the negro detachment were also sick and unfit for duty; seven of them died. Provisions ran short. The few inhabitants in the vicinity gave information that the Confederates were operating around their rear to cut them off, not expecting they could get through in front and must eventually abandon the boats to try and work back by land towards Brashear.

In this emergency Swift appealed to White for a trustworthy man to go to Brashear City for provisions, and arms for the negro companies. Acting Lieutenant McCown was selected, who, with two negroes, managed by travelling at night to work their way back to Brashear, where they obtained provisions, also forty muskets, without bayonets or ammunition, and brought them up upon a small steamer.

Work was pushed day and night by all of the available hands to break through the obstacle in front, as it had become impossible to work back. This was at last accomplished, and with a clear passage beyond this obstacle the steamers were rushed through to the Mississippi, reaching that river late in the afternoon of June 19th, and the men were landed on the east bank, opposite Plaquemine.

One boat struck a snag while entering the Mississippi and sank in water almost up to her deck cabin; all hands, except the captain with a few of the crew, were taken on board other boats. Next morning Confederate soldiers appeared on the river bank and captured those who remained upon the wreck. It was afterwards ascertained that a force of about two thousand cavalry reached a point on the Bayou Plaquemine very soon after the expedition had passed, to find they were too late, when they pushed for Plaquemine Town, capturing the small force stationed there, burning the hospital building, and committing other acts of vandalism.

At the season of the year it was undertaken this expedition was a farce. Had an intelligent officer first made proper inquiries to ascertain the true state of that line of water course, when it was navigable and when not, the probabilities are that the expedition would not have started.

Lieutenant White, Acting Lieutenants Smith and Lovejoy proceeded immediately to the regimental hospital at Bayou Gentilly, sick with fever, and for a time it was doubtful whether they would recover. The two companies went to Port Hudson to rejoin their regiment.

The First Louisiana Engineers received orders to proceed to Baton Rouge May 20th, with General Neal Dow’s brigade. The brigade passed up river May 21st; on the twenty-second the engineer regiment had its first dress parade, with music furnished by the Forty-Seventh Massachusetts regimental band, that regiment having arrived at the Parapet a few days before. Without arms, clothed in straw hats and uncouth clothing (regulation uniforms had not been issued), this regiment made an appearance that agreeably disappointed the military spectator.

On Sunday, May 24th, camp was struck, transports taken, and the First Louisiana passed up the river for Port Hudson, where it did some hard work, received well-merited praise for duty actually performed, and praise for what it did not do. At Port Hudson this regiment did about all of the engineer hard labor of the army, divided into detachments to cover the whole Federal front (about five miles), to throw up temporary fortifications, dig approaches and mines. On the extreme left a work for twenty-one guns was made by these colored troops. In the first assault this regiment carried fascines to fill the ditch, and to their credit it must be said they ran forward, threw them in helter-skelter, expecting to receive the enemy’s fire every moment. The enemy did not fire on them (that was reserved for the assaulting columns of white troops), and they got back without loss. During this siege the regiment was as much under fire every day as any white regiment, suffered a loss of about seventy men, and displayed good pluck for untrained men.

While convalescent, Lieutenant White, disregarding the advice of Surgeon Heintzelman, returned to his company in New Orleans the last of June. From there he started for Port Hudson to report to Colonel Hodge. At Springfield Landing, the base of supplies for the army, an attack was made on the post July 2d, by a raiding party of Confederate cavalry, just as a party, including Lieutenant White, were about to start in a sutler’s wagon for Port Hudson, seven miles distant.

The Confederates dashed through a force of some ninety men from a New York regiment on duty at the landing, and then divided into squads. One of these squads rode down to the river bank where White, with a dozen other men, had taken refuge in an old trading boat. After discharging a few volleys, from the saddle, they rode away. They did not dare to dismount, because a sharp musketry-fire was springing up behind them from the New York infantry-men, who rallied, behind shelter, by twos and fours, as they saw a chance, until they drove the Confederates away, after a half hour’s skirmish, and before the Thirtieth Massachusetts, ordered down from Port Hudson, could intercept them.

From the boat Lieutenant White witnessed the capture of his old companion, Lieutenant Swift, by a Confederate squad who rode up to look inside a tent occupied by Swift a few moments before busily engaged in writing, and who had hid, with two men, in bushes close by. They would have been safe had not one of the men incautiously looked out to see what was going on and been seen by the enemy, who ordered them out and made them prisoners.

Lieutenant White was relieved from duty with the engineer troops July 7th, to rejoin his company.

To sum up what these two companies did is to say that they done their duty well. They were once, April 24th, under orders for Port Hudson, and held in readiness for two days to proceed there; the nearest they ever came to going into active field service.

June 5th, Companies C and H were relieved from duty in the Engineer Department, and marched seven miles to Bayou Gentilly, accompanied by the regimental band (sent them at the request of Captain Leonard), and rejoined the regiment.

CHAPTER XV.
Company K in Charge of Pontoons—Baton Rouge—Teche Campaign—Siege of Port Hudson—Donaldsonville—Return to Regiment.

Company K, under command of Lieutenant Henry A. Harding, a talented young officer, twenty-one years old, in obedience to Division Special Orders No. 51, issued February 16th, proceeded to New Orleans on the eighteenth from Gentilly Camp, and reported to Major Houston for duty in the engineer service. Quarters were assigned in Shippers’ cotton press, already partially occupied by the Twenty-Sixth New York Battery, one hundred and fifty men, eight brass guns and one hundred and ten horses. This battery remained at the cotton press until March 8th, the two commands fraternizing without any trouble.

Company K was ordered to take charge of the pontoon train. The pontoons, in two sizes, were made of rubber, inflated with air by hand bellows in lieu of air pumps, when all ready for use. Such miscellaneous articles as planks, guy ropes, oars, etc., occupied a large amount of space. Thirty wagons, drawn by four mules to each wagon, were used to transport this bridge and material. Negroes were employed as drivers, “bossed” by a large, powerful Irishman called “Big Slattery.” Slattery was a bully, always ready to curse and whip his negro drivers. His brutality assumed such proportions men of Company K had to interfere and put a stop to it. The company wagoner, in charge of the wagon used to convey company property, was Private Jotham E. Bigelow, until Wagoner Porter Carter was ordered to join his company.

At first sight the men made up their minds they were to see hard service in handling this cumbersome, clumsy-looking pontoon bridge. To bridge a river or bayou the requisite number of pontoons were inflated by hand-bellows, then launched and placed in position, afterwards planked, and fastened by ropes to remain steady. Company K had eighty men for this duty, until sickness and death gradually reduced the number to about fifty. They learned how to handle the pontoons without instruction from an engineer officer, by practice drills with sections of the bridge, and gained much valuable knowledge of the property confided to their care by odd jobs of necessary work done to have everything in complete order.

Two accidents happened that, for a short time in March, left the company without a commissioned officer. Lieutenant Harding, kicked by a horse about a week previous, had to go into hospital March 1st, on account of the injury. In the afternoon Lieutenant Gorham was thrown, his horse fell upon him, and he was insensible until taken to the St. James Hospital next day. He returned to duty March 9th, in season to command the company ordered to Baton Rouge with the pontoons on March 10th. They went up river upon the steamer Eastern Queen and arrived at Baton Rouge March 11th at three o’clock P.M., going into camp about half a mile from the river.

All signs pointed to a forward movement by the large body of troops massed at this place, commanded by General Banks in person. Great activity was observed on board naval vessels, which caused the men to understand they were about to do active field duty and gain some practical knowledge how to use pontoon bridges for service. Early on the twelfth the pontoon train was marched to Bayou Montesino, five miles from Baton Rouge, and the men commenced to throw a bridge seventy-seven feet long across this bayou. Picket lines were established some two miles in front until next morning, when the Forty-Eighth Massachusetts and Second Louisiana Infantry, with unattached Massachusetts cavalry companies, commanded by Captains Godfrey and Magee, were sent up river on transports to Springfield Landing, proceeding to the junction of Springfield Landing and Bayou Sara roads, driving in Confederate pickets and clearing the roads down to where the bridge was thrown. At night, work was suspended, but Company K kept on the alert, as pickets were firing throughout the night and alarms frequent; the men were formed into line three times, ready for a defence of the bridge. By noon of the thirteenth all was made ready, and at night troops commenced to cross on the advance towards Port Hudson.

The men remained on duty at their bridge until the seventeenth, with the Forty-Ninth Massachusetts Infantry on guard for a part of the time, witnessing the constant movement of troops, accompanied by baggage trains, and listening to the guns from the fleet while Admiral Farragut succeeded in pushing two gunboats past Port Hudson batteries March 14th. The retrograde march towards Baton Rouge commenced on the fifteenth, a rainy day, and on the seventeenth Company K commenced to take up, load their bridge upon wagons and go in the same direction, ordered to accompany the Third Brigade, First Division, Colonel N. A. M. Dudley in command, under orders to reconnoitre the west bank of the river.

On the eighteenth teams went to the levee and remained until five a.m. the next day (all hands sleeping upon the levee), when they embarked on the Sallie Robinson and proceeded to within five miles of Port Hudson, landing in the afternoon at Hunter’s Plantation. The brigade foraged, scouted, and opened communication with Farragut, while naval vessels below Port Hudson kept the Confederate steamers well under the protection of their own forts. Without having to make any use of the pontoons, the brigade returned to Baton Rouge on the afternoon of March 22d, and Company K left the next day, still upon the Sallie Robinson, for New Orleans, where they arrived on the twenty-fourth at four P.M., and marched immediately, with their train, to Shippers’ Cotton Press. Several men were taken sick from exposure to damp atmosphere at night, which almost penetrated their blankets as they slept upon the river bank.

For two weeks the company was kept busy in making alterations in the pontoons, found necessary during the short service they had seen, preparatory to moving with the army, about to commence a campaign in Western Louisiana towards Red River.

Hospital-Steward Charles J. Wood was detached from the regiment March 31st, by Department special orders, and joined April 3d, to act as medical-officer. First-Sergeant J. Gilbert Hill and Sergeant William H. Shepard were detached, by Department special orders, March 26th, and ordered to Baton Rouge to report to Captain Justin Hodge, assistant-quartermaster, on recruiting service for the First Louisiana Engineers, colored troops. They afterwards received commissions as first- and second-lieutenants. The following sick men were sent to hospitals: Sergeant George L. Johnson to St. James Hospital in New Orleans; Privates W. J. Bacon, C. B. Bacon, Samuel Johnson and S. M. Stafford to the regimental hospital at Gentilly Bayou.

Preliminary movements of troops were in progress as follows: the Second Brigade, First Division, under General Weitzel, had advanced to Brashear City from Bayou Bœuff April 2d; the Third and Fourth Divisions were en-route from Baton Rouge by transports to Algiers, thence by rail, a portion marching from Donaldsonville via Thibodeaux, when orders were received by Company K, April 5th, to move with the pontoons. At eight o’clock P.M. next day, the detachment took cars at Algiers for Brashear City, where they arrived early next morning. The bridge was unloaded, piled compactly near the track, and tents pitched close at hand.

Weitzel’s brigade was transported across the river to Berwick on the ninth, and the Third Division followed as fast as limited facilities at hand would admit, occupying two days in crossing. The bridge was put together about a mile from camp, below the city, on the ninth, using all of the material, that made a bridge two hundred and eighty-seven and ten-twelfths feet long. This took an entire day, and completely tired out everybody. Next day an attempt was made to tow this pontoon bridge to Bayou Teche, but the tide proved too strong for a tug-boat, and the steamer St. Mary’s was called on to render assistance, and then the Sykes had to assist before it could be moved and brought up to the railroad wharf at Brashear. This day was lost. The Sykes, at two P.M. on the eleventh, took the bridge in tow, with all hands upon it, bound for Pattersonville, three miles above Brashear. After a hard pull, obliged once to make fast to the shore, the bridge reached Pattersonville in the evening and remained all night. The men remained upon it, in readiness to obey any orders. On the twelfth the bridge was thrown across the bayou, and one infantry regiment, one cavalry company and five artillery guns crossed over. While at work Company K was fired on, and seven men were thrown forward to ascertain if a force was in the vicinity; a small guard was found, who beat a hasty retreat. Lieutenant Harding, with a boat’s crew, went up river at night for orders; Lieutenant Gorham, left in command, tried to execute an order to bring up the bridge to a spot about three miles from his position, where a bridge was destroyed by the enemy, but the captains of steamers Sykes and Smith thought it unsafe to try it, and the bridge was not towed up until next day, the thirteenth, when it was placed in position about three-quarters of a mile from the battle-field. Gorham was placed in arrest by Major Houston for the delay, and released and ordered to duty on the fifteenth, as it was not his fault.

The Third (Emory’s) Division, the Second (Weitzel’s) Brigade, First Division, advanced to Pattersonville, threw out pickets, and went into bivouac on the eleventh. The enemy was posted behind breastworks on the Bisland Plantation, about four miles above Pattersonville. On their left were six hundred men, with six guns, defending the ground from Grand Lake to the bayou. The gunboat Diana defended the bayou main road, and there were two 24 Pr. guns in position upon the bank, on their right, to assist the Diana. Sixteen hundred men, with twelve guns, held the line of their right to a railway embankment, where General Green was posted with his dismounted men.

After this position was reconnoitred on the twelfth, with skirmishing and considerable artillery firing in the afternoon, an advance on the enemy was made about ten A.M. April 13th, by a strong line of skirmishers, supported by artillery. No attempt was made to assault. This movement on the enemy was evidently made to occupy their attention until Grover’s division could gain the roads in their rear at Franklin. At noon the gunboat Clifton pushed up river to aid the troops, until she ran afoul of a torpedo. For fear of being blown up by these machines, she anchored until afternoon, and then commenced to throw shot and shell dangerously near the Federal troops. This was soon stopped, for the Clifton was not in a proper place to render any service. The bridge was in constant use during the day, soldiers and ambulances crossing and recrossing. The company remained under arms, on guard, until the fourteenth, squads of men going up river in small boats to witness the army movements on the twelfth and thirteenth, collect small boats and carry orders. The enemy retreated to Franklin on the fourteenth, after destroying their one gunboat on the bayou (the Diana), to escape a threatened rear attack by Grover’s fourth division, that had by way of Grand Lake, on transports, effected a landing with difficulty near Hutchin’s Point, not far from Franklin, and advanced to the Bayou Teche.

In this first Western Louisiana campaign the pontoons did not see much service. Bridges over the small watercourses General Taylor attempted to burn or otherwise destroy were repaired without difficulty, as the pursuit was close enough to prevent much destruction. A great flood existed, but saving the bridges obviated a call for use of pontoon-sections. The labor done by Company K was not heavy, but kept them constantly at work on the river for ten days, exposed at night to foul air and bad vapor from swamps. This exposure caused a large proportion of the men to be taken sick. Serious cases were sent to post hospitals at Berwick Bay, a portion distributed among hospitals in New Orleans, and those who could travel were sent to Bayou Gentilly.

The company proceeded to Franklin, April 14th, upon the Sykes, with gunboat Clifton for an escort, leaving their bridge where it was in position, with a detachment on guard. From Franklin the men were kept moving down and up the river, on the lookout for torpedoes, and at work to try and remove the wreck of the Confederate gunboat Cotton, blown up by the enemy in January, obstructing free navigation where she sunk. Plenty of opportunities were found to go ashore on foraging expeditions.

Orders were received on the twenty-third to join the army, well on its way towards Opelousas. Small boats took the men down to where their pontoon bridge lay, when it was taken in tow for Brashear City, and arrived there in the afternoon. The bridge was taken up on the twenty-fifth, loaded upon wagons, and transported on the steamer G. A. Sheldon, that left Brashear City on the twenty-sixth for Barre’s Landing, via Grand Lake, the Atchafalaya and the Cahawba Rivers, stopping at Butte a-la-Rose to leave supplies for the gunboat Calhoun. On arrival at Barre’s Landing on the twenty-eighth, wagons were sent ashore and the command went into camp. Bustle and excitement ruled the hours. A large amount of cotton kept coming in to the army, and was stored or shipped by steamers to Brashear.

From exposure upon the bayou Lieutenant Harding became sick with malarial fever, that forced him to leave his company April 21st and return to the regimental hospital for treatment. The command fell on Lieutenant Gorham, who was not equal to the task. With a weakness for liquor he could not control, this one fault completely unfitted him for such a position as he held. He was reprimanded once by a general officer, who noticed he was inebriated while on duty and cautioned him not to repeat the offence. Gorham failed to obey the caution, was found by the rear guard in a state of intoxication at a rebel’s house on Carnell’s Plantation, and at Alexandria, May 9th, was placed in arrest. Captain Smith, First Louisiana Engineers, was placed in command of Company K until Lieutenant Harding should rejoin. The option was given Lieutenant Gorham to resign or stand trial by court-martial. He chose the former, and was discharged from the service of the United States by Department Special Orders No. 115, issued May 13th.

General orders were issued to prevent straggling and pillage. As these orders were not promulgated to Company K, and many men never heard read General Orders No. 29, it is here given:

“Headquarters Dept. of the Gulf, “19th Army Corps, “Opelousas, April 21st, 1863.

“General Orders No. 29.

“The exigencies of the service, and safety of the troops, imperatively demand that the disposable force of the corps shall march in column, except where necessary detachments upon special duty are ordered by superior officers. The desertion of the column upon the march, or straggling, for the purposes of pillage and plunder, is an offence made punishable with death by the Articles of War. The honor of the flag, and the safety of the men who faithfully discharge their duty, demand that this law be enforced; and the commanding general gives notice, absolute and positive, that this punishment will be executed upon those men, of whatever command, who violate the army regulations and dishonor the service by inexcusable and atrocious acts of this kind. All officers, of whatever grade, who shall allow the men under their respective commands to leave the line of march or the camp, without authority, will be summarily and dishonorably discharged the service, as unworthy to participate in the triumphant march of this column. The army is now hundreds of miles from its base of operations, in the enemy’s country. The campaign may be made one of the most creditable of the war, or it may disgrace the troops and dishonor the country. The commanding general appeals to officers and men to reflect upon their position, to consider their duties, and faithfully to discharge the obligations which rest upon them, and is, for himself, determined to execute the severest sentence of military law upon those who basely betray the service and dishonor their country in this regard. Whatever property may be necessary for the support of the army, or may be prostituted to support the rebellion, will be taken by the Government, and due reparation will be made therefor. But we do not war upon women and children, however much and in whatever way they may have erred. Our contest is with the men and the armies of the rebellion.

“Information has been received at these headquarters that the lives of officers as well as of the men of the line have been endangered by the unauthorized and criminal discharge of firearms by persons engaged in pillage. Notice is given to all officers and soldiers that the parties engaged in these practices will be held responsible for the consequences of their acts, and that such offences will be punished with the severest penalties prescribed by the Articles of War. This order is not a matter of form, but will be rigidly enforced during the campaign.

“Officers in every division, brigade and regiment of this command are directed to place a rear-guard for the purpose of preventing stragglers from falling to the rear of the column. Where men are sick or foot-sore, upon the certificate of the surgeon, they will be allowed such conveyance or provided with such hospital accommodations as their situation may require. The captured straggler is the best source of information that the enemy possesses. A soldier who deserts his column in the face of the enemy will not hesitate to betray his comrades, and deserves the penalty which the law provides for his great wrong.

“By command of

“MAJOR-GENERAL BANKS. “Richard B. Irwin, “Assistant Adjutant-General.”

Several men of Company K got permission of Sergeant Johnson to forage, and went down the river on the twenty-eighth for the express purpose of pillage and plunder, returning next day with silver spoons and jewelry they had taken from a dwelling, whose owner promptly reported this case of burglary to General Grover. Lieutenant Gorham was ordered to parade his company in front of Grover’s headquarters, where the property owner identified Sergeant Baker, Corporal Bates, Privates E. G. Bacon, Luke Bowker, A. J. Thayer, E. M. Thayer and James Mins as connected with this affair. They were placed in arrest, sent to Algiers, and confined for twenty days before released from their dilemma with a reprimand, because they could give conclusive proof Orders No. 29 had not been promulgated to them.

Under orders to proceed to Alexandria the company and pontoon train left Barre’s Landing May 5th, with a column of troops under Grover, reaching Washington at half-past six in the evening, after a twelve-mile march, and remained over night. On the sixth, after a march of twenty-four miles over a rough road, a halt was made at a large sugar-house for the night. This was a tough day for the men; wagons broke through small bridges crossing ravines, had to be unloaded, bridges repaired, wagons repaired and reloaded, fences taken down to facilitate passing across plantations, and other innumerable vexatious accidents that make soldiers swear. On the seventh an early start was made; twenty miles marched before a halt for the night was made at a sugar-house two miles from Chanaville. On the eighth the march was continued to Carnell’s Plantation, sixteen miles from Alexandria, and on the ninth, after an early start, Company K reached Alexandria at noon. Nothing was done at this place except to guard a ferry across Red River, where forage parties, negroes and horses were constantly coming over.

Ordered to Simmsport, with troops destined to invest Port Hudson, the pontoon train again joined a column that left Alexandria May 13th, about two o’clock in the afternoon. Fourteen miles were marched that day; about twenty miles to Cheneyville on the fourteenth; eighteen miles to Evergreenville on the fifteenth; to Moreanville on the sixteenth, twelve miles from Simmsport. Simmsport was reached about noon on the seventeenth, after an average march of fifteen miles a day. Two pontoon rafts and an abutment were built next day for a part of the army to cross the Atchafalaya River to take transports at points on Red River for Port Hudson. The current was too strong and river too wide to permit the bridge to be used, and flatboats had to be brought into requisition. A portion of the troops marched to Morganza, on the Mississippi River, and took transports there.

Lieutenant Harding and Private Austin Hawes rejoined the company on the twenty-first to find the army had departed that day, leaving a guard over baggage and trains, that were moved as fast as transportation could be provided. It was on Sunday, the twenty-fourth, before Company K could proceed upon the steamer Forest Queen, arriving at Bayou Sara about ten o’clock the same night. The pontoon teams did not arrive until late in the evening of the twenty-fifth, when they were loaded, ready for an early start next morning.

The first assault on the enemy’s works at Port Hudson was arranged for May 27th. On the twenty-sixth Company K, with the pontoon train, started from Bayou Sara at four o’clock A.M., under orders to bridge Bayou Sandy (or Sandy Creek) on the Federal right. They arrived at two o’clock P.M., after a terrible hot and dusty march of sixteen miles. A light footbridge had been built over the bayou by pioneers, and one colored regiment was on the other side skirmishing with the enemy in a cool, collected manner. Work was at once commenced on a pontoon bridge two hundred and eighty feet long. Shot and shell from the Confederate works, less than a mile away, would occasionally fly over the heads of men at work, who ran for shelter when they could. The enemy’s infantry retired when the Thirty-Eighth Massachusetts Infantry and Eighteenth New York Battery put in an appearance. At night the Third and Fourth Regiments Louisiana (colored) Native Guards relieved the Thirty-Eighth and the battery. Everybody not obliged to be on picket or guard, slept through the night as only worn-out men can sleep, without a thought of the morrow, undisturbed by the continual boom from heavy guns fired by naval vessels bombarding the enemy.

Next day, Wednesday, at half-past five o’clock A.M., two negro regiments (First and Third Louisiana Native Guards), with other troops from Colonel Nelson’s brigade and two brass guns Sixth Massachusetts Battery, crossed both bridges to assault a redoubt. The battery-guns were handled in the road until withdrawn, with a loss of three horses killed and two men wounded. The infantry, with great bravery, pushed up close to the earthworks, where they found an overflow of water from the bayou a serious obstacle to success, and were obliged to retreat to cover of woods. One brave mulatto officer was left dead in the water near the redoubt. Five ineffectual advances through this water were made by Nelson’s colored brigade to scale a high bluff on which the redoubt stood, suffering heavily (about four hundred in killed and wounded), before approaches could be commenced on advanced ground that was gained and held. A cavalry detachment arrived late in the afternoon, dismounted and skirmished forward without any result. On their return an orderly-sergeant was killed while recrossing the bridge. During the day shells from the enemy came fast, and were exploding lively among the tree tops about Sandy Creek, where Company K remained as a bridge-guard. The enemy had the range, but could not depress their guns to make shot do any execution.

Corporals Lovegrove, Alden and a private were stationed at night on the exposed end to cut the lashings, so the bridge could be swung to the other shore by guy ropes, in case the enemy came down in force. The men not on guard slept in sheltered places, behind trees, anywhere to escape from shells fired by the enemy throughout the night. Early in the evening Lovegrove picked out a place, spread his blanket and was about to lie down when a shell went under his temporary sleeping bunk without exploding.

In this general assault of May 27th the following (nine months) Massachusetts troops were engaged at various points on the lines, with credit to themselves:

Forty-Eighth Infantry, in First Brigade, First Division, had seven killed, forty-one wounded.

Forty-Ninth Infantry, in First Brigade, First Division, seven companies engaged, had sixteen killed, sixty wounded.

Fiftieth Infantry, in Third Brigade, First Division, had one killed, three wounded.

Fifty-Third Infantry, in Third Brigade, Third Division, had none killed, several wounded.

The Thirtieth, Thirty-First and Thirty-Eighth Infantry (three years troops) were also in the action.

After this first assault the pontoon bridge was taken up, loaded upon wagons for an immediate start to any portion of the lines, and Company K went into camp, near other camps, about one and one-half miles to the rear. In preparation for a second assault the entire train was moved, June 4th, to a position near General Banks’ headquarters. On the tenth three detachments from the company, with sections of bridge work, were detailed to several division commanders, with orders to be prepared to bridge the ditch in front of the enemy’s works. Lieutenant Harding, with about twenty men, remained in camp near general headquarters as a guard over material not in use.

Corporal Lovegrove, with three men of Company K, was assigned to the First Division, General Augur. Forty-two men from the Forty-Ninth Massachusetts and One Hundred and Sixty-First New York Regiments were sent to him and placed under his orders for practice.

Corporal Bates, with a squad of nine Company K men, was assigned to the Second Division, General Dwight, until the fourteenth, when Corporal Hall relieved him.

Sergeant Howe, with about fifteen men of Company K, was assigned to the Fourth Division, General Grover. Forty men from other commands were detailed to assist Howe.

A flag of truce was sent to General Gardner on the thirteenth, demanding a surrender of Port Hudson, which he refused, and the bombardment recommenced along the entire line from new batteries, a prelude to an assault on the fourteenth, when an attempt was made by the Second Division to work up quietly through a ravine and rush over the works, while the Fourth Division assaulted the enemy’s left, near Sandy Creek. At daylight Corporal Lovegrove was ordered to load his bridge on a wagon, and the detachment went to within a short distance of the works, where they waited for orders. A siege battery in front and two light batteries maintained a fire nearly all day. The smoke became so dense nothing could be seen in front. No assault in force was ordered, and at five o’clock P.M. this detail returned to camp. Sergeant Howe and his detachment was with a brigade commanded by General Paine, in the third line, ready to bridge the ditch immediately after the storming party obtained a foothold within the intrenchments. This assault was repulsed. After General Paine was wounded, just as the ditch was reached, the men were ordered to lie down until chance enabled them to creep away in safety towards the rear. For hours the men lay in a burning hot sun, shot and shell flying thick around them. Fortunately none of Company K were killed or wounded; three men received slight scratch wounds. Two men of other regiments, in the bridge detail, were killed. Some of the men of Company K with Sergeant Howe on this day were: Privates Giles Blodgett, Warner E. Bacon, Benjamin F. Bacon, Amos D. Bond, Asa Breckenridge, Austin Hawes, R. W. Homer, Samuel King and Charles S. Knight. The Thirty-Eighth Massachusetts took two hundred and fifty men into this assault, and lost one officer, seven men killed; five officers, seventy-seven men wounded; or about thirty-five per cent. of its strength. Eight companies of the Fifty-Third Massachusetts were engaged, three hundred men, and lost one officer, thirteen men killed; six officers and sixty-six men wounded; or about thirty per cent. of its strength.

Other Massachusetts troops at Port Hudson, in this second assault, suffered as follows:

Fourth Infantry, in First Brigade, Third Division, had two companies detailed, with three companies from other regiments, to carry hand grenades in advance of the attacking column. Captain Bartlett, Company K, had command, and was mortally wounded upon the breastworks. Other companies of this regiment were in the reserve line. This regiment lost six killed, sixty-two wounded, a number mortally. Most of the casualties were in Companies A and K. Captain Hall, Company A, was wounded.

Thirtieth Infantry was in the reserve column and did not participate. The color-sergeant was wounded.

Thirty-First Infantry was in the Third Division assaulting column. Lost thirty men out of two hundred and fifty engaged.

Forty-Eighth Infantry was in the assaulting column and lost two killed, eleven wounded.

Forty-Ninth Infantry was in the brigade, First Division, that made a feigned assault, losing eighteen killed and wounded.

Fiftieth Infantry was in the reserve column and did not participate.

Fifty-Second Infantry was deployed as skirmishers between Weitzel and Grover, to prevent any flank movement on the assaulting columns. Lost three killed, seven wounded; one officer mortally.

For these two assaults many gallant men volunteered to lead the several columns. After the second failure it was at once decided to try a third time, and orders were issued to organize a storming column, after this style:

“Headquarters 19th Army Corps,
“Before Port Hudson, June 15th, 1863.

“General Orders No. 49.

(Extract.)

“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 fit to commemorate the first grand 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.

“By command of

“MAJOR GENERAL BANKS. “Richard B. Irwin, “Assistant Adjutant-General.”

Between the three years and nine months troops from Massachusetts, engaged at Port Hudson, there was no choice as to which behaved the best. They all did well in the positions they were placed.

The entire day of the fifteenth was occupied in removing dead and wounded men to the rear. All sick and wounded who could bear transportation were sent to Springfield Landing, thence by steamers to New Orleans, for distribution in the general hospitals. Hot weather made heavy inroads on the effective strength of besieged and besiegers.

Sergeant Perry, Corporal Bryant, Privates McIntosh, Johnson, Bruce, Desper, L. Barnes, Wheeler, Flagg and Sibley, who had been in hospital at Gentilly Bayou, with six other men that were in New Orleans, rejoined Company K June 15th, in obedience to orders issued June 11th. Hospital-Steward Wood was sent with them from the camp at Gentilly. The effective strength on duty during June was: one officer, four sergeants, seven corporals, one musician and fifty privates—total, sixty-two enlisted men.

From June 14th to July 8th the duties of Company K were easy. Several men volunteered and served in the batteries, while the detailed detachments and sections of bridge work remained with each division, ready for any movement that should be ordered. News that Vicksburg surrendered July 4th was heralded to the troops early on the morning of July 7th, by a heavy artillery salute given by the left battery. This was followed by an intended salute to the enemy, at noon, by all of the Federal batteries engaged in the siege. The Confederates answered by displaying a flag of truce, and an armistice for twenty-four hours was arranged between the two commanding generals. Soldiers on each side then met each other half way between their respective lines, without arms, during the night and morning, and had a jolly good time together, until a formal surrender took place in the afternoon of July 8th.

Receiving orders to get ready to take the field, the bridge was packed upon the wagons, and Company K marched into Port Hudson at five P.M. July 9th, all ready to embark at once on transports from the landing. For three days, under orders and counter-orders, the company remained in Port Hudson, while other troops were embarked and sent down the river.

To open river communication, the entire First Division, General Weitzel in command (General Augur was ill), was embarked at Port Hudson upon transports, at night, July 9th, and sent down to Donaldsonville, disembarking on the morning of July 10th. Other troops marched to Baton Rouge, for transportation to the same place, and the pontoon train was ordered to follow at midnight July 12th. Roused from slumber the men worked hard until morning, when the steamer St. Maurice carried them to Donaldsonville, arriving in the evening, July 13th, too late to take part in a reconnoissance made that day by the Third Brigade, First Division, under Colonel N. A. M. Dudley, Thirtieth Massachusetts.

What few particulars can be gathered of this second action on the La-Fourche are here recorded:

General Taylor heard of the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson during the night of July 10th. He immediately concentrated his troops on the La-Fourche, at Labadieville and Donaldsonville, to offer resistance if pressed, until sufficient time was gained to clean out his spoils in Brashear City.

July 11th, the Thirtieth Massachusetts skirmished down Bayou La-Fourche about four miles, when they met the enemy’s cavalry in force, and returned to Donaldsonville towards night. At noon the next day this regiment again marched down the bayou road about one mile before meeting the enemy’s pickets, who retired after an exchange of shots, a lieutenant of the Thirtieth being wounded. After proceeding nearly four miles, this regiment, with four guns Sixth Massachusetts Battery, went into bivouac on Kock’s Plantation.

Early on the morning of July 13th a few shells dropped into the woods where General Green’s dismounted cavalry and Semmes’ battery were under cover, served to elicit a reply from that battery; an artillery-fire was maintained on both sides for about two hours. Under orders not to bring on an engagement, the First and Third Brigades advanced down the right side of the bayou, accompanied by an additional battery (First Maine), while a detachment from Grover’s division, commanded by Colonel Morgan, Ninetieth New York, advanced down the left bank. Had the pontoon bridge been on hand to facilitate the carrying of orders across, perhaps the disaster of this day would not have occurred. The bayou was not wide, but no boats or skiffs were to be found. There was a stupid disposition of the Federal forces, who must have outnumbered the Confederates, with an absence of intelligent orders from the colonel in command, that has never been satisfactorily explained.

Upon the left bank, in front of Colonel Morgan, was a wide, open plain. In front of troops upon the right bank were sugar-cane fields, the stalks grown about seven feet high, with scattered trees, thick shrubbery and houses, both on and off the road, completely obstructing a view of what was taking place along the line. The Thirtieth Massachusetts, covering the bayou road, could not see beyond two hundred yards or so. While artillery-fire continued the men were nonchalant, paying little attention to shells, as they did no material damage. Some of the men improved the opportunity to bathe in the bayou and wash their underclothing.

Until two o’clock P.M. skirmish lines engaged the enemy; companies from the Thirtieth Massachusetts supported a section First Maine Battery, the One Hundred and Seventy-Fourth New York supporting another battery. At two o’clock Confederate cavalry on the left bank were seen to deliberately form line on the open plain and swoop down in fine style, with a continual yell, on the men under Colonel Morgan, who fell back rapidly, exposing Federal troops on the right bank to a flank fire. About the time this cavalry charge was made Confederate infantry and dismounted men, without the customary yell, carefully skirmished through the cane fields on the right bank, towards the Federals, who opened an infantry-fire in support of the artillery. No connected account of what happened along the line can be obtained, but it is well known that the Thirtieth Massachusetts suddenly found themselves receiving a sharp fire from across the bayou, a hot fire in front, and stray bullets from the cane fields to their right. Part of the regiment lay down behind a provisional breastwork made by the levee bank, which was also extended by them over the bayou road, and tried to silence the enemy seen in their wide-brim slouch hats on the other bayou side.

Though the enemy steadily crept along in front, to rise, fire and drop, to continue creeping up, no one seemed to think of a retreat. The two guns, First Maine Battery, were in an open space between the bayou road and levee bank, just back of the Thirtieth Massachusetts men. Exposed to the enemy’s fire from across the bayou, the cannoneers sought shelter by laying upon the ground under their guns. Lieutenant Healy, in command, was obliged to use his sword on his men to force them up and serve the pieces; without aid, he loaded and fired a gun several times. This state of things continued until about three o’clock, when these guns became heated and could not be used; all the artillery horses were killed or disabled, with but four artillery-men left fit for duty, as the rest were killed or wounded.

Orders had been given to retreat, obeyed by some men who heard them, while others did not obey because they did not hear on account of the noise made by the musketry, artillery and bursting shells. The men who remained fought on for a short time, when two small companies One Hundred and Seventy-Fourth New York Infantry crowded in on them, pell-mell from the right, and completely filled the space that sheltered the Thirtieth Massachusetts, leaving bare enough elbow room to work in; still they kept on fighting (these One Hundred and Seventy-Fourth New York and Thirtieth Massachusetts men) to hold their ground, and at this time the heaviest loss of the day occurred.

When it was seen men were in retreat and the enemy was closing in rapidly, Captain Fiske, Lieutenant Barker, with some dozen men of the Thirtieth Massachusetts, endeavored to save the battery-guns by hauling them over a levee bank to the roadway with drag ropes. One gun was saved; one gun was abandoned, or thrown into the bayou. All of the troops upon and near the road then retreated in good order, exchanging shots from behind house corners and such shelter as could be found; in a few cases individual soldiers almost crossed bayonets with men of the enemy. The Thirtieth Massachusetts colors were defended by a handful of men until safe to the rear.

Colonel Dudley endeavored to rally his men for another stand, or check the enemy’s advance, and succeeded in forming a line of about seventy-five men. This line fired a few rounds and then continued the retreat. On the retreat Private Horace F. Davis, Thirtieth Massachusetts, was cut off in a cane field by Confederate cavalry, made a prisoner about six o’clock, and with about fifty more prisoners was corralled under a cluster of trees, guarded by sentries. A rain-storm set in at night, accompanied with heavy thunder and sharp lightning, which enabled Private Davis to pass between two Texans, who were leaning upon their rifles on guard, and escape by crawling along in the darkness between the lightning flashes, avoiding the enemy, whose location was shown by their camp fires, around which they congregated, until he joined a flag-of-truce party, sent out after the dead and wounded. With this party he remained on duty, no one supposing he did not come out with them, finally rejoining his regiment at one o’clock A.M.

Private Davis, while firing from behind the breastwork across the road, was in range of a battery-gun First Maine. His attention was called to the fact, and at the moment he looked behind a shell was fired from this gun, the concussion as it passed over him causing a prickly sensation in his right eye. Nothing was thought about it at the time, or for some time after, until he discovered the sight was gone. Not daunted by this discovery, Davis remained on duty with his regiment, and reënlisted, with one eye, when his first term expired. The sight to his right eye has never been restored.

Other Massachusetts troops in this action were the Forty-Eighth and Forty-Ninth Regiments, attached to the First Brigade, and the Sixth Battery.

The Forty-Eighth was posted in sugar-cane fields to the extreme right, with a skirmish line out. In retreating, no orders were sent to the skirmishers, who were surrounded before they knew it, and lost two officers and twenty-one men taken prisoners.

The Forty-Ninth was posted in a lane that ran at a right angle with the bayou, and were lying down when the fight commenced. The regiment was soon ordered to a sugar-house, seen above the sugar-cane, about five hundred yards to the right and front, to reënforce a regiment and battery supposed to be there. No troops were found on arrival at the place. This regiment caught a moderate infantry-fire from the front, and saw a mounted force upon its right. Confederate infantry got in on the left of them, when the regiment fell back to the lane, and there remained until a staff-officer, Lieutenant Weber, got to them by the rear and ordered the regiment to save itself, as it was cut off. This was done by making a detour of some three miles through cane fields before it could rejoin the command.

The Sixth Battery lost one gun, dismounted and carried a short distance to the rear for repairs, where it had to be left, because sudden orders to retreat were given before it could be mounted to bring away.

Total casualties to Massachusetts troops in this action were:

Thirtieth Infantry—Eight killed; thirty-seven wounded; one missing.

Forty-Eighth Infantry—Three killed; seven wounded; twenty-three missing.

Forty-Ninth Infantry—One killed; twenty wounded; one missing.

Sixth Battery—One wounded.

Other regiments in the two brigades and Colonel Morgan’s detachment lost in about the same ratio as above, because the enemy must have captured at least two hundred prisoners, probably more, and men in Company K saw at Donaldsonville, laid out for burial, about forty Federal soldiers, picked up on the field by a flag-of-truce party. Most of these men were shot in the head.

July 14th and 15th baggage and teams were unloaded from the steamer. On the sixteenth two hundred and thirteen feet of bridge was thrown across Bayou La-Fourche, under the direction of Sergeant Austin Hawes. The company remained on guard until July 20th, when they parted from their pontoons, relieved from further engineer duty by Captain John J. Smith, with one company First Louisiana (colored) Engineers.

Camp was struck July 21st, when the company proceeded to New Orleans upon the steamer Sallie List and reported to the regiment at Algiers late in the afternoon. Department Special Orders No. 181, issued July 25th, formally relieved Company K from detached duty in the engineer service.

During this tour of active field service sick men of Company K were left in hospitals at Berwick, Brashear City, New Orleans, and many men were sent to Gentilly Bayou regimental hospital. Deaths from sickness were as follows:

March 31st—Private Albert N. Bliss, fever, at Marine Hospital, New Orleans.

April 26th—Private Charles L. Atwood, fever, at Brashear City Hospital.

May 1st—Private Charles B. Bacon, fever, at Brashear City Hospital.

May 3d—Corporal George H. Shepard, congestion of bowels, at Berwick City Hospital.

May 24th—Private Samuel A. Knight, ——, at Baton Rouge Hospital.

May 28th—Private Elias H. Cutler, fever, at Brashear City Hospital.

July 4th—Private George H. Allen, dysentery, at New Orleans Hospital.

July 5th—Private William Stone, typhoid fever, in camp at Port Hudson.

CHAPTER XVI.
August—At Algiers—Bound North—On Board “Continental”—Arrival Home.

Major-General Banks having decided to send the regiment home in a few days, July 29th was devoted to cleaning guns and equipments, and turning over material to the regimental quartermaster. Orders came on the thirtieth to embark August 1st on the steamer Continental for New York, thence proceed to Readville, Massachusetts, and report to the United States mustering officer in Boston. The thirtieth and thirty-first July were busy days for the quartermaster, who turned over to proper Department officers arms, ammunition, equipments, camp and garrison equipage, unissued clothing, transportation and quartermaster stores, surplus medical and hospital stores. Twenty-five muskets and five hundred rounds of ammunition for the guard was retained.

All detached service men and convalescent sick men able to travel were ordered, by Department orders, July 25th, to join the regiment. Surgeon Hitchcock and Lieutenant Proctor reported back to the regiment. Major Stiles and Lieutenant Duncan, Company F, were relieved from court-martial duty July 30th. The detachments from Companies A and F reported July 25th from picket duty at Bayou St. John and Lakeport, relieved by Company H, Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers. The sick in regimental hospital not able to travel were removed to New Orleans and distributed among the general hospitals.

The reveille was sounded at three A.M. August 1st, and every man was busy putting his personal effects in shape until the time arrived to eat his last breakfast in Louisiana. At eight o’clock the embarkation commenced. The Continental lay alongside the levee, near the warehouse, so no difficulty was experienced in placing aboard what little baggage was to be transported and the sick men supposed to be able to undergo the voyage. After all had got aboard, the Continental steamed up to New Orleans for Brigadier-General Cuvier Grover and his staff officers, Brigadier-General Paine, and a number of officers going North on leave of absence.

An attempt was made by General Grover to have his horses and those of his staff sent North upon the steamer. The only place where they could be accommodated was below the upper deck, where all available space was already taken up by the men, crowded well together, while space in immediate vicinity of the main hatch had been fitted up to accommodate the sick, as it was handy to have communication with the cabin; yet General Grover insisted that his horses should be taken on board. No amount of expostulation would change his determination. Captain Cogswell, Company F, swore that if they did come on board not one would be alive after one day at sea. His men below deck, packed like sheep in a railroad car, would have made short work with the animals before they would suffer the nuisance to remain. By a united remonstrance to General Banks, from surgeons and officers of the regiment, a Board of Survey was ordered and soon decided the matter. The horses did not get on board. General Grover’s conduct in this affair was not humane.

While tied up at the levee until a decision was reached on this horse business, Sergeant Vialle, who was ashore on some errand, saw a drunken cavalry-man fall from his horse, and in a kind manner assisted him. The fellow was on a troublesome drunk, and turned on Vialle, accusing him of stealing his property. This was all that was wanted to set the devil at work in a patrol-guard from the Ninth Connecticut, who had a guard-station near the spot. They arrested Vialle and conducted him to this station, with an intention to hold him until after his regiment left. Word reached the boys that one of the regiment had been seized by the Ninth Connecticut, and on shore a drove of them rushed and went direct to the guard-station and demanded his release. This was refused, with a threat to fire into the crowd if they did not go away; but the boys held their ground, coming in contact several times for a scuffle with men on the patrol, who used their bayonets once or twice. While in the act of tearing up paving stones from the street to hurl at the guard, for the Forty-Second men were now thoroughly aroused, Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman, in a carriage, drove between the two bodies of men and put a stop to it. The patrol-guard set Vialle free by a back-door entrance of their quarters, when they saw what threatened them.

Hawsers were finally cast off, and the Continental headed down river bound for South West Pass. No cheers were given as the steamer got under way; all hands felt too happy now they were bound home to care a picayune for Louisiana. The following officers and men were left in Louisiana sick or on detached service:

Captain George P. Davis, Company K, on provost-marshal duty.

Lieutenant Augustus L. Gould, Company H, acting-quartermaster of a colored engineer detachment, to render his final accounts.

Private William H. Gilman, Company C, as hospital-steward in General Ullman’s brigade colored troops.

Private Everett A. Denny, Company E, on duty at division headquarters. He came North by way of the river, in charge of a sick officer.

Private John Nolan, Company B, sick in hospital with chronic diarrhœa. Died in New Orleans.

Private Lewis Buffum, Company B, on detached service as locomotive engineer.

Private Jonathan Brown, Company C, in hospital with both ankles broke. Came North by way of the river.

Private Charles McLaughlin, Company H, sick in hospital with dysentery.

Sergeant Chauncy B. Sawyer, Company I, was sent to St. James Hospital July 31st, sick with typhoid fever. He was sent to New York, August 17th, on the Cahawba.

Private Thomas P. Contillon, Company I, sick in hospital.

Private Thomas F. Igo, Company I, sick in hospital.

Private Amos B. Howard, Company G, sick in hospital with a fever.

Private Franklin Hall, Company E, sick in hospital.

After remaining all night at South West Pass, for a high tide to cross the bar, early on the morning of August 2d the Continental put to sea. Fine weather the entire trip, with scarcely a cloud to be seen in the sky and a sea almost as smooth as glass, was what kind fortune favored the Forty-Second this time. In spite of all this, Lieutenant Powers, Company F, was again very sea-sick. He lay day and night upon the deck, close by the cabin’s side, covered by his blanket, not wishing any nourishment, and took very little of what was forced on him, the picture of misery. Not another man on board suffered much from sea-sickness; a slight nausea for one day.

Mounting a guard every day was the only duty done on board ship. The men were allowed to enjoy themselves in any proper manner without restraint. Many of them slept on deck at night, instead of in the close, crowded deck below. The food furnished was plain, though not so good as when on land, while the drinking water was bad. Without storage capacity for enough fresh water to last the trip for the number of men on board, condensed sea-water had to be used. When drank fresh from the condenser it was not palatable, but if left to stand ten to twelve hours was not bad to the taste, and answered for drinking purposes. The difficulty was to get enough supply ahead to let it stand these hours, consequently most men had to drink it warm or get none at all. Music was freely given by the regimental band during the trip, and enjoyed for the want of better.

Details on board ship were: Lieutenant White in charge of receiving and delivering rations and of men detailed to assist the cook. Lieutenant Tinkham had charge of giving out water.

The strength of the regiment on board was—twenty-two officers and four hundred and six men for duty; three officers and one hundred and thirty-three men sick, with two hundred and seventy-two men paroled prisoners of war.

During seven nights the Continental was at sea, gambling was carried on in the cabin by a few young officers on leave of absence. The hours chosen were between ten P.M. and two A.M., when those not interested in the game had retired. Rolls of bills and small piles of gold pieces upon the table was not an unusual sight, while any one who had any curiosity, by lying upon the floor (a custom followed by some, instead of sleeping in their cabin berths), could witness the double dealing done by all the players and the passing to and fro of cards underneath the table between partners. It was interesting to witness, by outsiders, but the players frequently lost their temper as the play went against them, and open accusations of cheating and fraud were frequent, sometimes almost leading to a fight.

In the improvised hospital every attention possible was given sick men by the surgeons. The following deaths occurred however, and the bodies were committed to the deep ocean with usual appropriate ceremonies, viz.:

August 5th—Private Patrick O’Day, Company H, of acute dysentery.

August 6th—Private Charles H. Poole, Company I, of dysentery.

August 6th—Private Andrew J. Fisher, Company F, of heart disease.

In the cases of Poole and Fisher, their comrades did all in their power to give them comfort, but O’Day was shamefully neglected by his company officers and comrades, none of whom took the slightest interest in his case.

On the trip Corporal Andrew P. Olson, Company C, sick with chronic diarrhœa, and Private James A. Knight, Company F, sick with dysentery, rapidly grew worse. By their will power, they lived to reach New York. Corporal Olson died August 9th, Private Knight, August 10th, Private Benoni H. Calvin, Company E, August 12th, and Private Thomas Curran, Company C, August 19th, after they reached home.

Cape Hatteras was passed on the night of the sixth; a pilot was taken on board the next evening, and the Continental arrived in New York Harbor early on the morning of August 8th. The sick were at once transferred to the New England rooms. The steamer Commodore came alongside the Continental in the afternoon, and men and baggage were transferred, to proceed on to Boston, via Providence, Rhode Island.

As the Commodore did not start until seven o’clock in the evening, a day was passed in New York. Most of the men remained quietly on board these steamers, or upon the pier. Permits to pass the guard, stationed at head of the dock, were granted in cases where it was well known the privilege would not be abused. The guard, Lieutenant Martin Burrell, Jr., in command, was under strict instructions, and did their onerous duty well. All precautions taken did not prevent some turbulent spirits from getting beyond the dock and supplying themselves with liquor. No serious cases of intoxication were to be noticed, however, until late in the afternoon, when Private Con. Dougherty, of Company C, was rolling about the dock, insulting everybody in his way, and spoiling for a fight. About the same time the guard passed in from the street Private John Davis and Sergeant Joseph J. Whitney, both of Company H, very drunk and very ugly. Before many minutes elapsed the three men came in contact, and a savage fight took place.

Nobody seemed to have the courage to put a stop to it. As it occurred in the immediate vicinity of the guard, a few officers near by presumed Lieutenant Burrell would at once arrest the men. Unfortunately he was absent from his post, and the sergeant on duty lacked proper knowledge of what he had authority to do. Word was sent to the lieutenant-colonel, who immediately came on the scene, accompanied by Major Stiles. Davis and his companion were ordered to stop their rioting, as Dougherty was badly punished and at this time upon his back. Davis, now full of fight, savagely turned upon Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman, and threatened to serve him in the same way he had Dougherty, at the same time shaking his fist very close to Stedman’s face. For at least a minute the parties looked at each other: the colonel pale in the face, without showing signs of fear, only a little hesitation as to what was the proper thing to do; Davis and Whitney uttering blasphemous and insulting language, with threatening manners. The sergeant-major drew, cocked his pistol, and held it behind his person ready for use, and if either of the men had struck their lieutenant-colonel one blow they would have been shot down. Lieutenant Burrell soon arrived; he ordered a detail of his guard, with fixed bayonets, to arrest the three men—if they resisted, to use their bayonets freely. This diverted the attention of Davis, who at once started for the steamer; the other two men were arrested, but soon after released on promise of their company companions to take care of them.

The principal offender, Private Davis, on reaching the Continental, proceeded to whip the steward of that boat, whom he owed a grudge, and for a time made things hot for everybody. He was not taken in charge at this time, nor during the night, notwithstanding he made himself very offensive until the effects of bad rum were gone. This leniency towards Davis should not have been permitted. He had placed himself in just such positions many times during his service, and should have been taught a lesson. As far back as when in camp at Readville, he was reduced from the rank of corporal on account of his rowdyism.

A heavy fog set in before the steamer was well in Long Island Sound, continuing all night. The men slept in every nook and corner they could obtain a chance to lie down. General quiet prevailed, except such noises as were made by a few drunken men, the aforesaid Davis among the number.

Using due care, with a thorough knowledge of Sound navigation, the pilot supposed Point Judith was passed and steered a course to carry the steamer up Narragansett Bay, when at five o’clock A.M. Sunday, August 9th, the Commodore struck upon the rocks of Point Judith, hard and fast. When she struck it was with sufficient force to throw men partly from their berths. There were two distinct shocks, with a grating sound as if timbers were being crushed and broken. No confusion followed the event; every one was cool and collected as though nothing had happened; when it was definitely ascertained that the steamer was fast upon the rocks, many men went to sleep again.

Upon deck it was impossible to see a hand or any object a few feet distant, the fog was so dense. The water was smooth and at high tide. After ineffectual attempts to back off, boats were lowered to make an examination of the hull near the water line, and a careful inspection made of the hold. While making water freely there was no danger, for the bow was hard and fast upon the rocks, and when the tide receded would leave her hull upon solid bottom; still all was done that could be to stop the leak.

The fog lifted gradually and by seven o’clock A.M. entirely disappeared, when the steamer’s position was seen to be within a stone’s throw of the shore. Adjutant Davis and Quartermaster Burrell went ashore, got conveyance to Kingston, and with some difficulty opened telegraphic communication with Providence, for assistance, also sending word to Boston. Fortunately the commissariat was in condition to keep the men from hunger. With the exception of grumbling on account of disappointment at not being able to eat a good breakfast in Boston, the men took the accident philosophically. The morning passed without any event of importance.

Early in the afternoon steamer City of Newport arrived from Providence, and after attempts were made at high tide to float the Commodore into clear water, without success, numerous heavy hawsers being broken, it was decided to transfer the men to the City of Newport by life-boats from both steamers, each boat-load hauled hand over hand along a hawser prepared for the purpose, instead of using oars. This operation was slow, the boats carrying a small number at a time. As darkness came on the tide receded and obliged the City of Newport to let go her end of the hawser and keep farther off from shore, to prevent grounding; the wind freshened up and caused a heavy swell on the sea and surf on shore. This took place before the transfer of men was complete, and made the rest of the operation tedious and tiresome, as oars had to be used to pull more than a mile.

Officers and men behaved admirably until afternoon, when boats were ready to transfer men; then came the tug of war in an endeavor to fill these boats. Orders and in some cases entreaty had to be used in forcing men into them. Men who would face an enemy without fear were afraid to trust themselves in small boats upon the water. The last boat to reach the City of Newport contained seven or eight men, who were saved from capsizing, in an insane endeavor they made to reach the steamer’s deck together, by the coolness of two men.

When all were on board that could be induced to take to the boats, the City of Newport proceeded to Providence, arriving there at two o’clock Monday morning, August 10th. No time was lost in taking cars, held in readiness, and the train started for Boston without delay, arriving at the Boston and Providence depot at five o’clock. Had the regiment arrived home on Sunday morning, as expected, a rousing reception was ready for it.

The Forty-Second marched to Faneuil Hall, where breakfast was waiting, and the regiment formally welcomed home by prominent citizens. At half-past ten o’clock A.M. the regiment formed line and marched to the parade ground on Boston Common, where the men were dismissed until the twentieth.

August 20th, 1863, one year after the first detachment went into camp as a nucleus to organize the regiment, the men assembled upon the old ground at Readville and were mustered out of the United States service.

The following officers and men remained in the enemy’s hands, prisoners of war: Colonel Burrell, Surgeon Cummings, Captains Sherive, Proctor and Savage, Lieutenants Cowdin, Eddy, Bartlett, S. F. White, Newcomb and Stowell, Corporal H. W. McIntosh, Privates Dennis Dailey, Edwin F. Josselyn, Francis S. Morrill, James O’Shaughnessy, of Company D; Corporal David L. Wentworth and Private Joseph W. D. Parker, of Company G; Private Joseph W. McLaughlin, Company I; and Private Samuel R. Hersey, Company C.

CHAPTER XVII.
Adventures of Corporal Wentworth and Private Hersey.

Corporal David L. Wentworth, Company G, Private Samuel R. Hersey, Company C, and Frank Veazie, officers’ cook, with about three hundred men (including Lieutenant Hamilton, Master Hannum, Engineers Plunkett and Stone, of the Harriet Lane), left Camp Groce, December 9th, for Shreveport. Long captivity in restricted quarters left them in such a debilitated condition that a march of any duration completely prostrated them.

The guard, some fifty men, under a good officer, was composed of a clever set of men, who made it easy for the prisoners so far as lay in their power, occasionally helping some poor fellows along by allowing them to ride their horses. Those too ill to walk (Hersey was among them, and towards the journey’s end Wentworth, sick with dysentery) were allowed to ride in the baggage wagons, five in number, an uncomfortable conveyance, none provided with springs, and the roads in poor condition.

Cooking utensils were scarce. Living principally upon “mush,” each mess, when they arrived at camping places, would try all sorts of tricks to secure a “dodger-pan” from some other mess, in spite of orders, “first come, first served.” Some would have to wait until late at night for their turn to come, while others, too tired, would retire to their bed of leaves and go to sleep hungry.

Every morning a start was made soon after daybreak, in order to reach each day’s destination as early as possible. On an average fifteen to twenty miles constituted a day’s march, and was done every day until December 22d, when a halt for several days was made, one mile beyond Tyler, to rest the weary prisoners. While here the officers left at Camp Groce passed them on their way to Camp Ford, without an opportunity being given to converse. Pleasant, cool weather was experienced the first four days, then came cold, windy weather for two days, then rain for one day, clearing off cold and windy and remaining so until the march ended, varied with a few rainy and many cloudy, damp and freezing cold days. It took six days to reach Trinity River, and several days more before arriving at Tyler. The march was resumed on Sunday, December 27th, crossing Sabine River during the morning, and continued each day until about sunset December 30th, when it ended, after an eighteen days’ tramp, and four days’ rest at Tyler, twenty-two days after leaving Camp Groce.

Even the negro drivers, rollicking jolly as they appeared to be, singing and yelling all day long, could not enliven this small regiment of marching sufferers. A favorite song, because it was constantly sang, and in a manner impossible for any white man to imitate, “Rock me Julie, rock me,” rang in the prisoners’ ears long after they had parted company with their ebony-colored singers.

The following account of what occurred while at Shreveport was written by Private Hersey, who claims that there is no exaggeration in his statements—facts alone are stated: