Banks's own army marched by land to Natchitoches, eighty miles distant, arriving there on the 2d and 3d of April; but Smith's command went forward on transports convoyed by the gunboats and reached Grand Ecore, four miles from Natchitoches, on the 3d. Here it landed, except one division of 2,000 men under General T. Kilby Smith, who took charge of the transports, now numbering twenty-six, many of them large boats. These Smith was directed to take to the mouth of Loggy Bayou, opposite Springfield, where it was expected he would again communicate with the army. So far the water had been good, the boats having a foot to spare; but as the river was rising very slowly, the admiral would not take his heavy boats any higher. Leaving Lieutenant-Commander Phelps in command at Grand Ecore, with instructions to watch the water carefully and not be caught above a certain bar, a mile lower down, Porter went ahead with the Cricket, Hindman, Lexington, Osage, Neosho, Chillicothe, and the transports, on the 7th of April.
The army marched out on the 6th and 7th, directed upon Mansfield. The way led through a thickly wooded country by a single road, which was in many places too narrow to admit of two wagons passing. On the night of the 7th Banks reached Pleasant Hill, where Franklin then was; the cavalry division, numbering 3,300 mounted infantry, being eight miles in advance, Smith's command fifteen miles in the rear. The next day the advance was resumed, and, at about fifteen miles from Pleasant Hill, the cavalry, which had been reinforced by a brigade of infantry, became heavily engaged with a force largely outnumbering it. After being pushed back some little distance, this advanced corps finally gave way in confusion. Banks had now been some time on the field. At 4.15 P.M. Franklin came up, and, seeing how the affair was going, sent word back to General Emory of his corps, to form line of battle at a place he named, two miles in the rear. The enemy came on rapidly, and as the cavalry train of one hundred and fifty wagons and some eighteen or twenty pieces of artillery were close in rear of the discomfited troops, it was not possible, in the narrow road, to turn and save them. Emory, advancing rapidly in accordance with his orders, met flying down the road a crowd of disorganized cavalry, wagons, ambulances, and loose animals, through which his division had to force its way, using violence to do so. As the enemy's bullets began to drop among them, the division reached a suitable position for deploying, called by Banks Pleasant Grove, three miles in rear of the first action. Here the line was formed, and the enemy, seemingly not expecting to meet any opposition, were received when within a hundred yards by a vigorous fire, before which they gave way in about fifteen minutes. By this time it was dark, and toward midnight the command fell back to Pleasant Hill, where it was joined by A.J. Smith's corps.
The following day, at 5 P.M., the enemy again attacked at Pleasant Hill, but were repulsed so decidedly that the result was considered a victory by the Union forces, and by the Confederates themselves a serious check; but for various reasons Banks thought best to fall back again to Grand Ecore. The retreat was continued that night, and on the night of the 11th the army reached Grand Ecore, where it threw up intrenchments and remained ten days. As yet there was no intention of retreating farther.
Meanwhile the navy and transports had pressed hopefully up the river. The navigation was very bad, the river crooked and narrow, the water low and beginning to fall, the bottom full of snags and stumps, and the sides bristling with cypress logs and sharp, hard timbers. Still, the distance, one hundred and ten miles, was made in the time appointed, and Springfield Landing reached on the afternoon of the 10th. Here the enemy had sunk a large steamer across the channel, her bow resting on one shore and her stern on the other, while the body amidships was broken down by a quantity of bricks and mud loaded upon her. Porter and Kilby Smith were consulting how to get rid of this obstacle, when they heard of the disaster and retreat of the army. Smith was ordered by Banks to return, and there was no reason for Porter to do otherwise. The following day they fell back to Coushattee Chute, and the enemy began the harassment which they kept up throughout the descent to, and even below, Alexandria. The first day, however, the admiral was able to keep them for the most part in check, though from the high banks they could fire down on the decks almost with impunity. The main body of the enemy was on the southern bank, but on the north there was also a force under a General Liddell, numbering, with Harrison's cavalry, perhaps 2,500 men.
On the 12th a severe and singular fight took place. At four in the afternoon the Hastings, transport, on which Kilby Smith was, having disabled her wheel, had run into the right bank for repairs. At the same moment the Alice Vivian, a heavy transport, with four hundred cavalry horses, was aground in the middle of the stream; as was the gunboat Osage, Lieutenant-Commander Selfridge. Two other transports were alongside the Vivian, and a third alongside the Osage, trying to move them. Another transport, called the Rob Roy, having on her decks four siege guns, had just come down and was near the Osage. The Lexington, gunboat, Lieutenant Bache, was near the northern shore, but afloat. The vessels being thus situated, a sudden attack was made from the right bank by 2,000 of the enemy's infantry and four field pieces. The gunboats, the Rob Roy with her siege guns, and two field pieces on the other transports all replied, the Hastings, of course, casting off from her dangerous neighborhood. This curious contest lasted for nearly two hours, the Confederate sharpshooters sheltering themselves behind the trees, the soldiers on board the transports behind bales of hay. There could be but one issue to so ill-considered an attack, and the enemy, after losing 700 men, were driven off; their commander, General Thomas Green, a Texan, being among the slain. The large loss is accounted for by the fact that besides the two thousand actually engaged there were five thousand more some distance back, who shared in the punishment.
The following day an attack was made from the north bank, but no more from the south before reaching Grand Ecore on the 14th and 15th. The admiral himself, being concerned for the safety of his heavy vessels in the falling river, hurried there on the 13th, and on his arrival reported the condition of things above to Banks, who sent out a force to clear the banks of guerillas as far as where the transports lay. Lieutenant-Commander Phelps had already moved all the vessels below the bar at Grand Ecore, but had recalled four to cover the army when it returned. The admiral now sent them all below to move slowly toward Alexandria. His position was one of great perplexity. The river ought to be rising, but was actually falling; there was danger if he delayed that he might lose some of the boats, but on the other hand he felt it would be a stain upon the navy to look too closely to its own safety, and it was still possible that the river might take a favorable turn. He had decided to keep four of the light-draughts above the bar till the very last moment, remaining with them himself, when he received news that the Eastport had been sunk by a torpedo eight miles below. The accident happened on the 15th, the vessel having been previously detained on the bar nearly twenty-four hours. The admiral left Lieutenant-Commander Selfridge in charge at Grand Ecore and at once went to the scene, where he found the Eastport in shoal water but sunk to her gun-deck, the water on one side being over it. The Lexington and a towboat were alongside helping to pump her out. Giving orders that she should be lightened, he kept on down to Alexandria to start two pump-boats up to her and to look after the affairs of the squadron both along the Red River and in the Mississippi. On his return, two days later, he found her with her battery and ammunition out and the pump-boats alongside. By this time it was known that the army would not advance again, and that Banks was anxious to get back to Alexandria. The officers and crew of the Eastport worked night and day to relieve her, and on the 21st she was again afloat, with fires started, but as yet they had not been able to come at the leak. That day she made twenty miles, but at night grounded on a bar, to get over which took all the 22d. Four or five miles farther down she again grounded, and another day was spent in getting her off. Two or three times more she was gotten clear and made a few more miles down the river by dint of extreme effort; but at last, on the 26th, she grounded on some logs fifty miles below the scene of the accident, in a position evidently hopeless.
Selfridge's division of light ironclads had been compelled by the falling water to drop below the bar at Grand Ecore, and, as they were there of no further use to the army, had continued down to Alexandria, except the Hindman, which was kept by the Eastport. On the 22d the army evacuated Grand Ecore and marched for Alexandria. On this retreat the advance and rear-guard had constant skirmishing with the enemy. At Cane River the Confederates had taken position to dispute the crossing, and the advance had a serious fight to drive them off. The rear-guard also had one or two quite sharp encounters, but the army reached Alexandria without serious loss on the 26th.
The Eastport and Fort Hindman were now in a very serious position, aground in a hostile river, their own army sixty miles away, and between it and them the enemy lining the banks of the river. The admiral, having seen the rest of his fleet in safety, returned to the crippled boat, taking with him only two tinclads, the Cricket and Juliet; but the Osage and Neosho were ordered to move up forty miles, near the mouth of Cane River, so as to be in readiness to render assistance. On the 26th, the commander of the Eastport, whose calmness and hopefulness had won the admiral's admiration and led him to linger longer than was perhaps prudent, in the attempt to save the vessel, was obliged to admit that there was no hope. The river was falling steadily, the pilots said there was already too little water for her draught on the bars below, and the crew were worn out with six days of incessant labor. The attempt was made to remove her plating, but it was not possible to do so soon enough. Orders were therefore given to transfer the ship's company to the Fort Hindman, whose captain, Lieutenant Pearce, had worked like her own to save her, and to blow the Eastport up. Eight barrels of powder were placed under her forward casemate, a like number in the stern, and others about the machinery, trains were laid fore and aft, and at 1.45 P.M. Phelps himself lit the match and left the vessel. He had barely time to reach the Hindman before the explosions took place in rapid succession; then the flames burst out and the vessel was soon consumed.
The three remaining gunboats and the two pump-boats now began a hazardous retreat down the river. Just as the preparations for blowing up the Eastport were completed, a rush was made by twelve hundred men from the right bank to board the Cricket, which was tied up. Her captain, Gorringe, backed clear, and opening upon them with grape and canister, supported by a cross fire from the other boats, the attack was quickly repelled. They were not again molested until they had gone twenty miles farther, to about five miles above the mouth of Cane River. Here they came in sight of a party of the enemy, with eighteen pieces of artillery, drawn up on the right bank. At this time the Cricket was leading with the admiral's flag; the Juliet following, lashed to one pump-boat; the Hindman in the rear. The Cricket opened at once, and the enemy replied. Gorringe stopped his vessel, meaning to fight and cover those astern, but the admiral directed him to move ahead. Before headway was gained the enemy was pouring in a pelting shower of shot and shell, the two broadside guns' crews were swept away, one gun disabled, and at the same instant the chief engineer was killed, and all but one of the men in the fire-room wounded. In these brief moments the Juliet was also disabled by a shot in her machinery, the rudder of the pump-boat lashed to her was struck, and the boiler of the other was exploded. The captain of the latter, with almost the entire ship's company, numbering two hundred,[20] were scalded to death, while the boat, enveloped in steam, drifted down and lodged against the bank under the enemy's battery, remaining in their power. The pilot of the boat towing the Juliet abandoned the wheel-house—an act unparalleled among a class of men whose steadiness and devotion under the exposure of their calling elicited the highest praise from Porter and others; the crew also tried to cut the hawsers, but were stopped by Watson, the captain of the gunboat. A junior pilot named Maitland, with great bravery and presence of mind, jumped to the wheel and headed the two boats up river. This confusion in the centre of the line prevented the Hindman from covering the admiral as Phelps wished, but he now got below the Juliet and engaged the enemy till she was out of range. Meanwhile the admiral had found the pilot of the Cricket to be among the wounded, and taking charge of the vessel himself, ran by the battery under the heaviest fire[21] he ever experienced. When below he turned and engaged the batteries in the rear, but seeing that the Hindman and the others were not coming by he continued down to the point where he expected to meet the Osage and Neosho.
In this truly desperate fight the Cricket, a little boat of one hundred and fifty-six tons, was struck thirty-eight times in five minutes, and lost 25 killed and wounded, half her crew. Soon after passing below she ran aground and remained fast for three hours, so that it was dark when she reached the Osage, lying opposite another battery of the enemy, which she had been engaging during the day.