By request of Major Thomas McManus I will give a brief account of the country of lower Louisiana and the battle of Irish Bend, as given by him in an address at St. Patrick's Church, Collinsville, April 23, 1893, and published in the Hartford Post of the date of April 14, 1913, being fifty years to a day after that terrible conflict:
Lower Louisiana is a marshy, swampy level stretch of country with an imperceptible coast line. No one can tell where the solid ground ends or where the sea begins. Approaching from the Gulf of Mexico, you find your ship in muddy waters, and by and by you see here and there a speck of mud itself, emerging above the surface, and barely large enough to be noticed, and after a while these small islands grow together and you begin to realize that there are distinctly defined banks each side of the broad muddy channel through which you are sailing, intersected here and there by other channels extending in every direction. Twenty miles perhaps from the place where you first perceived indications of real mud, the land will be firm enough to sustain a few piles supporting a fisherman's cabin or pilot's hut. Ten miles further on and you may see signs of life and cultivation. The river banks have risen to a height of two or three feet above the level of the water. The whole southwestern part of the state is a network of bayous or natural canals, usually narrow and always deep. In summer they are mere channels of drainage, but in spring they are full to the top and often overflowing thus making a system of natural waterways that reach within a mile or two of every plantation with currents strong enough to carry the flat boats laden with sugar, cotton and corn to New Orleans, Brashear or the ports on the coast. Here and there the yet unfilled depressions in the soil form large but shallow lakes, that in the dry season are mere marshes.
MAJOR THOMAS M'MANUS
Hartford, Conn.
Major of 25th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers.
This was the region where it was fated that the Twenty-fifth Connecticut regiment should make its spring campaign in 1863. Early in December we had taken possession of Baton Rouge on the Mississippi and had employed our time in practically learning the art of war, and we prided ourselves on our proficiency in drill and discipline. The winter had been, to us who were accustomed to our rigorous climate here, very mild, but we had begun to feel as early as the end of March, a foretaste of that terrible enervation that the coming summer was to bring to our men habituated to our bracing air of Connecticut. We were somewhat hardened to the little outdoor inconveniences of Louisiana. We didn't mind the mosquitoes, although they were ten times as big—a hundred times as hungry and a thousand times as vicious as those we raise here. We didn't mind the wood-ticks, and although we preferred not to have moccasin snakes in our tents, they would come sometimes. We had made a movement on Port Hudson early in March and the Twenty-fifth was in the lead, seven miles in advance of the main army. We had built a bridge over the Bayou Montecino, and had lain on our arms all night awaiting orders to attack Port Hudson, when Farragut's fleet attempted to pass the batteries. Only two of his ships, the Hartford and Albatross, succeeded, while the Richmond was disabled and the Mississippi was destroyed. We had engaged in a night skirmish with the enemy at Montecino, and had lost one man in that affair. We had retired from Port Hudson as rear guard to the column. Ours was the post of danger every time, and we had encountered the worst storm and waded through the deepest mud to be found on the continent and had bivouacked in a field almost as dry as the bottom of Lake Ontario.
With these experiences we felt like veterans, but we didn't then know how much we had to learn. On March 31, our regiment was transported to Donaldsonville, fifty miles below Baton Rouge, from there we marched beside Bayou Lefourche to Thibodeaux and then took the cars for Bayou Boeuf, and after a few days' halt, marched over to Brashear. We knew that something was going to be done, but didn't know what. We knew that somebody was going to be hurt, but didn't know who. We knew that some folks were going to get badly whipped, but it wasn't us. We were certain of that. Our superior officer and officers couldn't tell us anything or wouldn't tell us anything, and I have since come to the conclusion that they were very much like some of the wire pulling politicians of the present day. They didn't know themselves. It may be wisdom sometimes in war and in politics, not to let your followers know just what you intend to make them do, but it's mighty poor policy to let your enemy know it first.
On Saturday, April 11, 1863, the Twenty-fifth Connecticut, less than 500 strong, embarked on the steamer St. Mary, a New York and Galveston liner built to carry 500 passengers at a pinch, but loaded on this occasion with 2,500.
We were crowded. We were just packed as close as the squares of hardtack in the bread barrels, closer than sardines in a box. So close that we didn't have room to sweat. We had to hold our haversacks that contained three days' rations of sheet iron biscuit and salt pork, on our heads. The decks were covered with a solid mass of humanity. We cast off the lines and our ship slowly steamed up the Atchafalaya, now and then rubbing the banks so closely that we could grasp the branches of the magnolia and cypress that formed one green, unbroken fringe on either side.
General Emory's division of Banks' army had already moved up the west bank of the Bayou Teche, fighting its way against the fresh active troops of Dick Taylor. We were in General Cuvier Grover's division, and were expected to sail up Grand Lake and disembark at Hutchins Landing, where the Teche, by a sharp bend, comes within two miles of the lake; and on this narrow strip was the only road (as we supposed) over which an army and especially artillery and baggage wagons could pass. During Saturday night, Sunday, and Sunday night we were crammed, stifled and suffocated on the steamer's deck, as she slowly felt her way up through the muddy and shallow water of Grand Lake. To have run aground would have been disastrous failure to the whole expedition. Towing astern were large flat bottomed scows, loaded with artillery and artillery men. These were indispensable when on Monday morning we found that it was impossible for our ship to approach within half a mile of the shore, and the men were ferried from the steamer to the bank, where a lively little skirmish was going on between some Confederate scouts and Col. Dick Holcomb's First Louisiana. General Grover was ahead of us, smoking as usual, and in his excitement he had lighted a second cigar and was vigorously puffing and pulling at both corners of his mouth. He grasped Colonel Bissell by the hands in welcome, as the colonel leaped from the boat. No delay now, forward! A few hundred yards brought us to the woods. Our skirmishers went through and we soon had orders to follow. We halted at the open clearing on the other side and awaited to hear from General Grover, who had gone ahead to reconnoitre. Off to the southwest we could hear the artillery firing that told us that Emory's forces were having a fierce fight with Taylor's, only a few miles away. Another half mile advance, another halt and again forward. Just as the sun was going down we crossed the Teche over a drawbridge and filed into the main road and skirted the fertile plantation of Madame Porter. This stately, handsome lady, surrounded by scores of fat, happy looking and well clad slaves, stood in front of her elegant home and sadly watched us as we passed. No farm in Connecticut, however carefully supervised, could show better evidences of wise management than this. The houses, fences, granaries, fields, slave quarters and everything, were in perfect order—all were clean, whole, and systematically arranged. The fertile soil seemed to proclaim audibly to our farmer boys its readiness to give back a hundred and fifty fold for its seed and care. The shades of night were falling fast when we filed into an open ploughed field and moved by the right of companies to the rear into columns. We halted, stacked arms, ate hardtack and raw pork, and rested. The ground was soft alluvial; mist came with sundown and rain came with the darkness, and the surface of the earth was soon transformed into soft, deep mud. There was no noise, no music, no laughter. Every man knew instinctively that the morrow's sun would shine upon many a corpse. Our generals had believed, and we had hoped, that as soon as Taylor would find this large force of ours suddenly occupying the road in his rear, he would submit to the inevitable and surrender, but he had not surrendered and would not surrender, and that meant a fierce engagement for us. As soon as darkness had set in, General Grover sent up rockets to apprise General Banks of our position. Sleep was impossible. Colonel Bissell and I sat on a bread box, back to back, our feet in the soft mud and our clothing gradually absorbing the rain that fell steadily upon us. The hours dragged slowly along, and before daybreak our men were aroused, made a hasty breakfast, and in the grey of the morning we set out in advance of our brigade that consisted of the Thirteenth and Twenty-fifth Connecticut, Twenty-sixth Maine and One Hundred and Fifty-ninth New York, Colonel Birge in command. We were all on foot, officers and men alike. Our horses, baggage, and impediments had been left at Brashear to follow the column of General Emory.
For a mile below Madame Porter's plantation the Bayou Teche runs to the southeast and then turns sharply to the southwest towards Franklin, a very pretty village, some five miles below. The road following the sinuosities of the stream runs parallel to it, with a strip of a few rods in width between. We enter an immense cane field, its furrows in line with the road. On the west the field was bounded by a rail fence, beyond which arose a dense wood of magnolias, cotton wood and semi-tropical trees looking like a long green wall. Far in front arose a transverse wall like to the first, and making at its intersection a right angle. At this angle, the road entered the wood, near to the ground this forest was absolutely impenetrable to the sight, by reason of the suffocating growth of briars, vines, palmettos and underbrush. We ought to have occupied these woods the night before, and have hemmed the enemy in the open beyond. We now knew that the foe was in our immediate front. We marched down the field, the right wing deployed as skirmishers, the left wing in close battalion front following a few rods in its rear. By and by a puff of smoke from the green wall in front of us and a second or two afterwards the crack of a rifle. The fight had begun; another puff, another crack then more and more, multiplying as we approached. The bend in the road is now disclosed, the enemy's skirmishers disappeared from our front to reappear in greater numbers on our right. Our skirmishers were called in and we changed front forward on first company, moved down towards the wood on the right, and halting about 150 yards from the fence, we poured a volley into the enemy's ranks. The One Hundred and Fifty-ninth New York came down into line on our left, the Twenty-sixth Maine formed in our rear, the Thirteenth Connecticut took position on our extreme left occupying both sides of the road. The canes of the previous year's sugar crop stood in the field and their volley firing didn't get our range, and our lines were parallel with the furrows. The enemy's shot rattled through the dry stalks, crackling like hail against the windows. The enemy were armed with the smooth bores, every cartridge charged with a bullet and three buck shot, while our regiment was armed with Enfield rifles and so the Rebels, man for man were giving us four shots to our one in return.