January 30th—Private Winfield B. Tirrell, Company A, was detailed as orderly at brigade headquarters, by brigade orders.
The Quartermaster Department was advanced a stage in its appointments, by organizing the wagon train, as follows: Private John Willy, Company B, chief wagoner; Private Porter Carter, Company K, Corporal Alfred Thayer, Company I, Privates Chauncey K. Bullock, Company D, G. G. Belcher, Company F, Joseph B. Ford, Company A, as wagoners.
On moving to Bayou Gentilly the following sick men were left in general hospital at Carrollton: Privates Adin P. Blake, Company B, George E. Pond, Company B, Lucius M. Turner, Company B, and Surgeon Hitchcock.
CHAPTER VI.
FEBRUARY—AT BAYOU GENTILLY—MORE DETAILS.
That part of Bayou Gentilly where a portion of the Forty-Second was to remain in camp for nearly five months was, at the time of arrival, a most desolate looking place. The Gentilly road passed the camp ground, leading to Fort Macomb, on Lake Ponchartrain, and at this point, at this time, was in a wretched condition. Each side of the road was lined by small plantations and pasture lands, extending back for a short distance to swamps. Most of the plantations were uninhabited, the land covered with rank vegetation, and showed every sign of abandonment. Occasionally some hut or rude cabin would give signs of life—occupied by charcoal burners, who carried on their vocation in the swamps. The Ponchartrain Railroad, from New Orleans to Lakeport, on Lake Ponchartrain, five miles long, in a direct line through the swamp to the lake, ran only two trains a day. Save the regiment, scarcely a person would be seen for days.
A sugar-cane plantation near the camp, belonging to a Mr. Lee, was used to pasture private and Government cattle, and recruit the strength of horses and mules run down by hard service in the army. The private residence, negro cabins, stables and work houses remained in very good order. The sugar-house was a mass of ruins. An extensive grove of plum trees was in good condition.
Pent up in this flat spot of land, with nothing to relieve the eye but a mass of trees situated in the swamp, their limbs covered with light-colored moss, had a depressing effect on the spirits of some men, who began early to show signs of home-sickness.
The ground selected for the camp was upon the old Louisiana race-course, the best to be found in the neighborhood. This race-course had been surrounded by a high board fence, such as enclose similar grounds, but had disappeared, leaving the ground as open as the land about it. Adjoining the Gentilly road and Ponchartrain Railroad, the side towards New Orleans was on the border of a swamp. This ground was formerly occupied for a camp by Confederate troops. The famous Washington Artillery, of New Orleans, first went into camp at this place at the commencement of hostilities. A portion of the Confederate garrison of New Orleans, when General Butler landed, were also encamped here. What few inhabitants were to be seen said that a large number of men had at various times been in camp at this point, and was a general rendezvous for many of the Louisiana troops when organizing for the war. Many an hour has been pleasantly passed inspecting the writings and pictures upon the walls of a building used by them as a hospital, placed there by men from the Thirtieth and Thirty-First Louisiana regiments.
By railroad the distance from New Orleans to Gentilly Station was three miles, and from Gentilly Station to the Lake End, or Lakeport, was two miles. A short distance up the track towards Lakeport and back from the Gentilly road, which the railroad crosses at grade, was an earthwork mounting four heavy guns, called Battery Gentilly, flanked by extensive breastworks for infantry, with wide and deep ditches in front filled with water. Trees in the swamp in front had been cut down for a considerable distance to give good range to the guns. Another earthwork, mounting nine guns, was situated on the Gentilly road, towards Fort Macomb, some two and one-half miles from the railroad track, and was in all its surroundings similar to Battery Gentilly.
On the twenty-eighth of January, when the regiment changed camps, the roads were in very good condition in spite of cold weather, and rain falling for two days previous. Great coats were worn; the men were in excellent spirits, and the distance, about three miles, was accomplished early in the afternoon. Very few men straggled; most of those that did were suffering from diarrhœa. The line of march embraced a circuit of New Orleans on its immediate outskirts, affording few opportunities to see subjects of interest to strangers in a new land. A greater part of the houses were either deserted or occupied by the poorer class of people; only a few were evidently the property of wealthy individuals. Some handsome residences were seen, but their occupants were decidedly unfriendly. They could be seen looking slyly through blinds and from door corners, but none threw their windows open in a bold manner to look out of them, as the regiment marched past.