Green puts his loss at 40 killed, 114 wounded, 107 missing, in all 261. However, during the 28th, the Princess Royal and the Kineo received on board from the provost-marshal 124 prisoners, by actual count, including 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 major, 3 captains, and 5 lieutenants; and Lieutenant-Commander Woolsey says the garrison buried 69 Confederates and were "still at it." Among the Confederates killed was Shannon, and among the missing Phillips. Of the garrison, 1 officer, Lieutenant Isaac Murch, of the 28th Maine, and 7 men were killed, 2 officers and 11 men wounded—in all 21. The Princess Royal had 1 man killed, 2 wounded. The vessel was struck in twenty places by grape-shot.
Green has been sharply criticised for the apparent recklessness with which he delivered his assault, even after having announced to Mouton his intention of waiting; yet it is clear that he was sent there to attack; if he was to attack at all, he had nothing to gain by waiting; an assault by daylight would have been wholesale suicide; while, on the other hand, the garrison would unquestionably be reinforced by troops and gunboats before another night. Having paid this tribute to his judgment, and to his daring and the intrepidity of his men the homage that every soldier feels to be his due, one may be allowed to quote without comment this passage from Green's report of the affair, in naked frankness hardly surpassed even among the writings of Signor Benvenuto Cellini:
"At daylight I sent in a flag of truce, asking permission to pick up our wounded and bury our dead, which was refused, as I expected. My object in sending the flag so early was to get away a great number of our men, who had found a little shelter near the enemy's works, and who would have been inevitably taken prisoners. I must have saved one hundred men by instructing my flag-of-truce officer, as he approached the fort, to order our troops to steal away."
Bullen's message to Emory has the true ring: "The enemy have attacked us, and we have repulsed them. I want more men; I must have more men." Emory responded with the remaining two companies of the 28th Maine, that had been left near New Orleans when the regiment moved to Port Hudson, and Banks relieved the 1st Louisiana on the lines and sent it at once to Donaldsonville, with two sections of Closson's battery under Taylor, and Stone to command. This put the place out of peril.
Even this bright spot on the dull, dark background was not to be permitted to go untarnished, for, on the 5th of July, Bullen, the hero of this heroic defence, whose name deserves to live in the memory of all that love a sturdy man, a stout heart, a steady mind, or a brave deed, was murdered by a tipsy mutineer of the relieving force. On Friday, the 14th of August, 1863, this wretched man, Francis Scott, private of Company F, 1st Louisiana, suffered the military penalty of his crime.
Taylor now gave up the attempt to capture the position at Donaldsonville, and devoted his attention to a blockade of the river by establishing his batteries at various points behind the natural fortification formed by the levee. Seven guns, under Faries, were placed on Gaudet's plantation, opposite Whitehall Point, while the guns of Semmes, Nichols, and Cornay were planted opposite College Point and at Fifty-five Mile Point, commanding Grand View reach. On the 3d of July Semmes opened fire on the Union transports, as they were approaching College Point on their way up the river. The steamer Iberville was disabled, and from this time until after the surrender no transport passed up, except under convoy, and it was only with great difficulty that even the fastest boats made their way down with the help of the current.
When this state of things was reported to Farragut, who had gone back to Port Hudson, he sent to New Orleans for his Chief of Staff, Captain Jenkins, to come up, in order that he himself might once more go down and give his personal attention to the affair. On the 7th of July the Tennessee started from New Orleans with Jenkins aboard; she had successfully run the gauntlet of the batteries, when, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, as Faries was firing his last rounds, a solid shot struck and instantly killed Commander Abner Read. Captain Jenkins was, at the same time, wounded by a flying fragment of a broken cutlass. Of the crew two were killed and four wounded.
On the 8th the Saint Mary's, a fine seagoing steamer and one of the fastest boats in the department, was carrying Lieutenant Emerson, Acting-Assistant Adjutant-General, with important despatches from headquarters to Emory and to the Chief Quartermaster, when, about three o'clock in the morning, she drew the fire of all the Confederate guns. The Princess Royal and the Kineo convoyed her past the upper battery, but from this point she had to trust to her speed and her low freeboard. In rounding Fifty-five Mile Point she was struck five times, one conical shell and one shrapnel penetrating her side above the water-line and bursting inboard.
At half-past six on the morning of the 9th of July, Farragut, who had left Port Hudson on the Monongahela on the evening of the 7th, started from Donaldsonville with the Essex, Kineo, and Tennessee in company, ran the gauntlet of the batteries, swept and silenced them with his broadsides, and endured for nearly two hours a brisk musketry fire from the enemy without serious loss suffered or inflicted. At half-past one o'clock on the morning of the 10th of July, the gunboat New London, bearing Captain Walker, Assistant Adjutant-General, with a despatch announcing the surrender of Port Hudson, came under the fire of Faries's battery, opposite Whitehall. She was very soon disabled by a shot through her boilers, and was run ashore near the left bank, where the Tennessee and the Essex came to her assistance from below. Landing on the east bank, Captain Walker made his way afoot down the river along the levee until he came in sight of the Monongahela, when, at six o'clock in the morning, his signals being perceived, he was taken aboard in one of the ship's boats and communicated to the admiral the good news that the campaign was at an end. To dispose of Taylor could be but a matter of a few days; then once more, in the words of Lincoln, would the great river flow "unvexed to the sea."
Taylor's plans were well laid, and had been brilliantly executed. In no other way, with the force at his disposal, could he have performed a greater service for his cause. Save the severe yet not material check at Donaldsonville, he had had everything his own way: he had overrun La Fourche; his guns commanded the river; his outposts were within twenty miles of the city; he even talked of capturing New Orleans, but this, in the teeth of an alert and powerful fleet, was at best but a midsummer fancy.