About mid-day the expected shower of the rainy season came down on us furiously. We drew up under some trees, and stood close against the leeward side of their trunks, until it blew over. The different characteristics of the three parties who were gathered there immediately developed. The Irishmen laughed, hullabaloed, pushed each other out in the rain, and treated the affair as a capital joke. The Northerners shifted their positions, and attempted improvements, while the rain was at the worst—grumbled a great deal, and hurled fierce denunciations at, what they called, their “luck.” The Southerners silently unrolled their blankets, folded them around their shoulders, looked upward at the storm with their usual sad indifference of expression, made no attempts to better their condition, and waited apathetically till it was over.
A prairie spread out for several miles immediately beyond our sheltering trees, and the road curved around its outskirts. It was a prairie, but a tame one; interspersed with fields; pastured by cattle; surrounded by houses, and looking like any dull, uninteresting plain. Its grass, however, was thick and wet, and its sticky black mud soon loaded our boots and almost glued us fast. The coolness of the air quickly vanished, and the sun, more burning than ever, re-appeared. We dragged on wearily, very wearily, casting wistful glances at the grove on the other side, which rose very slowly, and, for a long time, seemed as distant as when we started. At last, however, we manifestly drew nearer; the chimneys of a house could be distinguished in the foliage, and the guard cheered us with the assurance that it was the house at which we were to halt. Every one made a last effort, and after half an hour’s exertion, we dragged ourselves out of the muddy prairie and into a plantation yard, bordering on the Teche.
We sat there waiting for the wagon, and watching a small drove of hogs that had come down the bank of the bayou, and, half immersed, were greedily eating the green scum that covered the water. The lieutenant had bought provisions at the house, and hired the contrabands to cook for us. The dinner finally appeared, consisting of a large kettle of boiled beef, and a quantity of corn bread in the shape of little rolls. It did not impress us favorably; but the guard seemed to think it excellent—perhaps because boiled beef was a rarity—perhaps because the corn bread was a superior article, (I was not a judge of it then); and one, with charming simplicity, said, “If we do as well as this, it will do!” To which rhapsody one of my disgusted friends was obliged to respond, with a faint and sickly smile, “Yes, yes; it is very nice.”
The place of bivouac that night was in the grass-covered yard, or rather field, of one of the finest plantations on the Teche. The owner soon appeared, accompanied by his son, his son-in-law, and a friend. He was an old gentleman, dressed with the scrupulous taste and neatness of a Frenchman, and treated us with as much politeness and as little kindness as could very well be united. The son-in-law regaled us with a description of the manner in which some of our troops had plundered his house, and burnt his furniture; and the friend sat himself down, and opened with the invariable remark, “We consider this a most unnatural war, sir;” which he followed up with the invariable question, “When do you think there will be peace, sir?” To these I gave my invariable replies, that we also thought it a most unnatural war, and that there would be peace whenever the Southern soldiers chose to go home and take care of their own affairs. The gentleman seemed very much disgusted at the idea of having peace on such simple and easy terms, and said solemnly, that he couldn’t allow himself to believe it.
There was a large open shed beside us, but the ground was covered with fleas, and we preferred the wet grass and heavy dew of a Louisiana night, to these pests of a tropical climate. But few slept well. For a long time I felt too tired to close my eyes, and awoke repeatedly, aching in every part. When daylight dawned we rose so stiff and sore that we could hardly move, and with renewed apprehensions made ready for another day. Lieutenant Stevenson showed such increased exhaustion that the Confederate officer took me aside and said, that he would not be guilty of carrying him beyond New Iberia.
We started, not at daylight, as was intended, but a long time after the sun was up. With all such parties there are many petty causes of delay, and it requires an iron-handed commander to bear them down, and carry his party off at the appointed hour. Lieutenant Duncan was too good-natured for this, and instead of coercing us, he, on the contrary, told us to choose our own time, and not to start till we were ready. The delay brought down the burning sun again upon us, and the pain and weariness of this second day much exceeded those of the first.
As we thus toiled along, the road, which was running between un-inclosed fields, approached a tall rail fence. Three or four of us were walking a few yards in advance of the guard, when we heard the corporal shout from behind, “Take care of the bull! Take care of the bull!” I looked ahead and saw nothing very alarming: a large red bull was drawing himself up, and lashing his sides with his tail. After a moment or two, however, he started toward us, shaking his head and breaking into a low, deep bellow. He was a magnificent animal, with long, low, spreading horns, and moved in a full, square trot that many a horse might envy. There was a scramble at once for the fence which stood very nearly midway between us and the bull. What the result might have been I think somewhat doubtful, had not the gallant corporal, on his bright little bay, rushed past us on a gallop. The pony was a herding pony and understood his business. Like a spirited dog, he flew straight at the bull until they nearly touched, then wheeling he kept alongside, watching him closely and sheering off whenever the long horns made a lunge toward himself. The pony did this of his own accord, for, as he wheeled, his rider held the rifle in his left hand and was drawing the long revolver with his right, and these Texan horses are rarely taught to wheel from the pressure of the leg. A finer picture of intelligent instinct than this pony presented could hardly be painted: his ears erect, his eyes flashing, and his whole soul in the chase. The corporal was not slower than his horse. He brought the long revolver up; a shot flashed, and the poor beast received a heavy wound. This diverted his attention from us, for, with a loud bellow, he wheeled toward the corporal. But the pony’s eye was on him, and, quicker than spur or rein could make him, he also wheeled, and scoured off, across the plain faster than any bull could go. The corporal brought up the rifle, and there was a second flash—a second wound, for the bull staggered, and then walked slowly and proudly away. Occasionally he stopped, turned defiantly round, uttered deep bellowings, and shook at us his splendid horns.
The incident afforded us a little excitement, and led me into a conversation with the corporal, who narrated anecdotes of the wonderful intelligence of herding ponies. The heat, the dust, the glaring sun, and increasing pain and weariness at length stopped even a conversation on so interesting a topic as horses are and ever will be, and I was fain to drag myself along without expending an ounce of strength on any object beyond the dusty road. We entered upon the last two miles, and saw Iberia in the distance. The road ran between hedges twenty feet high—it was filled with a long column of dust—not a breath of outer air disturbed it, and the sun shone directly down from his noon-day height. I felt myself grow weaker and weaker as we advanced through this green boiler. The perspiration poured into my eyes and blinded me—my head whirled round—my feet stumbled and dragged, so that every step seemed almost the last. While in this critical state, a couple of pretty Louisiana “young ladies” stopped their carriage, and greatly refreshed me by expressing the hope that we should be hung at the end of the lane, and the opinion that hanging was quite as good treatment as nigger-thieves deserved. Such was the power of this well-timed stimulus, that I kept on for more than a mile, and at last found that I was in the midst of the little town of New Iberia.
We halted in the shade of some large trees. There seemed to be an unusual number of vagabonds in New Iberia, who congregated closely round us, and asked impudent questions (generally as to how we liked the war now), until it occurred to our guards that this might be annoying to us, and then they very promptly drove the Iberian loafers back. One cowardly-looking, black-eyed little rascal, however, was very desirous of finding an officer of the Twenty-first Indiana amongst us that he might kill him, and repeatedly hinted that he had a great mind to kill one of us anyhow. But one of the guard quieted him by the suggestion that if he wanted to kill a Yank, he’d find plenty of them over on the Mississippi, and that he’d better go there instead of skulking round in the rear—anyhow, he’d better stop insulting prisoners, or he’d have a right smart chance to kill a Texan—dog-goned if he wouldn’t.
Soon after this, an officer of the Provost Guard appeared. The roll of the “citizen prisoners” was called over, and all but six marched off to the jail. We were put in motion, and marched to the outskirts of the town, where we halted beside a saw-mill standing on the bank of the Teche. The lieutenant then brought a surgeon, who speedily pronounced in favor of receiving Lieutenant Stevenson, and directed that he should be taken at once to his hospital.