Wednesday. On board the John Warner, bag and baggage. When we got up this morning we found everybody pulling up and getting ready for a move. We watched and waited for orders to do likewise. The major, who had gone to investigate, came back and said the Red River campaign had been given up and all hands were going back to Alexandria. He secured passage for us on the Warner and here we are. For fear someone would press him into the service and forget that he was only a convalescent, I took the horse I had patched up, and after stuffing his wound with bacon fat, I took him across the pontoon bridge and turned him loose in the big grass on the other side. When I came back Tony had my few things picked up and ready to go on board. The bulk of the army goes by land and a portion of it is already on the way to Alexandria, our first stopping-place. Major Palon says the expedition had to be abandoned on account of the falling of the water in the river, and if the boats get over the rapids at Alexandria they must do it right away. At any rate a retreat is now in order and the major says I will have plenty of filling for my diary before it is over.
Night. Four thirty-pounder Parrot guns have been mounted on the forward deck, and the men and ammunition necessary for their use is on board. Every preparation for trouble is being made, whether we have any or not. The cause of the retreat is common talk now among the officers. Banks is blamed for the failure of the expedition, though I fail to see how he is to blame for the falling of the water in the Red River.
A man fishing from the boat this afternoon hooked onto something which when pulled up proved to be a dead soldier with his skull smashed in. The boatmen remembered him as one who had a quarrel with a deck hand last night, and as he, too, is missing, it is thought he killed this soldier and after throwing him in the river cleared out. I could not get his name or regiment, but am sure he did not belong to the 128th. It is easy to die here and there are many ways of doing it. A dead man was found on the upper deck of the Mattie Stevens yesterday. He was thought to be asleep until a comrade went to wake him up and found he was sleeping his last sleep. He was shot through the heart, but as no shot had been fired on the boat it is supposed it came from some distance away, missing the thousands that are here and finding only this sleeper. He was of the 33d Massachusetts. What I have seen to-day would fill a book. The major's prophecy that I would find plenty of filling for my diary is coming true. I had noticed a prisoner handcuffed fast to a post in the cabin, but had paid no attention to him until some loud talking in his neighborhood led me to it. A soldier, one of the Western men, with a bloody bandage around one leg, was giving this prisoner the biggest kind of a tongue-lashing, and was with difficulty kept from clubbing him with his cane. I finally got at the Westerner and found out what it was about. He said his regiment was waiting in the road below here for the line to be made up. Noticing a house and other buildings in a grove not very far away, he and two of his comrades set out for some eggs and perhaps something else good to eat. They were met by this prisoner, who acted very friendly, giving them milk to drink and to fill their canteens. When they asked for eggs he told them there were none in the house but plenty in the loft, pointing to a loft with a ladder reaching to it. Without a suspicion of treachery they set their guns up by the side of the building and went up the ladder after the eggs. When they started to come down they found their own guns pointed at them, in the hands of this prisoner and two other men they had not seen before. There was nothing to do but surrender, which they decided to do. They came down and were marched into the woods for some distance, stood up in line and fired upon. One was killed instantly, my informant was shot through the leg and fell more from the expectation of certain death than from his hurt. The third man was missed clean and started to run with the three devils after him. That gave this fellow a chance and he legged it for his regiment and fell fainting from terror and the loss of blood. When he came to, his comrades were returning with this prisoner, the only one they could find. They did find the man that ran away, lying where he had been overtaken and stabbed to death with bayonets. The wonder and the pity is they ever brought this murderer away with them. Why they didn't shoot him full of holes instead of taking him prisoner is what none of us can understand. I suppose he will live on Uncle Sam for a while and then go free. This must do for one day's record. It is late and I am almost blind from writing by the light of a lantern.
April 21, 1864.
Thursday. We were loaded up and ready for a start early this morning. We dropped down-stream to our place in the long line of steamboats, gunboats and most every kind of boats. Got onto a sand bar and had to be pulled off. A gunboat got fast just below us and getting that loose took the rest of the day.
April 22, 1864.
Friday. We got another start at about daylight and kept going until noon, when we struck bottom and had to be pulled loose again. We could plainly see that the bottom of the river was much nearer the top than when we came up. We stopped at the same landing for wood where the old contraband warned us of trouble on our last trip down. Sure enough, he was here again and with another warning. He said the woods below Cane River were alive with sharpshooters, of which he had warned the boats ahead, and would warn those to come. We heard firing long before we reached Cane River, and as we neared the woods the guns on our boat began a raking fire on each side and kept it up until the woods were passed. It was dark by this time and the boats went little if any faster than the flow of the river. We reached the rapids above Alexandria about 10 P. M., and so far as I know, not a person was hurt on the way.
April 23, 1864.
Saturday. When we awoke we were glad to hear it raining hard. This will at least stop the river from going any lower, and may raise it. We left the boat and took a four-mile walk to Alexandria, where we found our folks well and enjoying themselves. The regiment is nearly full. If we had remained here we might have filled it. As it is, our two trips to Grand Ecore have amounted to nothing more than seeing some stirring times in which we had no other part than spectators. Sol had nine letters for me and a basketful for the others. It took me quite a while to read so many. After reading them I began writing a reply to each one. I had had a grumbling toothache for some days and to-day it has taken hold for sure. I suppose my walk in the rain gave it an excuse. At night we were relieved from recruiting service and ordered back to the regiment, I reporting to Captain Laird for duty. Lieutenant Bell and I were ordered to report for fatigue duty in the morning at 7 A. M.