A LOUISIANA SUGAR PLANTATION.

Banks's loss in the three days, April 7-9, was three thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine men, of whom about two thousand were prisoners. The Confederate loss never was reported; but there is reason to believe that it was even larger than Banks's.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
RICHARD TAYLOR, C. S. A.

When the army and the fleet were once more together at Grand Ecore, a new difficulty arose. There was a rapid in the river about a mile long, and the fleet in ascending had been taken over it with great difficulty. The water had now fallen, bringing to view many ragged rocks, and leaving it impossible to find any channel of sufficient depth for the boats to descend. They were in imminent danger of being captured, and it was seriously proposed to abandon or destroy them. Admiral Porter says: "I saw nothing before me but the destruction of the best part of the Mississippi squadron." But he adds: "There seemed to have been an especial Providence looking out for us, in providing a man equal to the emergency." This man was Lieut.-Col. Joseph Bailey, engineer of the Nineteenth Corps, who had foreseen the difficulty and proposed its remedy just before the battle of Pleasant Hill. His proposition, which was to build a dam or dams and raise the water sufficiently to float the boats down over the rapid, was ridiculed by the regular engineers. But it had the sanction of General Banks; and with three thousand men he set to work. Two regiments of Maine lumbermen began the felling of trees, while three hundred teams were set in motion bringing in stone and logs, and quarries were opened, and flat-boats were hastily constructed to bring material down the stream. Admiral Porter says: "Every man seemed to be working with a vigor I have seldom seen equalled, while perhaps not one in fifty believed in the success of the undertaking." Bailey first constructed a dam three hundred feet long, reaching from the left bank of the river straight out into the stream. It was made of the heaviest timbers he could get, cross-tied, and filled with stone. Four barges were floated down to the end of it, and then filled with brick and stone until they sank. From the right bank a similar dam was run out until it nearly met the barges. At the end of eight days the water had risen sufficiently to allow the smaller gunboats to go down, and it was expected that in another day it would be deep enough for all; but the pressure was too much, and two of the barges were swept away. This accident threatened to diminish the accumulated water so rapidly that none of the boats could be saved, when Admiral Porter ordered that one of the larger vessels, the Lexington, be brought down to attempt the passage. This was done; and he says: "She steered directly for the opening in the dam, through which the water was rushing so furiously that it seemed as if nothing but destruction awaited her. Thousands of beating hearts looked on, anxious for the result. The silence was so great as the Lexington approached the dam, that a pin might almost be heard to fall. She entered the gap with a full head of steam on, pitched down the roaring torrent, made two or three spasmodic rolls, hung for a moment on the rocks below, was then swept into deep water by the current, and rounded-to safely into the bank. Thirty thousand voices rose in one deafening cheer, and universal joy seemed to pervade the face of every man present. The Neosho followed next; all her hatches battened down, and every precaution taken against accident. She did not fare as well as the Lexington, her pilot having become frightened as he approached the abyss, and stopped her engine when I particularly ordered a full head of steam to be carried; the result was that for a moment her hull disappeared from sight under the water. Every one thought she was lost. She rose, however, swept along over the rocks with the current, and fortunately escaped with only one hole in her bottom, which was stopped in the course of an hour." Two more of the boats then passed through safely.

This partial success filled everybody with enthusiasm, and the soldiers, who had been working like beavers for eight days, some of them up to their necks in water, set to work with a will to repair the dams, and in three days had done this, and also constructed a series of wing dams on the upper falls. The six large vessels then passed down safely without any serious accident, and a few hours later the whole fleet was ready to go down the river with the transports under convoy. Admiral Porter says, in his report: "The highest honors that the Government can bestow on Colonel Bailey can never repay him for the service he has rendered the country. He has saved to the Union a valuable fleet, worth nearly two million dollars, and he has deprived the enemy of a triumph which would have emboldened them to carry on this war a year or two longer; for the intended departure of the army was a fixed fact, and there was nothing left for me to do, in case that occurred, but to destroy every part of the vessels, so that the rebels could make nothing of them."

In this expedition the fleet lost two small gunboats and a quartermaster's boat, which they were convoying with four hundred troops on board. At Dunn's Bayou, three hundred miles below Alexandria, a powerful land force, with a series of batteries, attacked these boats, pierced their boilers with shot, and killed or wounded many of the soldiers with rifle-balls. The crews fought their vessels as long as possible, but at length were obliged to give up the contest, and one of the gunboats was abandoned and burned, while the other was surrendered because her commander would not set fire to her when she had so many wounded men on her decks.

E. C. Williams, who was an ensign in the fleet on this expedition, says, in the course of his "Recollections," read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion:

"Our station for coaling was at Fort Butler, a small earthwork at the mouth of Bayou Lafourche, occupied by a small garrison from Banks's army. The garrison had erected a very tall flag-staff, reaching far above the fog-bank that in that latitude usually shut out all view of the land in the early fall and spring mornings. From our boat it was a sight of rare beauty to watch the flag as it was each morning unfurled over the little fort. Shut out from all view of the surrounding country by the impenetrable fog as completely as though we had been in mid-ocean, our attention would be first attracted to the fort by the shrill notes of the fife and the rattle of the drum as they sounded the color salute, when, watching the top of the staff, which was usually visible above the bank of fog that covered the lowlands from our view, we would see the flag rise to the peak; and as the last shrill note of the fife was sounded, accompanied by the roll of the drum, the halyards were cleared, and the flag, full and free, floated out in the heavens over us, far above the clouds, and the mists, and the gloom with which we were surrounded. Officers, at their own request, were repeatedly called from their sleep to see the sight which I have so faintly portrayed.

"It was part of our duty—at least we made it so—to take on board all escaped slaves that sought our protection, and turn them over to the nearest army garrison. Many affecting incidents occurred in connection with these poor people seeking the freedom vouchsafed them by Uncle Sam under Lincoln's proclamation. I remember one day when we were in a part of the river peculiarly infested with marauding bands of the rebel forces, a hail from shore was reported. Under cover of our guns, a boat was sent off to see what was wanted, and, returning, reported that a large number of slaves were near at hand, concealed in the dense cotton-wood brush. They had been hiding in the woods for several days, fearing re-capture by some of the roving bands of the enemy, and a scouting party was even then hard upon them, from which they could not hope to escape unless we gave them protection by taking them on board. We at once made for the designated spot, not far distant, and, running inshore, taking all precaution against a surprise, threw open a gangway, and, as the slaves showed themselves, ran out a long plank, and called to them to hurry on board. On they came—a great motley crowd of them, of both sexes and all ages, from babies in arms to gray-headed old patriarchs. One of the latter—and who was evidently the leader of the party—stood at the foot of the plank encouraging the timid and assisting the weak as they hurried on board, and, when he had seen all the others safely on, stepped on the plank himself; and as he reached the guard before coming on board, little heeding our orders to hurry, he dropped on his knees, and, reverently uncovering his head, pressed his lips fervently to the cold iron casemates, and with uplifted eyes, and hands raised to heaven, broke out with, 'Bress God and Massa Lincum's gunboats! We's free! We's free!'"

There was much speculation as to the real or ulterior object of this Red River expedition. Some writers spoke of it flippantly as a mere cotton-stealing enterprise, while others imagined they discovered a deep design to push our arms as far as possible toward the borders of Mexico, because a small French army had recently been thrown into that country, and was supposed to be a menace to our Republic.