Sergeant-Major Bosson, and Sergeant Phil. Hackett, Company G, had an adventure on the Gentilly road on the night of March 10th. A beautiful moonlight evening it was. As they strolled along the road songs were heard, sung by a party of men evidently in liquor. To hide and listen, under the shadow of a board fence, was suggested by Hackett. No sooner done than a few snatches of a secession refrain raised Hackett’s anger to such a point that he was ready to whip the entire party. Bosson advised no interference, as the men had a perfect right to sing. Hackett’s blood was up, however, and when a citizen (the party separated a few moments before) arrived opposite their hiding place, Phil. jumped for him, when the man showed fight. Hackett threw him into a ditch, alongside the road, and by the time he got out, swearing vengeance, Bosson was on hand. The two confronted him. He raised one arm to the back of his neck, when stories, often read in books, of Southerners with bowie knives carried in that spot flashed across the minds of both men, and simultaneously they seized him. Hackett held his arms while Bosson placed a pistol to his head. Frenchman as he was, excited with anger and liquor, the cold muzzle against his temple completely cowed the fellow. A search was made for the suspected bowie knife, but none was found. The man, who gave his name as citizen Ambrose Leonard, was marched into camp a prisoner. As nothing could be charged against him, he was released from arrest March 12th by Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman. There was no good cause for this arrest; the affair sprang from a spirit of mischief and from ignorance of what they had a right to do.
On March 21st occurred the first loss by death the regiment sustained at Bayou Gentilly. Private Obed F. Allen, Company G, a paroled prisoner of war, died in the regimental hospital of typhoid fever. The disease was contracted on the march from Houston. His body was embalmed by a city undertaker at the expense of his comrades in Company G, and sent to his home in Quincy, Massachusetts.
At the close of March there were present for duty in the four companies at Gentilly Bayou and vicinity, seventeen officers and three hundred and fifty-five men.
Present sick in hospital, thirty-six. The average sick per day of the regiment during March was: taken sick, two; returned to duty, two; in hospital, twenty; in quarters, three.
In April the companies attached to regimental headquarters had some work to perform. Brigade special orders, issued on the fourth, placed Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman in command of the stations Bayou Gentilly, Bayou St. John, Lakeport, and the bayous dependent upon the same, with headquarters at Gentilly Bayou, and he was ordered to relieve two companies of the Ninth Connecticut Infantry, then stationed at Lake-end of Bayou St. John and at Lakeport, with two companies from the Forty-Second.
On the fifth, a fine Sunday morning, about ten o’clock, Captain Cogswell (who had been relieved from command of the paroled camp by Lieutenant Powers, Company F) proceeded with his company to Lakeport and relieved Company E, Ninth Connecticut, Captain Wright, then on picket duty from Lakeport to Point aux Herbes, fifteen miles. On the same day thirty-five men of Company A, under Captain Coburn, proceeded to Lake-end of Bayou St. John and relieved Company G, Ninth Connecticut. The Ninth Connecticut men behaved in a most unsoldierlike manner, causing Lieutenant-Colonel Stedman to state the facts to brigade headquarters in the accompanying letter:
“Headquarters Forty-Second Regt., Mass. Vols.,
“Camp Farr, Bayou Gentilly, La., April 6th, 1863.
“Sir,—I have the honor to report that I proceeded yesterday, according to Special Orders No. 54, and moved Company F of this regiment to Lakeport, and there relieved the Ninth Connecticut, Captain Wright, who turned over the public property in his possession to Captain J. D. Cogswell, commanding Company F. The pickets were taken from Company F for Lakeport and all stations below that point.
“At the Lake-end of Bayou St. John I placed thirty men and four non-commissioned officers from Company A, leaving thirty men of the same company at Battery St. John; the whole under command of Captain Coburn, of Company A.
“I have remaining of Company A, nineteen men, four non-commissioned officers and one lieutenant, who are now stationed at Battery Gentilly on the Ponchartrain Railroad, thus making all the stations and pickets outside of this immediate camp under charge of Companies A and F.