In consequence of the loss of medical stores in Brashear, the medical purveyor’s stock became too small for army necessities, with men rapidly swelling the sick lists and the hot weather in season. To replenish supplies, the transport-steamer New Brunswick, a light-draft side-wheeler, nine hundred and thirty tons burthen, manned by a fine crew, was loaded with coal and despatched to New York in July or August. Her captain had orders to drive her with all possible speed and spare nothing in order to make a quick passage North, and return. Fortunately good weather prevailed, with the exception of a stiff blow off Hatteras and a short gale on the return trip. This transport made what was then called “the famous passage.” The exact time is now lost, but it was between six and seven days. Everything on board that could be utilized was used for fuel; her chief-engineer, Wesley Allen, to whom the credit is due for her quick passages, although he had as assistants two efficient men, stood by his engines almost the entire time, pushing the wheels to twenty-two revolutions a minute, and so maintained them. They ordinarily made from seventeen to nineteen. Allen is said to have slept not more than twenty hours on each passage. He fully understood that many lives could be saved by each day gained, and was a man, every inch of him.
The New Brunswick arrived at New York early one morning, was loaded with medical and hospital stores the same day, and at night was on her way back to New Orleans, passing a mail steamer at Sandy Hook, bound in, that she parted company with and left at the Passes of the Mississippi River. Coal and stores were rushed on board with a run. Coal was dumped upon the open deck forward, instead of wasting time to fill up her hold. Fires were not drawn from the boilers, and they only had the water blown out while fresh water ran in. No time was lost in fancy oiling of machinery, for it was slapped on without regard to appearances, in order that no part should become heated. Among the firemen life below deck was a hard lot, as her blowers were never turned off from the boiler fires.
The round trip was made in a little less than two weeks, ruining her boilers in so doing.
CHAPTER XII.
Action at La-Fourche Crossing.
About six o’clock Saturday morning, twentieth June, 1863, the train which left Brashear City for La-Fourche a few hours before, arrived at the railroad bridge crossing Bayou La-Fourche, twenty-eight miles from Brashear, fifty-two miles from Algiers, then a suburb of New Orleans, upon the west bank of the Mississippi River.
Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney had under his command on the train: one hundred and fifteen men One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Infantry, Major Morgans in command; seventy-five men Twenty-Third Connecticut Infantry, Major Miller in command; forty-six men Forty-Second Massachusetts Infantry, Lieutenant Tinkham in command; and two pieces of artillery, a 6 Pr. gun and a 12 Pr. howitzer. This force was in light marching order, having left at Brashear City all knapsacks, extra clothing, and many of them their blankets.
There was posted at Terrebonne and La-Fourche, guarding the railroad bridge, a force of about two hundred and fifty men with one 12 Pr. gun and one 12 Pr. howitzer. This force, joined with the reënforcements from Brashear, made Stickney’s command about five hundred and two men, as follows: — companies, one hundred and ninety-five men, Twenty-Third Connecticut Infantry; — companies, one hundred and fifty-four men, One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth New York Infantry; one company, forty-six men, Forty-Second Massachusetts Infantry; one company, thirty-seven men, Twenty-Sixth Maine Infantry, under Captain Fletcher; one company, fifty men, First Louisiana Cavalry, under Captain Blober; and about twenty artillery-men, mostly from the Twenty-First Indiana Artillery.
Upon disembarking from the train, the commanding officer of the post appeared to be much surprised at this appearance of additional troops, and asked what was to be done. When informed that the post was threatened by the enemy he laughed heartily, and told Stickney no enemy had been seen around there for six months.
Captain Blober, on his return from a scout made the day before, ordered by Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney by telegraph from Brashear, reported no signs whatever of any force on the Bayou La-Fourche. Blober, ordered to be sure and scout as far as Napoleonville, and beyond if possible, only proceeded a mile or two beyond Labadieville, about twelve miles from La-Fourche and nine miles from Thibodeaux. He reported that people from Napoleonville said no force was in that direction; the reason, probably, why he did not carry out his orders. This company of the First Louisiana Cavalry was composed of raw recruits, without much drill or discipline. In his official report of the action Stickney says: “Had their scouting been properly done, there was no necessity whatever of the infantry force at Thibodeaux being captured.”
Colonel Major[15] with three regiments of Confederate Texan mounted men was at that very moment on his way down from Plaquemine—forty miles from Thibodeaux—and could not have been many miles away. On the nineteenth June General “Dick” Taylor was at the Fausse Riviere, an ancient bed of the Mississippi, some miles west of the present channel and opposite Port Hudson, in company with Colonel Major and his men. He had heard from some ladies of his acquaintance there, recently from New Orleans, that the Federal force in that city was not over one thousand men, and with the exception of a small garrison in the fort at Donaldsonville there were no troops on the west bank of the river. This was not true. There was scattered in the Parish towns on the west bank a respectable force of detached Federal troops on guard and provost duty. Taylor ordered Major to proceed at once, for the express purpose of reaching the rear of Brashear City by the twenty-third, and to pass Plaquemine at night to escape observation. Major could not do this. His men, hungry for spoils, raided into that town, capturing some prisoners and burning two steamers. Lieutenant White, of the Forty-Second Massachusetts, with his unarmed colored engineer troops barely escaped capture at the time.