While convalescent, Lieutenant White, disregarding the advice of Surgeon Heintzelman, returned to his company in New Orleans the last of June. From there he started for Port Hudson to report to Colonel Hodge. At Springfield Landing, the base of supplies for the army, an attack was made on the post July 2d, by a raiding party of Confederate cavalry, just as a party, including Lieutenant White, were about to start in a sutler’s wagon for Port Hudson, seven miles distant.
The Confederates dashed through a force of some ninety men from a New York regiment on duty at the landing, and then divided into squads. One of these squads rode down to the river bank where White, with a dozen other men, had taken refuge in an old trading boat. After discharging a few volleys, from the saddle, they rode away. They did not dare to dismount, because a sharp musketry-fire was springing up behind them from the New York infantry-men, who rallied, behind shelter, by twos and fours, as they saw a chance, until they drove the Confederates away, after a half hour’s skirmish, and before the Thirtieth Massachusetts, ordered down from Port Hudson, could intercept them.
From the boat Lieutenant White witnessed the capture of his old companion, Lieutenant Swift, by a Confederate squad who rode up to look inside a tent occupied by Swift a few moments before busily engaged in writing, and who had hid, with two men, in bushes close by. They would have been safe had not one of the men incautiously looked out to see what was going on and been seen by the enemy, who ordered them out and made them prisoners.
Lieutenant White was relieved from duty with the engineer troops July 7th, to rejoin his company.
To sum up what these two companies did is to say that they done their duty well. They were once, April 24th, under orders for Port Hudson, and held in readiness for two days to proceed there; the nearest they ever came to going into active field service.
June 5th, Companies C and H were relieved from duty in the Engineer Department, and marched seven miles to Bayou Gentilly, accompanied by the regimental band (sent them at the request of Captain Leonard), and rejoined the regiment.
CHAPTER XV.
Company K in Charge of Pontoons—Baton Rouge—Teche Campaign—Siege of Port Hudson—Donaldsonville—Return to Regiment.
Company K, under command of Lieutenant Henry A. Harding, a talented young officer, twenty-one years old, in obedience to Division Special Orders No. 51, issued February 16th, proceeded to New Orleans on the eighteenth from Gentilly Camp, and reported to Major Houston for duty in the engineer service. Quarters were assigned in Shippers’ cotton press, already partially occupied by the Twenty-Sixth New York Battery, one hundred and fifty men, eight brass guns and one hundred and ten horses. This battery remained at the cotton press until March 8th, the two commands fraternizing without any trouble.
Company K was ordered to take charge of the pontoon train. The pontoons, in two sizes, were made of rubber, inflated with air by hand bellows in lieu of air pumps, when all ready for use. Such miscellaneous articles as planks, guy ropes, oars, etc., occupied a large amount of space. Thirty wagons, drawn by four mules to each wagon, were used to transport this bridge and material. Negroes were employed as drivers, “bossed” by a large, powerful Irishman called “Big Slattery.” Slattery was a bully, always ready to curse and whip his negro drivers. His brutality assumed such proportions men of Company K had to interfere and put a stop to it. The company wagoner, in charge of the wagon used to convey company property, was Private Jotham E. Bigelow, until Wagoner Porter Carter was ordered to join his company.
At first sight the men made up their minds they were to see hard service in handling this cumbersome, clumsy-looking pontoon bridge. To bridge a river or bayou the requisite number of pontoons were inflated by hand-bellows, then launched and placed in position, afterwards planked, and fastened by ropes to remain steady. Company K had eighty men for this duty, until sickness and death gradually reduced the number to about fifty. They learned how to handle the pontoons without instruction from an engineer officer, by practice drills with sections of the bridge, and gained much valuable knowledge of the property confided to their care by odd jobs of necessary work done to have everything in complete order.