When it was seen men were in retreat and the enemy was closing in rapidly, Captain Fiske, Lieutenant Barker, with some dozen men of the Thirtieth Massachusetts, endeavored to save the battery-guns by hauling them over a levee bank to the roadway with drag ropes. One gun was saved; one gun was abandoned, or thrown into the bayou. All of the troops upon and near the road then retreated in good order, exchanging shots from behind house corners and such shelter as could be found; in a few cases individual soldiers almost crossed bayonets with men of the enemy. The Thirtieth Massachusetts colors were defended by a handful of men until safe to the rear.
Colonel Dudley endeavored to rally his men for another stand, or check the enemy’s advance, and succeeded in forming a line of about seventy-five men. This line fired a few rounds and then continued the retreat. On the retreat Private Horace F. Davis, Thirtieth Massachusetts, was cut off in a cane field by Confederate cavalry, made a prisoner about six o’clock, and with about fifty more prisoners was corralled under a cluster of trees, guarded by sentries. A rain-storm set in at night, accompanied with heavy thunder and sharp lightning, which enabled Private Davis to pass between two Texans, who were leaning upon their rifles on guard, and escape by crawling along in the darkness between the lightning flashes, avoiding the enemy, whose location was shown by their camp fires, around which they congregated, until he joined a flag-of-truce party, sent out after the dead and wounded. With this party he remained on duty, no one supposing he did not come out with them, finally rejoining his regiment at one o’clock A.M.
Private Davis, while firing from behind the breastwork across the road, was in range of a battery-gun First Maine. His attention was called to the fact, and at the moment he looked behind a shell was fired from this gun, the concussion as it passed over him causing a prickly sensation in his right eye. Nothing was thought about it at the time, or for some time after, until he discovered the sight was gone. Not daunted by this discovery, Davis remained on duty with his regiment, and reënlisted, with one eye, when his first term expired. The sight to his right eye has never been restored.
Other Massachusetts troops in this action were the Forty-Eighth and Forty-Ninth Regiments, attached to the First Brigade, and the Sixth Battery.
The Forty-Eighth was posted in sugar-cane fields to the extreme right, with a skirmish line out. In retreating, no orders were sent to the skirmishers, who were surrounded before they knew it, and lost two officers and twenty-one men taken prisoners.
The Forty-Ninth was posted in a lane that ran at a right angle with the bayou, and were lying down when the fight commenced. The regiment was soon ordered to a sugar-house, seen above the sugar-cane, about five hundred yards to the right and front, to reënforce a regiment and battery supposed to be there. No troops were found on arrival at the place. This regiment caught a moderate infantry-fire from the front, and saw a mounted force upon its right. Confederate infantry got in on the left of them, when the regiment fell back to the lane, and there remained until a staff-officer, Lieutenant Weber, got to them by the rear and ordered the regiment to save itself, as it was cut off. This was done by making a detour of some three miles through cane fields before it could rejoin the command.
The Sixth Battery lost one gun, dismounted and carried a short distance to the rear for repairs, where it had to be left, because sudden orders to retreat were given before it could be mounted to bring away.
Total casualties to Massachusetts troops in this action were:
Thirtieth Infantry—Eight killed; thirty-seven wounded; one missing.
Forty-Eighth Infantry—Three killed; seven wounded; twenty-three missing.