Part 15 (1/2)

For his part in the conception and execution of this great undertaking, Bailey received the thanks of Congress on the 11th of June, 1864, and was afterward made a brigadier-general by the President.

The troops engaged in constructing the dam were the 97th colored, Colonel George D. Robinson; the 99th colored, Lieutenant-Colonel Uri B. Pearsall; the 29th Maine, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles S. Emerson; the 133d New York, a detail of 300 men, under Captain Anthony J. Allaire; the 161st New York, Lieutenant-Colonel Wm. B. Kinsey; the pioneers of the Thirteenth Army Corps, 125 in number, commanded by Captain John B. Hutchens of the 24th Indiana, and composed of men detailed from the 11th, 24th, 34th, 46th, 47th, and 67th Indiana, the 48th, 56th, 83d, and 96th Ohio, the 24th and 28th Iowa, the 23d and 29th Wisconsin, 130th Illinois, and 19th Kentucky; 460 men of the 27th Indiana, 29th Wisconsin, 19th Kentucky, 130th Illinois, 83d Ohio, 24th Iowa, 23d Wisconsin, 77th Illinois, and 16th Ohio, commanded by Captain George W. Stein of the latter regiment.

Bailey was also greatly a.s.sisted by a detail from the navy, under Lieutenant Amos R. Langthorne, commanding the Mound City. Besides these officers, all of whom rendered service the most laborious and the most valuable, Bailey acknowledges his indebtedness to Brigadier-General Dwight, Colonel James Grant Wilson, and Lieutenant Charles S. Sargent of Banks's staff; to Major W. H. Sentell, 160th New York, provost-marshal; Lieutenant John J. Williamson, ordnance officer of the Nineteenth Corps; and Lieutenant Sydney Smith Fairchild, 161st New York.

All this time the army lying about Alexandria, to secure the safety of the navy, was itself virtually invested by the small but active forces under Taylor, who now found himself, not only foot loose, but once more able to use for his supplies the channel of the upper Red River, whence he had caused the obstructions to be removed as soon as the withdrawal of Banks relieved all fears of invasion, and turned the thoughts of the Confederate chiefs to dreams of conquest.

On the 31st of March Grant had peremptorily ordered the evacuation of the coast of Texas save only the position held at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and Banks, as soon as he received this order, had ordered McClernand to join him with the bulk of his troops, consisting of the First and Second divisions of the Thirteenth Corps. McClernand, with Lawler's brigade of the former, arrived at Alexandria on the 29th of April; Warren, with the rest of his division, was on his way up the Red River, when he found himself cut off near Marksville. Then he seized Fort De Russy and held it until the campaign ended.

Brisk skirmis.h.i.+ng went on from day to day between the outposts and advanced guards, yet Banks, though he had five men to one of Taylor's,(1) held fast by his earthworks without making any real effort to crush or to drive off his adversary, while on their part the Confederates refrained from any serious attempt to interrupt the navigation of the lower Red River until the evening of the 3d of May, when near David's Ferry Major attacked and, after a sharp fight, took the transport City Belle, which he caught coming up the river with 425 officers and men of the 120th Ohio. Many were killed or wounded, and many others taken prisoner, a few escaping through the forest. Major then sunk the steamboat across the channel and thus closed it. Early on the morning of the 5th of May Major, with Hardeman's and Lane's cavalry brigades and West's battery, met just above Fort De Russy the gunboats Signal and Covington, and the transport steamer Warner, and after a short and hard fight disabled all three of the boats. The Covington was set on fire by her commander and destroyed, but the Signal and Warner fell into the hands of the Confederates with many of the officers and men of the three boats, and of a detachment of about 250 men of the 56th Ohio, on the Warner. These captured steamers, also, were sunk across the channel.

On the 2d of May, Franklin's wound compelling him to go to New Orleans and presently to the North, Banks a.s.signed Emory to the command of the Nineteenth Army Corps. This brought McMillan to the head of the First division and gave his brigade to Beal. Captain Frederic Speed was announced as a.s.sistant Adjutant-General of the Corps. A few days later, in consequence of McClernand's illness, Lawler was given the command of the Thirteenth Corps.

(1) Banks's return for April 30th shows 33,502 officers and men for duty. May 10th, Taylor says: ”To keep this up with my little force of scarce 6,000 men, I am compelled to 'eke out the lion's skin with the fox's hide.'” (”Official Records,” vol. x.x.xiv., part I., p. 590.) He does not count his cavalry.

CHAPTER XXIX. LAST DAYS IN LOUISIANA.

On the 13th of May Banks marched from Alexandria on Simmesport, Lawler leading the infantry column, Emory next, and A. J. Smith's divisions of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps bringing up the rear. As far as Fort De Russy the march followed the bank of the river, with the object of covering the withdrawal of the fleet of gunboats and transports against any possible molestation. Steele's cavalry division hung upon and hara.s.sed the rear, Polignac, Major, and Bagby hovered in front and on the flanks, while Harrison followed on the north bank of the Red River, but no serious attempt was made to obstruct the movement. On the afternoon of the 15th the Confederates were seen in force in front of the town of Marksville, but were soon driven off and retired rapidly through the town.

On the morning of the 16th of May an event took place, described by all who saw it as the finest military spectacle they ever witnessed. On the wide and rolling prairie of Avoyelles, otherwise known as the Plains of Mansura, the Confederates stood for the last time across the line of march of the retreating army. As battery after battery went into action and the cavalry skirmishers became briskly engaged, it seemed as if a pitched battle were imminent. The infantry rapidly formed line of battle, Mower on the right, Kilby Smith next, Emory in the centre, Lawler on the left, the main body of Arnold's cavalry in column on the flank. Save where here and there the light smoke from the artillery hindered the view, the whole lines of both armies were in plain sight of every man in either, but the disparity in numbers was too great to justify Taylor in making more than a handsome show of resistance on a field like this, where defeat was certain, and destruction must have followed close upon defeat; and so when our lines were advanced he prudently withdrew. Banks's losses were small, but Lieutenant Haskin's horse-battery F, 1st U. S., being unavoidably exposed in spite of its skilful handling, to a hot enfilade fire of the Confederate artillery, to cover their flank movement in retreat, suffered rather severely.

In the afternoon the troops halted for a while on the banks of a little stream to enjoy the first fresh, clear water they had so much as seen for many weeks. At the sight the men broke into cheers, and almost with one accord rushed eagerly to the banks of the rivulet. That night the army bivouacked eight miles from the Atchafalaya, and early the next morning, the 17th of May, marched down to the river at Simmesport, where the transports and the gunboats, having arrived two days earlier, lay waiting. Near Moreauville on the 17th the rear-guard of cavalry was sharply attacked by Wharton; at the same time Debray, lying in ambush with two regiments and a battery, opened fire on the flank of the moving column. While this was going on the two other regiments of Debray made a dash on the wagon-train near the crossing of Yellow Bayou, and threw it into some momentary confusion. Neither of these attacks were serious, and all were easily thrown off.

The next day, the 18th, A. J. Smith's command was in position near Yellow Bayou to cover the crossing of the Atchafalaya, and he was himself at the landing at Simmesport, in the act of completing his arrangements for crossing, when Taylor suddenly attacked with his whole force. Mower, who commanded in Smith's absence, advanced his lines as soon as he found his skirmishers coming in, and thus brought on one of the sharpest engagements of the campaign. With equal judgment, skill, and daring, Mower finally drove the Confederates off the field in confusion and with heavy loss, and so brought to a brilliant close the part borne by the gallant soldiers of the Army of the Tennessee in their trying service in Louisiana. Mower's loss was 38 killed, 226 wounded, and 3 missing, in all 267. Taylor reports his loss as about 500, including 30 killed, 50 severely wounded, and about 100 prisoners from Polignac's division. The Confederate returns account for 452 killed and wounded.

At Simmesport the skill and readiness of Bailey were once more put to good use in improvising a bridge of steamboats across the Atchafalaya. In his report, Banks speaks of this as the first attempt of the kind, probably forgetting, since it did not fall under his personal observation, that when the army moved on Port Hudson the year before, the last of the troops and trains crossed the river at the same place in substantially the same way. However, the Atchafalaya was then low: it was now swollen to a width of six hundred or seven hundred yards by the back water from the Mississippi, and thus the floating bridge, which the year before was made by las.h.i.+ng together not more than nine boats, with their gangways in line, connected by means of the gangplanks and rough boards, now required twenty-two boats to close the gap. Over this bridge, on the 19th of May, the troops took up their march in retreat, and so brought the disastrous campaign of the Red River to an end just a year after they had begun, in the same way and on the same spot, the triumphant campaign of Port Hudson.

On the 20th A. J. Smith crossed, the bridge was broken up, and in the evening the whole army marched for the Mississippi. On the 21st, at Red River landing, the Nineteenth Corps bade farewell to its brave comrades of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth.

A. J. Smith landed at Vicksburg on the 23d of May too late for the part a.s.signed him in the spring campaign of Sherman's army, and the operations on the Mississippi being now reduced to the defensive, he remained on the banks of the river until called on to repulse Price's invasion of Missouri. Then, having handsomely performed his share of this service, he joined Thomas just in time to take part in the decisive battle of Nashville.

At Simmesport Banks was met by Canby, who on the 11th of May, at Cairo or on the way thence to Memphis, had a.s.sumed command of the new-made Military Division of West Mississippi, in virtue of orders from Was.h.i.+ngton, dated the 7th. The President still refused to yield to Grant's repeated requests that Banks might be altogether relieved from his command, nor did Grant longer persist in this; accordingly Banks remained the t.i.tular commander of the Department of the Gulf, with a junior officer present as his immediate superior and his next subordinate in actual command of his troops.

The Thirteenth and Nineteenth Corps, the cavalry, and the trains continued the march, under Emory, and on the 22d of May went into camp at Morganza.

From the Arkansas to the Gulf, from the Atchafalaya to the Rio Grande there was no longer a Union soldier, save the insignificant garrison kept at Brownsville to preserve the semblance of that foothold in Texas for the sake of which so much blood and treasure had been spilled into this sink of shame.

When Steele's retreat to Little Rock had put an end to all hopes of a successful pursuit, Kirby Smith faced about and set Walker in rapid motion toward Alexandria with Churchill closely following. A day or two after Banks had left the place Walker arrived at Alexandria, too late to do anything more in Louisiana.

Taylor quarrelled bitterly with Kirby Smith, who ended by ordering him to turn over his command to Walker. Leaving a small force to hold the country and to observe and annoy the Union army of occupation in Louisiana, Kirby Smith then gathered his forces, and pa.s.sing by Steele's right flank, invaded Missouri.

After arriving at Morganza, Emory, by Canby's orders, put his command in good condition for defence or for a movement in any direction by sending to other stations all the troops except the Nineteenth Corps and the First division, Lawler's, of the Thirteenth Corps, as well as all the extra animals, wagons, and baggage of the army. For the sedentary defensive, the position at Morganza had many advantages, but except that good water for all purposes was to be had in plenty for the trouble of crossing the levee, the situation was perhaps the most unfortunate in which the corps was ever encamped. The heat was oppressive and daily growing more unbearable. The rude shelters of bushes and leaves, cut fresh from the neighboring thicket and often renewed, gave little protection; the levee and the dense undergrowth kept off the breeze; and such was the state of the soil that when it was not a cloud of light and suffocating dust, it was a sea of fat black mud. The sickly season was close at hand, the field and general hospitals were filled, and the deaths were many. The mosquitoes were at their worst; but worse than all were the six weeks of absolute idleness, broken only by an occasional alarm or two, such as led to the brief expedition of Grover's division to Tunica and Natchez.

At first Canby intended to use the Nineteenth Corps as a sort of marine patrol or coast-guard, with its trains and artillery and cavalry reduced to the lowest point, and the main body of the infantry kept always ready to embark on a fleet of transports specially a.s.signed for the service and to go quickly to any point up or down the Mississippi or the adjacent waters that might be menaced or attacked by the enemy. The orders for the organization and equipment of the corps in this manner form a model of forethought and of minute attention to detail, yet as events turned out, they were never put in practice.

Toward the end of June the corps underwent at the hands of Canby the last of its many reorganizations.(1) The First and Second divisions were left substantially as they had been during the campaign just ended, but the Thirteenth Corps being broken up,(2) seventeen of its best regiments were taken to form for the Nineteenth Corps a new Third division, under Lawler. Emory, who was suffering from the effects of the climate and the hards.h.i.+ps of the campaign, had just applied for leave of absence, supposing that all idea of a movement during the summer was at an end, and Canby, having granted this, a.s.signed Reynolds to command the corps, to which, in truth, his rank and record ent.i.tled him, and gave the First division, Emory's own, to Roberts, a total stranger. Upon this, and learning of the movement about to be made, Emory at once threw up his leave of absence, and Reynolds, noting with the eye of a soldier the deep and widespread disappointment among the officers and men of the corps, magnanimously persuaded Canby to leave the command of the Nineteenth Army Corps, for the time being, to Emory, while Reynolds himself commanded the forces at Morganza. The brigades of the First division were commanded by Beal, McMillan, and Currie. Grover kept the Second division with Birge, Molineux, and Sharpe as brigade commanders, and afterward a fourth brigade was added, made up of four regiments from the disbanded Thirteenth Corps, under Colonel David Shunk of the 8th Indiana, and comprising, in addition to his own regiment, the 24th and 28th Iowa, and the 18th Indiana. At this later period also the 1st Louisiana was taken from Molineux's brigade to remain in the Gulf, and its place was filled by the 11th Indiana and the 22d Iowa. Lawler's new Third division had Lee, Cameron, and Colonel F. W. Moore of the 83d Ohio for brigade commanders. This was a splendid division, on both sides congenial; unfortunately it was not destined to see service with the corps.

Three great reviews broke the torrid monotony of Morganza. On the 11th of June Emory reviewed the corps in a tropical torrent, which suddenly descending drenched every man to the skin and reduced the field music to discord, without interrupting the ceremony. On the 14th the troops again pa.s.sed in review before Sickles, who had been sent to Louisiana on a tour of inspection, and finally on the 25th Reynolds reviewed the forces at Morganza on taking the command.

Grant's orders to Canby were the same as those he had given to Banks, to go against Mobile.