History of the Nineteenth Army Corps

by Richard B. Irwin

Banks meant merely to halt there a day or two for rest, and then, if it should be found practicable to obtain the necessary supplies, to push on rapidly to Alexandria, and dispose for the season of Taylor's disordered fragments. Whether this could have been done will never be known, for although the army had now far outmarched its supplies, and even from its secondary base at Brashear was separated by nearly a hundred miles, and although the campaign had so far been made upon less than half the regular rations for men and animals, supplemented from farm, sugar-house, and prairie, the country on the line of march was no longer to be counted on for any thing save sugar in plenty and a little corn; nevertheless, it might have been possible, by great exertions, to replenish the trains and depots, as well as to fill up the haversacks. Moreover, a three days' march would find the army on the banks of Red River, with a new and ample source of supply open to them, and within easy reach of Grant, provided only the navy might be counted upon to control the waters of that stream and its larger tributaries. Of this Banks had no doubt whatever. To open communication with Grant and to dispose of Taylor had been the chief ends that Banks had proposed to himself in setting out on the campaign. These ends he now held almost in his hand. But on the 21st of April an event occurred that, slight as was its apparent importance, was destined, in the train of consequences, vitally to affect the operations of the Army of the Gulf.

This was the arrival at headquarters of Lieutenant Joseph T. Tenney, one of Dudley's aides-de-camp, who had been sent by Augur to find Banks, wherever he might be. With him Tenney brought important despatches from Grant and Farragut. What the contents were and what came of them will be related in the next chapter.

From Opelousas Bean, with the 4th Wisconsin, a section of Duryea's battery, and a squadron of the 2d Rhode Island cavalry, went a day's march toward the southwest, to the crossing of the Plaquemine Brulé, and discovered that Mouton was retreating beyond the Mermentau. From Washington, Dwight moved out twenty miles along the Bayou Boeuf to Satcham's plantation without finding the enemy in force. After learning these things, on the 25th of April, Banks turned over the command of the forces to Emory and went to New Orleans to give his attention to affairs of urgency, chiefly affecting the civil administration of the department. He returned to headquarters in the field on the evening of the 1st of May.

Meanwhile Emory sent Paine, who, when crossing the Carencro, had seen the last of the Confederates disappearing in the distance, with his brigade and a section of Duryea's battery far out on the Plaquemine Brulé road, in order to find and disperse some cavalry, vaguely reported to be moving about somewhere in that quarter, a constant menace to the long trains from New Iberia. In fact Mouton, with the Texans, was now on the prairie, beyond the Calcasieu eighty miles away, in good position to retreat to Texas or to hang on the flank and rear of the Union army, as circumstances might suggest. On the 26th of April Paine marched sixteen miles to the Plaquemine Brulé, and on the following day sent four companies on horseback twenty miles farther toward the southwest across Bayou Queue de Tortue, and another detachment to Bayou Mallet to reconnoitre. Seeing nothing of the enemy, on the 28th Paine rejoined his division and resumed the command of it at Opelousas. Some time before this orders had been given to mount the 4th Wisconsin, and when the army finally marched from Opelousas this capital regiment made its appearance in the new rôle of mounted infantry. To say nothing of the equipments, a wide divergence in the size, color, and quality of the horses, hastily gathered from the four quarters of the prairie, gave to these improvised dragoons rather a ludicrous appearance it must be confessed; yet marching afoot or standing to horse, the 4th Wisconsin was always ready and equal to the work cut out for it.

From his advanced camp, on Shields's plantation, twenty-three miles beyond Washington and twenty-nine from Opelousas, Dwight fell back on the 28th of April to his bivouac at Washington and waited for the movement of the army to begin.

In preparation for this, on the evening of the 1st of May, Bean, with the 4th Wisconsin, mounted, was sent forward to join the main body of the cavalry, under Major Robinson, in front of Washington. That night Dwight, with the cavalry, his own brigade, and a section of Nims's battery, marched out some distance to discover the position of the Confederate outposts. These, in the interval that elapsed, had been advanced to the junction of the Cocodrie and the Boeuf. After driving them in Dwight returned the next morning to Washington.

The advance of the column from Franklin to Opelousas had been disfigured by the twin evils of straggling and marauding. Before the campaign opened, Banks had taken the precaution to issue stringent orders against pillage, yet no means adequate to the enforcement of these orders were provided, and the marches were so long and rapid, the heat at times so intense, and the dust so intolerable, that comparatively few of the men were able to keep up with the head of the column. This contributed greatly to disorder of the more serious kind. One regiment, neither the best nor the worst, halting at the end of a particularly hard day's march, found itself with scarcely fifty men in the ranks. Then, too, the men were on short rations, in what they considered the enemy's country; the whole region was sparsely populated; and the residents had, for the most part, fled from their homes at the news of the approach of the Union army.

With these disorders there sprang up a third, less prevalent indeed, but to the last degree annoying and not without its share of danger, for when the straggler chanced to find himself in easy range of any thing, from a steer to a chicken, that he happened to fancy for his supper, he was not always careful in his aim or accurate in his judgment of distance; thus a number of officers and men were wounded and the lives of many put in peril.

As if to complete the lesson so often taught in all wars, that discipline, care, and efficiency go hand in hand, when the army moved out from Opelousas, though but a fortnight later, a different state of things was seen. This must be ascribed to the fact that immediately after entering Opelousas the most stringent and careful orders were given for the regulation of future marches, and the punishment of stragglers and marauders. By these orders was provided for the first time a system adequate to their enforcement, and sufficiently elastic to meet without annoyance and difficulty all those cases, of hourly and even momentary occurrence in the movement of an army, that require officers or men to quit the column. In the rear of each regiment was posted a surgeon, without whose permission no sick man was allowed to fall out. In the rear of each brigade and division marched a detachment of cavalry, under the orders of the provost marshal of the brigade or division, charged with the duty of picking up as stragglers all men found out of the ranks without a written permit from the surgeon or the company commander. The vital importance of a strict enforcement of these arrangements was personally impressed upon the division and brigade commanders; yet this was not now necessary, for there were but few persons in the column of any rank that did not realize, in part at least, the evil consequences resulting from the irregular practices that had hitherto prevailed. Thus the march to the Red River was made rapidly and in order, and now for the first time the soldiers of the Nineteenth Army Corps marched with that swift and regulated movement of the column as a unit that was to be ever afterwards a source of comfort to the men, of satisfaction to their officers, and of just pride to every one belonging to the corps.

Unhappily, on the 25th of April, before the result of these arrangements had had a chance to show themselves, Dwight, while on detached service in the advance, caught an unfortunate man of the 131st New York, Henry Hamill by name, absent from his regiment under circumstances that pointed him out as a plunderer. Then, without pausing to communicate with the general commanding, Dwight took upon himself the task of trial and judgment on the spot, and becoming satisfied of the man's guilt, caused him to be shot to death at sunset in front of the brigade. This action Banks, who was just setting out for New Orleans, sustained in special orders as soon as he returned. Indeed, between this course and the instant delivery of Dwight to punishment, Banks had practically no choice. Nevertheless, whatever may have been the excuse or how extreme the provocation, the act was altogether wrong. The rules and articles of war lay down the penal code of armies in all its severity, in terms too clear to be misunderstood and too ample to warrant an attempt on the part of any one in the service, however exalted his rank, to enlarge or evade them. The offender should have been tried by court-martial. No emergency or exigency existed to delay the assembling of the court. Had he been found guilty, his death might swiftly have followed. Then the terrible lesson would have been impressive. Then none would have thought it hasty, needless, violent, or unlawful.