On the 21st, Natchitoches was taken, with two hundred prisoners and four pieces of artillery. It is about eighty miles from Alexandria.
About four miles from Natchitoches, is a small settlement of dingy houses, called Grand Ecore. General Banks arrived at this place on the 4th of April, and it was then made the headquarters of both the army and navy commanders, and the entire force of the expedition was located in that vicinity.
The army numbered about twenty thousand men. The cavalry was under General Lee, formerly of Grant’s army; the artillery was commanded by Brigadier-General Richard Arnold. General Franklin was second in command. He had one division of his corps with him, under General Emory. That of General Green remained at Alexandria, to garrison the post. General Ransom’s force consisted of two divisions. General Smith’s command remained at Natchitoches. With the rest of the army General Bank’s moved from Natchitoches for Shreveport on the 6th of April. The country is a dense, interminable forest, with a few narrow roads, with no signs of life or civilization, but a few log houses and half-cleared plantations. Into this country General Banks was compelled to march. He found, in the beginning, that two arms of his service would be almost worthless. So long as he marched, his cavalry might picket the woods and skirmish along the advance; but in action they would be as helpless as so many wagon trains. His artillery would be of no use unless he could manage to get the enemy into an open clearing. The region was little more than a great masked battery. It was an unproductive, barren country, and it became necessary for permanent military operations to carry along everything that an army could use.
On the evening of the seventh, they reached Pleasant Hill, a small village, thirty-five miles from Natchitoches, the cavalry advance skirmishing nearly all the way through the woods. They had a severe fight, on that morning, two miles beyond Pleasant Hill, in which the Eighty-seventh Illinois (mounted infantry) lost quite heavily.
On the morning of the eighth they resumed their march. A severe skirmish occurred at an old sawmill, ten miles beyond Pleasant Hill, in which Lieutenant-Colonel Webb, of the Seventy-seventh Illinois, was killed; but the enemy kept falling back, and were pursued by the cavalry and infantry about eight miles further, to Sabine Cross-Roads, three miles from Mansfield. Here the enemy was met in force, and a check made to further progress.
BATTLE OF SABINE CROSS-ROADS.
April 8, 1864.
The position of the Union army at 3 o’clock was as follows: In front, and on the ground where a most terrible battle was soon to be fought, was General Lee with Colonels Dudley and Lucas’s cavalry brigades with Nim’s battery of six guns and one section (two guns) of Battery G, Fifth United States regulars. United to this force there was now the Fourth division, Thirteenth army corps, with the Chicago Mercantile battery, (six guns.) Next, in the rear and completely blocking up the road, was General Lee’s train of some two hundred and fifty wagons, to the presence of which the subsequent disaster of the day is largely attributable. Back of these was the Third division, Thirteenth army corps, under General Cameron, moving up to the front as rapidly as possible. Next to the Third division was General Emory with the First division, Nineteenth army corps, seven miles from the extreme front, while General Smith was back of Pleasant Hill, one day’s march in the rear. The battle-ground was a large, open, irregular-shaped field, through about one-half of which on the right of the road a narrow belt of timber ran, encircling inward as it extended to the right until its base rested around upon the woods in the rear. The road passed through the centre of the field in a northwesterly direction toward Mansfield.
Meandering diagonally through the field and across the road was a small creek or bayou, from the banks of which the ground rose gradually along the line of the road, terminating in a considerable ridge on each side. The ridge at the entrance to the field on the side of the advance was close up to the woods, and commanded the whole battle-field, while the ridge on the opposite side ran through the open field on the left to the belt of timber dividing the field on the right, along which it sloped gradually until it reached the level of the hollow on the bayou. The outer line of the field beyond the belt of timber on the right was an irregular semicircle, the extremities drawing inward, so as to correspond somewhat to the outline of the dividing wood. The outer line of the field on the left was very nearly at a right angle with the road. The rebel forces, occupying a front of about one mile, were stationed under cover of the woods along the further line of these fields. Their front, therefore, extended from their right flank in a straight line to the road, and then, following the shape of the field, circled inward until their left flank reached a point that would be intersected by a line drawn across the road at a right angle near the middle of the first field on the right. The main body of the rebels was evidently on the right of the roads. A battery was seen in position near the road, but it was not brought into action.
On the right, and in the belt of timber which separated the first from the second field, was Lucas’s cavalry brigade, mostly dismounted and deployed as skirmishers, while beyond and supporting this brigade was the Fourth division, Thirteenth army corps. About four o’clock, the Fourth division was moved forward through the belt of timber, and took position in line of battle behind the fence that inclosed the field beyond.
At half-past four, General Ransom and staff passed on foot along the outer infantry line, who were firing very briskly across the field into the woods where the enemy was posted, but as the fire was of little effect the general directed it to be withheld until the rebels came out into the field. For half or three-quarters of an hour, everything remained quiet along the lines, when all at once a heavy and continuous discharge of musketry was heard on the right, from rebel forces marching steadily in close ranks across the open field to the attack; while at the same moment a heavy column was moving across the road upon the left, where the cavalry brigade under Colonel Dudley was posted, aided by Nim’s battery, the two howitzers, and one small regiment of infantry (the Twenty-third Wisconsin.)