CHAPTER XIV. ALEXANDRIA.
Every one was in high spirits at the prospect of meeting the Army of the Tennessee, and, to add to the general good-humor, just before quitting Opelousas two pieces of good news became known.
Grierson rode into Baton Rouge on the 2d of May at the head of his own 6th Illinois and Prince's 7th Illinois cavalry, together 950 horse. Leaving La Grange on the 17th of April, he had within sixteen days ridden nearly 600 miles around the rear of Vicksburg and Port Hudson and along the whole line of the Jackson and Great Northern railroad. Beside breaking up the railway and the telegraph, and destroying for the time being their value to the Confederate army, Grierson's ride had an indirect effect, perhaps even more important than the direct objects Grant had in view when he gave his orders. That the railway should be rendered useless for the movement of troops and supplies, and the telegraph for the transmission of orders and intelligence, was of course the essential purpose of the operation, yet no one could have foreseen the extent of the confusion that followed, aided by Grierson's rapid movements, amid the fluttering and distracted councils at Vicksburg. Thus it happened that, when he heard of Grant's landing below Grand Gulf, Pemberton actually thought himself menaced by the advance of Banks, and this misapprehension was the parent of the first of those mistakes of his adversary of which Grant made such good use.
Lieutenant Sargent,(1) the aide-de-camp sent to communicate with Admiral Farragut, as stated in the last chapter, found at the mouth of the Red River Admiral Porter, with the gunboats Benton, Lafayette, Pittsburg, and Price, the ram Switzerland, and the tugboat Ivy, with which he had run the batteries of Vicksburg in preparation for Grant's movement. Porter brought, indeed, no despatches, but he brought the great news that Grant had secured his landing at Grand Gulf and had begun his victorious march on Vicksburg. When Sargent returned to headquarters at Opelousas, he brought with him a despatch from Porter, promising to meet the army at Alexandria.
Banks had already broken up the depots at Barré's Landing and New Iberia. On the afternoon of the 4th of May, he set Dwight in motion from his advance post at Washington. Weitzel marched from Opelousas at five o'clock the same afternoon, and Emory's division under Paine followed on the morning of the 5th. Emory, who had been suffering for some weeks, had at last consented to obey his surgeon's orders and go to New Orleans for a brief rest. Grover followed from Barré's Landing early in the afternoon of the same day. Banks himself remained at Opelousas until early in the morning of the 6th, having waited to receive and answer the translation of the cipher telegram from Grant; then he rode forward rapidly and joined his troops near Washington. From this time the communications of the army were to be by the Atchafalaya and the Red River.
On the 4th of May, while riding to the front to join the advance commanded by his brother, Captain Howard Dwight, Assistant Adjutant-General, was surprised and cut off at a sharp turn in the Bayou Boeuf by a party of armed men on the opposite bank. Having no reason to apprehend any special danger so far in the rear of the advance, the little party was proceeding along the road without precaution. At the moment of the encounter Captain Dwight was quite alone, concealed by the turn in the road from the ambulance and the few orderlies that were following at leisure. Armed only with his sword, and seeing that escape was hopeless, he instantly declared his readiness to surrender. "Surrender be damned!" cried the guerillas, and, firing a volley without further parley, shot him dead. When the orderlies who were with the ambulance heard the firing they galloped forward, only to find poor Dwight's lifeless body lying in the dusty road. The murderers had fled.
By this painful event the service lost a brave and promising young officer and the staff a pleasant and always cheerful comrade. The distinguished family to which this gallant gentleman belonged had given four brothers to the service of their country. Of these Howard himself most nearly resembled in character, looks, and bearing his elder brother Wilder, who fell at Antietam, honored and lamented by all that knew him.
Upon hearing the news, Banks instantly sent order to Brigadier-General Dwight to arrest all the white men he might find near the line of his march to the number of one hundred, and to send them to New Orleans to be held as hostages for the delivery of the murderers. "The people of the neighborhood who harbor and feed these lawless men," Banks wrote, "are even more directly responsible for the crimes which they commit, and it is by punishing them that this detestable practice will be stopped." There were not a hundred white men in the region through which Dwight was marching, but many were punished by imprisonment after this order—a harsh measure, it must be admitted, yet not without the justification that the countryside was infested by men wearing no uniform, who acted in turn the part of soldiers in front of the Union army, of citizens on its line of march, and of guerillas in its rear. When, under a flag of truce, Dwight presently demanded from Taylor the surrender of his brother's murderers, the Confederate officers not only disavowed but severely condemned the crime, declaring themselves, however, unable to pick out the criminals.
Two miles beyond Washington the Bayous Boeuf and Cocodrie unite to form the Bayou Courtableau, out of which again, below the town, flows the Bayou Maricoquant, forming a double connection with the Teche at its head. For a long distance the Boeuf and the Cocodrie keep close company, each following a crooked channel cut deeply into the light soil. Crossing the Courtableau above Washington, the line of march now lay along the east bank of the Boeuf, by Holmesville and Cheneyville, through a country of increasing richness and beauty, gradually rising with quickened undulations almost until the bluffs that border the Red River draw in sight.
Banks had promised that he would be in Alexandria on the morning of the 9th of May; but no opposition was encountered; the roads were good, dry, and easy under foot; the weather fine, and the men were filled with a desire to push the march, and with an eager rivalry to be first in Alexandria. Early on the afternoon of the 7th of May the brigades of Dwight and Weitzel, both under Weitzel's command, arrived at the beautiful plantation of Governor Moore, and went into bivouac. Here the cavalry, who had ridden well forward, returned, bringing the news that Porter, with his gunboats, was already in the river off Alexandria, where the fleet had cast anchor early that morning, a full day before its time. This made Banks desire to push on, and he at first ordered Paine to continue the march, preceded by all the cavalry. When Weitzel heard this, his spirit rose for the honor of his brigade, and in emphatic yet respectful terms he protested against being deprived at the last moment of the post he had held almost since leaving Brashear. Banks yielded to Weitzel's wishes, and his men, not less eager than their commander, notwithstanding the long march of twenty miles they had already made, at once broke camp and with a swinging stride set out the accomplish the twelve miles that still separated them from the river. One of the ever-present regimental wits sought to animate the spirits and quicken the flagging footsteps of his comrades by offering a turkey ready trussed upon his bayonet to the man that should get to Alexandria before him. For a long part of the way the men of the 8th Vermont and the 75th New York amused themselves by taking advantage of the wide and good roadway to run a regimental race. As the eager rivals came swinging down the hill, they found their progress checked by a momentary halt of the horsemen in their front, while watering their jaded animals. Then, "Get out of the way with that cavalry," was the cry, "or we'll run over you!"
It was ten o'clock at night when Weitzel's men led the way into Alexandria. A full ration of spirits was served out to the men, who then threw themselves on the ground without further ceremony and used to the full the permission to enjoy for once a long sleep mercifully unbroken by a reveille. Paine followed and encamped near Alexandria on the following morning; Grover rested near Lecompte, about twenty miles in the rear.
Beside his own vessels, Porter brought with him to Alexandria the Estrella and Arizona from the flotilla that had been operating on the Atchafalaya under Cooke. Porter was thus fully prepared to deal with any opposition he might encounter from the Confederate batteries at Fort De Russy; but, although only the day before the Albatross, Estrella, and Arizona had been driven off after a sharp fight of forty minutes, when, on the 5th of May, Porter arrived at Fort De Russy, he found the place deserted and the guns gone.(2)
On the 8th of May, finding that the river was falling, Porter, after conferring freely with Banks, withdrew all his vessels except the Lafayette, and descending the Red River, sent four of the gunboats seventy miles up the Black and its principal affluent, the Washita, to Harrisonburg. This latter expedition had no immediate result, but it served to show the ease with which the original plan of campaign might have been followed to its end.
While Banks was still at Opelousas, Kirby Smith, taking Dwight's approach to signify a general advance of the Union army, had arranged to retire up the Red River and to concentrate at Shreveport. Thither, on the 24th of April, he removed his headquarters from Alexandria and called in not only Taylor but a division of infantry under Walker, and three regiments of Texans already on the Red River. All the troops that Magruder could spare from the 8,000 serving in Eastern Texas he was at once to put in march to the Sabine. These orders, though too late for the emergency, brought about the concentration that was presently to threaten the ruin of Banks's main campaign on the Mississippi.
Weitzel, with Dwight, followed the Confederate rear-guard to Lawson's Ferry, forty-one miles by the river beyond Alexandria, taking a few prisoners. Taylor himself appears to have had a narrow escape from being among them.
During the week spent at Alexandria, Banks was for the first time in direct and comparatively rapid communication with Grant, now in the very heart of his Vicksburg campaign, and here, as we have seen, the correspondence was brought to a point. When he first learned that Grant had given up all intention of sending to him any portion of the Army of the Tennessee, Banks was greatly cast down, and his plans rapidly underwent many changes and perturbations. At first he was disposed to think that nothing remained but to retrace his steps over the whole toilsome way by Opelousas, the Teche, Brashear, New Orleans, and the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge, and thence to conduct a separate attack upon Port Hudson. This movement would probably have consumed two months, and long before the expiration of that time it was fair to suppose the object of such an operation would have ceased to exist. What led Banks to this despondent view was the fact that he had been counting upon Grant's steamboat transportation for the crossing of the Mississippi to Bayou Sara, and at first, he did not see how this deficiency could now be met.
Indeed, on the 12th of May, he went so far as to issue his preparatory orders for the retrograde movement; but the next day careful reconnoissances by his engineers, Major Houston and Lieutenant Harwood, led him to change his mind and to conclude that it would, after all, be possible to march to Simmesport, and there, using the light-draught boats of the Department of the Gulf, supplemented by such steamers as Grant might be able to spare for this purpose, to transfer the whole column to Grand Gulf and thence march to join Grant in the rear of Vicksburg. Accordingly, on the 13th of May, Banks gave orders for the immediate movement of his whole force in accordance with this plan, and set aside all the preparations that had previously been made.
When the news reached Washington that Grant had gone to Jackson and Banks to Alexandria, great was the dissatisfaction of the Government and emphatic its expression. On the 19th of May Halleck wrote to Banks:
"These operations are too eccentric to be pursued. I must again urge that you co-operate as soon as possible with General Grant east of the Mississippi. Your forces must be united at the earliest possible moment. Otherwise the enemy will concentrate on Grant and crush him. Do all you can to prevent this. . . .
"We shall watch with the greatest anxiety the movements of yourself and General Grant. I have urged him to keep his forces concentrated as much as possible and not to move east until he gets control of the Mississippi River."
And again, on the 23d of May, still more pointedly:
"If these eccentric movements, with the main forces of the enemy on the Mississippi River, do not lead to some serious disaster, it will be because the enemy does not take full advantage of his opportunity. I assure you the Government is exceedingly disappointed that you and General Grant are not acting in conjunction. It thought to secure that object by authorizing you to assume the entire command as soon as you and General Grant could unite."
When the despatches were penned, Grant and Banks were already committed to their own plans for the final campaign on the Mississippi. When they were received, Grant was before Vicksburg, Banks before Hudson; each had delivered his first assault and entered upon the siege. The censure was withdrawn as soon as, in the light of full explanations, the circumstances came to be understood.
(1) Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, of Harvard University, Director of the Arnold Arboretum, the distinguished author of the great book on Forest Trees of North America. At this time he was serving zealously as a volunteer aide-de-camp without pay.
(2) Under orders from Kirby Smith to Taylor, dated April 22d: "The General is of the opinion that if a portion of the force pursuing you should move against Fort De Russy by the road from Hauffpaur, it would be impossible to hold it." See also Smith to Cooper, April 23d: "The people at Fort De Russy cannot stand a land attack. The advance of the enemy's column to the Hauffpaur . . . will ensure its speedy fall, with loss of guns and garrison. Under these circumstances, General Taylor has ordered the removal of the 32-pounder rifle and 11-inch columbiads to a position higher up the Red River."