Shelby's Confederate force was attacked on January 19th at a point on the Monticello Railroad, twenty miles from Pine Bluff, by a National force under Colonel Clayton, which in course of two hours drove the Confederates seven miles and completely routed them. Clayton's men had marched sixty miles in twenty-four hours.
An expedition commanded by Col. C. C. Andrews of the Third Minnesota infantry ascended White River and marched thirty miles to Augusta, from which place he set out April 1st in search of a Confederate force under Colonel McCrae. It proved that McCrae's forces were divided into scattered detachments, which were successively overtaken and defeated by Colonel Andrews. At Fitzhugh's Woods, however, a large force of the enemy was concentrated, and attacked Colonel Andrews's men in a sharp fight that lasted more than two hours. Andrews took a good position, and thwarted every effort of the enemy to carry it or flank it, when at last they gave up and retired. He lost about thirty men, and estimated the enemy's loss at a hundred.
In the middle of February, the Confederates made a determined attempt to capture the fort at Waterproof, La. First, about eight hundred cavalry drove in the pickets and assaulted the garrison, who might have been overcome but for the assistance of the gunboat Forest Rose, Captain Johnson, which with its rapid fire sent many shells into the ranks of the Confederates, and after a time drove them away. This proceeding was repeated later in the day with the same result. Next day the Confederates, largely reinforced, tried it again. Before the fight was over the ram Switzerland arrived and took part in it, and the result was the same as on the previous day.
| "THE COUNTERSIGN." |
| "'Halt! Who goes there?' My challenge cry, It rings along the watchful line; 'Relief!' I hear a voice reply; 'Advance and give the Countersign!'" |