CHAPTER XXII. WINTER QUARTERS.
In preparation for Washburn's departure on the 27th of October, Franklin began to draw back from Opelousas to New Iberia. Lawler led off, and was followed on the 1st of November by McGinnis, Grover, Weitzel, and the cavalry under Fonda, in the order named. Burbridge, followed by Mudd's cavalry brigade, took the Teche road, by Grand Coteau.
On the 3d, while the Nineteenth Corps rested at the Vermilion and McGinnis at the Carencro, Burbridge, who was in camp on Bayou Bourbeau, was surprised by the sudden descent of Green with two brigades. Burbridge had with him only his First brigade, about 1,200 strong, with 500 men of the 118th Illinois mounted infantry and the 14th New York cavalry, under Fonda, Rice's 17th Ohio battery, and Marland's section of Nims's battery; in all, 1,625 men. The 23d Wisconsin, 96th Ohio, 60th Indiana, and the gunners of Rice and Nims fought hard to prevent a rout and to save the wagon-trains and the cavalry; and, McGinnis coming up in good time, Green drew off, taking with him nothing save one of the Ohio 10-pounder Parrotts. At one moment both of Marland's guns, abandoned by their supports, were completely cut off by the Confederate cavalry, but Marland, rising to the occasion, bade his cannoneers draw their revolvers, and charged at a full gallop directly through the lines of Green's cavalry, to the complete astonishment of both armies, and came into battery on the right of the 46th Indiana. "The bringing off of the section of Nims's battery, commanded by Lieutenant Marland," says Washburn, "after the regiment sent to its support had surrendered, extorted the admiration of every beholder."
Marland's loss in this brilliant little affair was but two men missing. Burbridge had 25 killed, 129 wounded, and 562 captured or missing; in all, 716. Green reports his loss as 22 killed, 103 wounded, and 53 missing. Green's report shows that he had in the fight three regiments of infantry, seven of cavalry, and two sections of artillery.
With frequent skirmishing, but without serious molestation, the march was continued, and on the 17th of November, the Nineteenth Corps went into camp at New Iberia.
By the end of December the Thirteenth Corps, except Sheldon's brigade which was at Plaquemine, had been gradually transferred to the Texas coast. Thus Franklin was left to hold the line of the Teche with little more than 5,000 men of the Nineteenth Corps and about 3,500 of Lee's cavalry. This, with the winter nights and the winter roads, was too small a force to hold a position so advanced and so exposed as New Iberia, even if there had been any longer an object in doing so.
Accordingly, on the evening of the 5th of January, marching orders were issued for the following morning; but in the night a drizzling rain came on and, freezing as it fell, coated the deep, dense mud with a glaze of ice. The march was therefore put off a day, and on the morning of the 7th, through a frozen bog, a biting norther blowing, and the weather unusually cold for this region, the Nineteenth Corps floundered back to Franklin. The best of the roads were bad enough, but those across the bends, used in ordinary seasons as cut-offs, were now impassable sloughs, so the troops had to march nearly the full length of the bayou. Here a novel form of straggling was introduced through the ever industrious ingenuity of the lazy, many of whom contrived to leave the ranks, and, crossing the levee, seized canoes or made rafts, and tranquilly floated down the bayou ahead of their plodding comrades.
On the morning of the 9th of January the corps went into winter quarters at Franklin. Tents were not issued until a month later, but meanwhile the men built shelters and huts for themselves of such materials as they could find on the plantations or in the wooded swamps; and with branches of live oak and boughs of laurel and the long gray Spanish moss, they constructed for their camps a lavish ornamentation of arbors and arches, mimic forts and sham monitors.
The terms of service of the older regiments enlisted in the early days of 1861 being about to expire, the government now offered a bounty and a furlough for thirty days to all veterans who should again enlist for three years or during the war; and in carrying out this plan Banks arranged to send home in each month, beginning with February, at least two regiments of re-enlisted veterans from each corps. Of the nineteen regiments and six batteries of the Nineteenth Corps raised in 1861, every one promptly embraced these terms. In some regiments nearly every man present re-enlisted. The 7th Vermont enrolled every survivor, save 59, of the original muster; in the 13th Connecticut out of 406 present 400 signed; the 26th Massachusetts returned 546. To make up, in part, for the temporary loss to be accounted for from this cause, the government sent down four fine regiments, well commanded, the 29th Maine, the 30th Maine, the 153d New York, and the 14th New Hampshire, and, these being assigned to the Nineteenth Corps, the first three joined the First division, but the 14th New Hampshire came too late for the campaign, and was assigned to temporary duty near New Orleans. About the same time Nields's 1st Delaware battery and Storer's 7th Massachusetts battery joined the corps.
The idea of a foothold in Texas had been gradually swelling until at length it had attained the dimensions of an overland army of occupation. For this the nature of the region to be traversed, as well as the character of the enemy to be met, demanded a large mounted force. Therefore the government sent from Washington and from other Northern stations the 2d New York veteran cavalry, the 11th New York, the 18th New York, the 2d Maine, the 3d Rhode Island, the 12th Illinois, and the 3d Maryland, and from the West many horses. Banks also mounted seven more regiments of infantry, and having thus raised Lee's cavalry division, when all had joined, to nineteen regiments, they were finally organized in five brigades, with three batteries of horse artillery, namely, Duryea's, Rawles's, and Nims's. These three batteries were lost to the Nineteenth Corps, and with them four of the mounted infantry regiments, the 2d Louisiana, the 75th New York, the 8th New Hampshire, and the 31st Massachusetts; the last three only for a time.
Returning from sick-leave, Emory relieved Weitzel in command of the First division on the 13th of December. Weitzel presently went North on special service and did not resume his command but was transferred in the spring to the Army of the James.
In February, 1864, while the Nineteenth Corps lay in camp at Franklin, it was once more re-organized by breaking up the First, Third, and Fourth divisions, and forming two new divisions, the First, commanded by Emory, comprising the brigades of Dwight, McMillan and Benedict; the Second division, commanded by Grover, composed of the brigades of Nickerson, Birge, and Sharpe. Emory's division was already concentrated on the Teche, but Grover's brigades were separated, Nickerson's being in the defences of New Orleans, Birge's in La Fourche, and Sharpe's at Baton Rouge. The first intention was to concentrate the division at Madisonville, and move it by rail to join Franklin; but events interposed.
The Corps staff serving at this time at headquarters in the field included Colonel Charles C. Dwight, acting assistant inspector-general; Surgeon Eugene F. Sanger, medical director; Captain J. G. Oltman, topographical engineer; Captain Thomas H. Annable, commissary of musters; Captain A. W. Chapman, judge-advocate; Lieutenant John J. Williamson, ordnance officer; Captain Henry C. Inwood, provost-marshal; Captain John P. Baker, Captain George M. Franklin, and Lieutenant David Lyon, aides-de-camp.