On the afternoon of the 21st of July, knowing that the gunboats were coming, Taylor set the finishing touch to his incursion by burning the rolling-stock of the railway and running the engines into the bay. He had already destroyed the bridges as far back as Tigerville, thus rendering the road quite useless to the Union forces for the next five weeks.
On the morning of the 25th the advance of Weitzel's brigade, under Lieutenant-Colonel Peck, consisting of his own 12th Connecticut and the 13th Connecticut, commanded by Captain Comstock, arrived at Brashear by steamer from Donaldsonville, and, landing, once more took possession of the place; but in the meantime Taylor had safely withdrawn to the west bank, and gone into camp on the Teche with all of his army intact and all his materials and supplies and most of his captures safe.
(1) The history of the 23d Connecticut says: "We delivered to them 108 dead. We captured 40 prisoners."—"Connecticut in the War," p. 757.
(2) When Green says 800, he of course refers to the four regiments actually engaged in the assault; for, after losing, as he says, 261 of these 800, he makes the four regiments of Major's brigade, with two sections of Faries's battery, number 800; while his own force, with one section of Gonzales's battery, he puts at 750. 800 + 750 + 261 = 1,811.
CHAPTER XX. IN SUMMER QUARTERS.
Before Banks parted with Grover at Donaldsonville, he left orders for the troops to rest and go into "summer quarters" as soon as the pending operation should be decided. Accordingly, in the last days of July, Weitzel broke away from the discomforts of muddy, dusty, shadeless Donaldsonville, and marching down the bayou, once more took up his quarters near Napoleonville and Thibodeaux, and encamped his men at ease among the groves and orchards of the garden of La Fourche.
On the 16th of July the steamboat Imperial, from St. Louis on the 8th, rounded to at the levee at New Orleans in token that the great river was once more free. The next day she set out on her return trip.
On the 5th of August a despatch from Halleck, dated the 23d of
July, was received and published in orders:
"I congratulate you and your army on the crowning success of the campaign. It was reserved for your army to strike the last blow to open the Mississippi River. The country, and especially the great West, will ever remember with gratitude their services."
Afterwards, on the 28th of January, 1864, Congress passed a joint resolution of thanks