Destruction and Reconstruction Part 10

On page 62 of the volume quoted from, General A.L. Lee, commanding mounted division of Banks's army, testifies:

"The next morning (9th of April) I was ordered by General Banks to detach one thousand cavalry to act as scouts and skirmishers, and to take the remainder of my division, and take whatever was left of the detachment of the 13th army corps and some negro troops that were there, and take the trains and the majority of the artillery of the army to Grand Ecore. It was thought that the enemy would get between us and Grand Ecore. I started about 11 o'clock with this train, and with six or eight batteries of artillery, and reached Grand Ecore the next day. The battle of the 9th of April commenced just as I was leaving. The next day at night the main army had reached Grand Ecore and joined me there.

General Banks impressed on me very strongly that, in sending me back from Pleasant Hill just as the fight was commencing, it was of the greatest importance to save what material we had left. Early the next morning, when I was distant from Pleasant Hill eighteen miles, I received a dispatch from General Banks. I have not the dispatch with me, but it was to this effect: that they had whipped the enemy terribly; that Price was killed, also two or three other rebel generals whom he named, but who have since recovered; and that I was to send back the subsistence trains for such and such troops. I was very much puzzled by that order, and immediately sent a staff officer back for more specific instructions. But he had not been gone more than half an hour when a staff officer of General Banks arrived with an order to me, with which he had left in the night, for me to continue pressing on with the whole train to Grand Ecore, and with instructions if any wagons broke down to burn them, not stop to fix anything, but get everything into Grand Ecore as quickly as I could, and look out very carefully on the flanks."

There can be no question of the correctness of these statements of General A.L. Lee.

The following quotations from the reports of Admiral Porter to the Secretary of the Navy are taken from page 239, and succeeding pages of the same volume:

"FLAG-SHIP CRICKET, GRAND ECORE, _April 14, 1864_.

"The army here has met with a great defeat, no matter what the generals try to make ofit. With the defeat has come demoralization, and it will take some time to reorganize and make up the deficiencies in killed and prisoners. The whole affair has been seriously mismanaged. It was well we came up, for I am convinced the rebels would have attacked this broken army at Grand Ecore had we not been here to cover them. I do not think our army would be in a condition to resist them. I must confess that I feel a little uncertain how to act. I could not leave this army now without disgracing myself forever; and, when running a risk in their cause, I do not want to be deserted. One of my officers has already been asked 'If we would not burn our gunboats as soon as the army left?'

speaking as if a gunboat was a very ordinary affair, and could be burned with indifference. I inclose two notes I received from Generals Banks and Stone. There is a faint attempt to make a victory out of this, but two or three such victories would cost us our existence."

Again, on page 166 of the same volume appears this dispatch from Lieutenant-General Grant, at Culpepper, Virginia, to General Halleck, Chief of Staff, at Washington:

"You can see from General Brayman's dispatch to me something of General Banks's disaster."

Concerning the battle of Pleasant Hill General Banks reports (page 326):

"The whole of the reserves were now ordered up, and in turn we drove the enemy, continuing the pursuit until night compelled us to halt. The battle of the 9th was desperate and sanguinary. The defeat of the enemy was complete, and his loss in officers and men more than double that sustained by our forces. There was nothing in the immediate position and condition of the two armies to prevent a forward movement the next morning, and orders were given to prepare for an advance. But representations subsequently received from General Franklin and all the general officers of the 19th corps, as to the condition of their respective commands for immediate active operations against the enemy, caused a suspension of this order, and a conference of the general officers was held in the evening, in which it was determined to retire upon Grand Ecore the following day. The reasons urged for this course were: 1. That the absence of water made it absolutely necessary to advance or retire without delay. General Emory's command had been without rations for two days, and the train, which had been turned to the rear during the battle, could not be put in condition to move forward upon the single road through dense woods, in which it stood, without great difficulty and much loss of time."

Again, on page 13, General Banks states:

"The enemy was driven from the field. It was as clear a rout as it was possible for any army to suffer. After consulting with my officers, I concluded, against my own judgment, to fall back to Grand Ecore and reorganize. We held the field of battle. Our dead were buried. The wounded men were brought in and placed in the best hospitals we could organize, and surgeons were left with them, with provisions, medicines, and supplies; and at daybreak we fell back to Grand Ecore."

Here the proportion of fiction to fact surpa.s.ses that of sack to bread in Sir John's tavern bill; and it may be doubted if a mandarin from the remotest province of the Celestial Empire ever ventured to send such a report to Peking. General Fessenden's testimony, given above, shows that the army marched during the night of the 9th, and continued to Grand Ecore, where it intrenched; and General A.L. Lee's, that the main army joined him at that place on the evening of the 10th. Twenty of the thirty-six miles between Pleasant Hill and Grand Ecore were pa.s.sed on the 10th by my cavalry before the rear of the enemy's column was seen; yet General Banks officially reports that his army left Pleasant Hill at daybreak of the 10th. Homeric must have been the laughter of his troops when this report was published.

CHAPTER XI.

ESCAPE OF BANKS AND PORTER.

From my resting-place on the ground at Pleasant Hill, after the battle of the 9th, I was aroused about 10 P.M. by General Kirby Smith, just arrived from Shreveport. This officer disapproved of further pursuit of Banks, except by a part of our mounted force, and ordered the infantry back to Mansfield. He was apprehensive that the troops on the transports above would reach Shreveport, or disembark below me and that place. In addition, Steele's column from Arkansas caused him much uneasiness, and made him unwilling for my troops to increase their distance from the capital of the "Trans-Mississippi Department." It was pointed out that the water in Red River was falling, and navigation becoming more and more difficult; that I had a staff officer watching the progress of the fleet, which was not accompanied by more than three thousand men, too few to attempt a landing, and that they would certainly hear of Banks's defeat and seek to rejoin him at Grand Ecore. As to Steele he was more than a hundred miles distant from Shreveport, hara.s.sed by Price's force; he must learn of Banks's misfortune, and, leading but a subsidiary column, would retire to Little Rock. Banks, with the remains of his beaten army, was before us, and the fleet of Porter, with barely water enough to float upon. We had but to strike vigorously to capture or destroy both. But it was written that the sacrifices of my little army should be wasted, and, on the morning of the 10th, I was ordered to take all the infantry and much of the horse to Mansfield.

The Bayou Pierre, three hundred feet wide and too deep to ford, leaves the Red River a few miles below Shreveport, and after a long course, in which it frequently expands into lakes, returns to its parent stream three miles above Grand Ecore, dividing the pine-clad hills on the west from the alluvion of the river on the east. Several roads lead from the interior to landings on the river, crossing Bayou Pierre by ferries. One from Pleasant Hill to Blair's Landing, sixteen miles, has been mentioned. Another led from Mansfield to Grand Bayou Landing, eighteen miles. Dispatches from Captain McCloskey informed me that the enemy's fleet had pa.s.sed this last place on the morning of the 9th, pushing slowly up river, impeded by low water. Feeling a.s.sured that intelligence of Banks's defeat would send the fleet back to Grand Ecore, and hoping to cut off its communication, at dawn of the 11th I sent General Bagby, with a brigade of horse and a battery, from Mansfield to Grand Bayou Landing. Before reaching the ferry at Bayou Pierre, he ascertained that the fleet had turned back on the afternoon of the 10th. There was a pontoon train at Shreveport that I had in vain asked for, and Bagby experienced great delay in crossing Bayou Pierre by means of one small flat. The fleet, descending, pa.s.sed Grand Bayou Landing at 10 o'clock A.M. of the 11th, some hours before Bagby reached the river; and he pushed on toward Blair's Landing, where he arrived on the night of the 12th, after the close of Green's operations of that day.

General Green, from Pleasant Hill, had been directing the movements of our advanced horse, a part of which, under Bee, was in front of Grand Ecore and Natchitoches. Advised of the movements of the enemy's fleet, he, with seven hundred and fifty horse and two batteries, left Pleasant Hill for Blair's Landing at 6 o'clock P.M. on the 11th. As in the case of Bagby, he was delayed at Bayou Pierre, and, after hard work, only succeeded in crossing three guns and a part of his horse before the fleet came down on the 12th. Green attacked at once, and leading his men in his accustomed fearless way, was killed by a discharge of grape from one of the gunboats. Deprived of their leader, the men soon fell back, and the fleet reached Grand Ecore without further molestation from the west bank. The enemy's loss, supposed by our people to have been immense, was officially reported at seven on the gunboats and fifty on the transports. _Per contra_, the enemy believed that our loss was stupendous; whereas we had scarcely a casualty except the death of General Green, an irreparable one. No Confederate went aboard the fleet and no Federal came ash.o.r.e; so there was a fine field of slaughter in which the imagination of both sides could disport itself.

With facilities for crossing the Pierre at hand, the fleet, during the 11th and 12th, would have been under the fire of two thousand riflemen and eighteen guns and suffered heavily, especially the transports, crowded with troops. As it was, we accomplished but little and lost General Green.

Like Mouton, this officer had joined me at an early period of my service in western Louisiana. Coming to me with the rank of colonel, his conspicuous services made it my pleasant duty to recommend him for promotion to brigadier and major-general. Upright, modest, and with the simplicity of a child, danger seemed to be his element, and he rejoiced in combat. His men adored him, and would follow wherever he led; but they did not fear him, for, though he scolded at them in action, he was too kind-hearted to punish breaches of discipline. In truth, he had no conception of the value of discipline in war, believing that all must be actuated by his own devotion to duty. His death was a public calamity, and mourned as such by the people of Texas and Louisiana. To me he was a tried and devoted friend, and our friendship was cemented by the fact that, through his Virginia mother, we were related by blood. The great Commonwealth, whose soil contains his remains, will never send forth a bolder warrior, a better citizen, nor a more upright man than Thomas Green.

The brigade of horse brought by General Green to Louisiana, and with which he was so long a.s.sociated, had some peculiar characteristics. The officers such as Colonels Hardiman, Baylor, Lane, Herbert, McNeill, and others, were bold and enterprising. The men, hardy frontiersmen, excellent riders, and skilled riflemen, were fearless and self-reliant, but discharged their duty as they liked and when they liked. On a march they wandered about at will, as they did about camp, and could be kept together only when a fight was impending. When their arms were injured by service or neglect, they threw them away, expecting to be supplied with others. Yet, with these faults, they were admirable fighters, and in the end I became so much attached to them as to be incapable of punishing them.

After the affair at Blair's Landing on the 12th, the horse returned to Pleasant Hill, and thence joined Bee in front of Grand Ecore, where Banks had his army concentrated behind works, with gunboats and transports in the river, Bee occupying the town of Natchitoches, four miles away. On the morning of the 13th General Kirby Smith visited me at Mansfield. Relieved of apprehension about the fleet, now at Grand Ecore, he expressed great anxiety for the destruction of Steele's column. I was confident that Steele, who had less than ten thousand men and was more than a hundred miles distant from Shreveport, would hear of Banks's disaster and retreat; but General Kirby Smith's views differed from mine. I then expressed my willingness to march, with the main body of the infantry, to join Price in Arkansas, and serve under his command until Steele's column was destroyed or driven back; insisting, however, that in the event of Steele's retreat I should be permitted to turn on Banks and Porter, to complete the work of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill.

The destruction of the Federal army and capture of the fleet, helpless alone by reason of low and falling water in Red River, were the legitimate fruits of those victories, and I protested with all possible earnestness against a policy that would fail to reap them. After this conversation General Kirby Smith returned to Shreveport, leaving me under the impression that my last proposition was acceded to. The loss of valuable time incurred by a wild-goose chase after Steele was most annoying, but I was hopeful it might be recovered. To get the fleet down to Alexandria and over the falls at that place would require much time in the low condition of the water; and Banks's army was so much demoralized by defeat that Bee found no difficulty in restraining its movements with his horse.

At dawn of the 14th Walker's and Churchill's divisions of infantry, with their artillery, prepared for an active campaign, marched for Shreveport, forty miles. The same day Polignac's infantry division, reduced to some twelve hundred muskets, was sent toward Grand Ecore to strengthen the horse in front of the enemy. On the evening of the 15th I reached Shreveport, and had a short interview with General Kirby Smith, who informed me that Steele had begun his retreat from a point a hundred and ten miles distant, but that he hoped to overtake him, and would personally direct the pursuit. I was further informed that my presence with the troops was not desired, and that I would remain in nominal command of Shreveport, but might join the force near Grand Ecore if I thought proper. All this with the curt manner of a superior to a subordinate, as if fearing remonstrance. General Kirby Smith marched north of Shreveport on the 16th, and three days thereafter I received a dispatch from his "chief of staff" informing me that the pontoon train, asked for in vain when it would have been of priceless value, would be sent back from his army and placed at my disposition. Doubtless General Kirby Smith thought that a pontoon train would supply the place of seven thousand infantry and six batteries.

I remained at Shreveport three days, occupied with reports and sending supplies to my little force near Grand Ecore, toward which I proceeded on the 19th of April. Major-General Wharton, who had gained reputation as a cavalry officer in the Confederate Army of Tennessee, accompanied me. He had reported for duty at Shreveport on the 18th, and was a.s.signed to the command of the horse to replace the lamented Green. We reached Polignac's camp, in the vicinity of Grand Ecore, ninety odd miles from Shreveport, on the evening of the 21st, and learned that the enemy had threatened an advance during the day. This convinced me of his intention to retreat, and an officer was sent to General Bee to warn him.

Cane River leaves the main channel of the Red below Grand Ecore, and, pa.s.sing by Natchitoches, returns to the Red after a winding course of sixty miles. Except at the season of floods, it is not navigable; but the alluvion through which it flows is very productive, while the pine forest immediately to the west is sterile. Bee, under instructions, occupied the valley of Cane River with his horse, and had been ordered to keep his pickets close to Grand Ecore and Natchitoches, draw his forage from plantations along the river, and, when the enemy retreated toward Alexandria, fall back before him to Monette's Ferry, which he was expected to hold. Monette's Ferry, forty miles below Natchitoches, was on the only practicable road to Alexandria. Here the river made a wide, deep ford, and pine-clad hills rose abruptly from the southern bank. On the left, looking toward Natchitoches, were hills and impa.s.sable lakes, easily held against any force. On the right, hills, rugged and pine-clad, extended eight miles to the point at which Cane River reenters the Red. The distance from Monette's to Alexandria is thirty-five miles, of which fourteen is through wooded hills. Roads led west to Carroll Jones's and Beaseley's, twelve and thirty miles respectively; and on these roads Bee was directed to keep his trains.

Concerning the position at Monette's General Banks reports: "The army marched from Grand Ecore on the morning of the 22d of April. To prevent the occupation of Monette's Bluff, on Cane River, a strong position commanding the only road leading across the river to Alexandria, or to prevent the concentration of the enemy's forces at that point, it became necessary to accomplish the evacuation without his knowledge." As before stated, the threatened advance of the 21st convinced me that the enemy's retreat was imminent, and so I advised Bee; but there was not time to send General Wharton to him after I reached Polignac's camp. Bee had two thousand horse and four batteries, and, after several days to examine and prepare his ground, might well be expected to hold it with tenacity.

Immediately after the battle of Pleasant Hill I had sent Vincent, with his own and Bush's regiments of Louisiana horse, to threaten Alexandria and drive out small parties of the enemy from the Attakapas and Teche regions. Subsequently, a brigade of Texas horse, seven hundred strong, under Brigadier William Steele, joined me, and was now with Polignac.

As antic.i.p.ated, the enemy left Grand Ecore during the night of the 21st and marched without halting to Cloutierville, thirty-two miles. With Steele's brigade, Wharton drove his rear guard from Natchitoches on the morning of the 22d, capturing some prisoners, and continued the pursuit to the twenty-four-mile ferry. On the 23d, after a sharp action, he pushed the enemy's rear below Cloutierville, taking some score of prisoners. Polignac's infantry joined that evening, and covered a road leading through the hills from Cloutierville to Beaseley's. If Bee stood firm at Monette's, we were in position to make Banks unhappy on the morrow, separated as he was from the fleet, on which he relied to aid his demoralized forces. But Bee gave way on the afternoon of the 23d, permitting his strong position to be forced at the small cost to the enemy of less than four hundred men, and suffering no loss himself.

Then, instead of attacking the great trains, during their fourteen miles' march through the forest, and occupying with artillery Mc.n.u.tt's Hill, a high bluff twenty miles from Alexandria and commanding the road thither in the valley, he fell back at once to Beaseley's, thirty miles.

Before this mistake could be rectified, the enemy crossed at Monette's, burning many wagons at the ford, and pa.s.sed below Mc.n.u.tt's Hill. General Bee had exhibited much personal gallantry in the charge at Pleasant Hill, but he was without experience in war, and had neglected to study the ground or strengthen his position at Monette's. Leaving Mansfield for Shreveport on the 15th, under orders from General Kirby Smith, I only got back to the front on the night of the 21st, too late to reach Monette's or send Wharton there.

It was very disheartening, but, persuaded that the enemy could not pa.s.s the falls at Alexandria with his fleet, I determined to stick to him with my little force of less than forty-five hundred of all arms. It was impossible to believe that General Kirby Smith would continue to persist in his inexplicable policy, and fail to come, ere long, to my a.s.sistance.

On the 26th Bee's horse, from Beaseley's, joined Steele's at Mc.n.u.tt's Hill; and together, under Wharton, they attacked the enemy in the valley and drove him, with loss of killed and prisoners, to the immediate vicinity of Alexandria.

When General Banks retreated so hastily from Grand Ecore, Admiral Porter was laboring to get his fleet down to Alexandria. In a communication to the Secretary of the Navy from his flag-ship below Grand Ecore, he says ("Report on the Conduct of the War," vol. ii., pages 234-5):

"I soon saw that the army would go to Alexandria again, and we would be left above the bars in a helpless condition. The vessels are mostly at Alexandria, above the falls, excepting this one and two others I kept to protect the Eastport. The Red River is falling at the rate of two inches a day. If General Banks should determine to evacuate this country, the gunboats will be cut off from all communication with the Mississippi. It cannot be possible that the country would be willing to have eight iron-clads, three or four other gunboats, and many transports sacrificed without an effort to save them. It would be the worst thing that has happened this war."

The Eastport, the most formidable iron-clad of the Mississippi squadron, grounded on a bar below Grand Ecore. Three tin-clad gunboats and two transports remained near to a.s.sist in getting her off; and, to prevent this, some mounted riflemen were sent, on the morning of the 26th, to cooperate with Liddell's raw levies on the north bank of the river.

These forced the enemy to destroy the Eastport, and drove away the gunboats and transports. Our loss in the affair was two killed and four wounded. Meantime, to intercept the gunboats and transports on their way down, Colonel Caudle of Polignac's division, with two hundred riflemen and Cornay's four-gun battery, had been posted at the junction of Cane and Red Rivers, twenty miles below. At 6 o'clock P.M. of the 26th the leading gunboat and one transport came down. Our fire speedily crippled and silenced the gunboat, and a shot exploded the boiler of the transport. Under cover of escaping steam the gunboat drifted out of fire, but the loss of life on the transport was fearful. One hundred dead and eighty-seven severely scalded, most of whom subsequently died, were brought on sh.o.r.e. These unfortunate creatures were negroes, taken from plantations on the river above. The object of the Federals was to remove negroes from their owners; but for the lives of these poor people they cared nothing, or, a.s.suredly, they would not have forced them, on an unprotected river steamer, to pa.s.s riflemen and artillery, against which gunboats were powerless. On the following day, the 27th, the two remaining gunboats and transport attempted to pa.s.s Caudle's position; and the former, much cut up, succeeded, but the transport was captured.

Colonel Caudle had one man wounded, and the battery one killed--its commander, Captain Cornay, who, with Mouton, Armand, and many other creoles, proved by distinguished gallantry that the fighting qualities of the old French breed had suffered no deterioration on the soil of Louisiana.

The following extracts from the report of Admiral Porter well exhibit the efficiency of Caudle and Cornay in this affair:

"FLAG-SHIP CRICKET, OFF ALEXANDRIA, _April 28, 1864_.

"When rounding the point, the vessels in close order and ready for action, we descried a party of the enemy with artillery on the right bank, and we immediately opened fire with our bow guns. The enemy immediately returned it with a _large number of cannon, eighteen in all_, every shot of which struck this vessel. The captain gave orders to stop the engines. I corrected this mistake, and got headway on the vessel again, but not soon enough to avoid the pelting showers of shot and sh.e.l.l which the enemy poured into us, every shot going through and through us, clearing all our decks in a moment. I took charge of the vessel, and, _as the battery was a very heavy one_, I determined to pa.s.s it, which was done under the heaviest fire I ever witnessed. Seeing that the Hindman did not pa.s.s the batteries, the Juliet disabled, and that one of the pump boats (transport) had her boiler exploded by a shot, I ran down to a point three or four miles below. Lieutenant-Commander Phelps had two vessels in charge, the Juliet and Champion (transport), which he wished to get through safely. He kept them out of range until he could partially repair the Juliet, and then, starting under a heavy fire, he make a push by. Unfortunately the pump boat (Champion) was disabled and set fire to. The Hindman had her wheel ropes cut away, and drifted past, turning round and round, and getting well cut up in going by. The Juliet was cut to pieces in hull and machinery; had fifteen killed and wounded. I inclose the report of Lieutenant-Commander Phelps, from the time of his first misfortune until his arrival at this place (Alexandria), where I now am with all the fleet, but very much surprised that I have any left, considering all the difficulties encountered. I came up here with the river on the rise, and water enough for our largest vessels; and even on my way up to Shreveport from Grand Ecore the water rose, while it commenced falling where I left the largest gunboats. Falling or not, I could not go back while in charge of the transports and material on which _an army of thirty thousand men depended_."

This is high testimony to the fighting capacity of two hundred riflemen and four guns, two twelve-pounder smooth-bores and two howitzers, all that Admiral Porter's three gunboats had to contend with. It proves the utter helplessness of gunboats in narrow streams, when deprived of the protection of troops on the banks. Even the iron-clads, with armor impenetrable by field guns, were readily driven off by sharp-shooters, who, under cover, closed their ports or killed every exposed man.

On the 24th Liddell, from the north bank of Red River, dashed into Pineville, opposite Alexandria, killed and captured a score of the enemy's party, and drove the remainder over the river.

On the 27th Admiral Porter's fleet was lying above the falls, now impa.s.sable, and Banks's army, over twenty thousand strong, was in and around Alexandria behind earthworks. Such was the condition to which this large force had been reduced by repeated defeat, that we not only confined it to its works, driving back many attacks on our advanced positions, but I felt justified in dividing my little command in order to blockade the river below, and cut off communication with the Mississippi. Wharton's horse was divided into three parts, each a thousand strong, and accompanied by artillery. The first, under Steele, held the river and Rapides roads, above and west of Alexandria; the second, under Bagby, the Boeuf road to the south of that place; while Major, with the third, was sent to Davide's Ferry, on the river, twenty-five miles below. Polignac's infantry, twelve hundred muskets, was posted on the Boeuf within supporting distance of the two last.

Liddell's seven hundred newly-organized horse, with four guns, was of little service beyond making feints to distract the enemy.

Major reached his position on the 30th, and on the following day, the 1st of May, captured and sunk the transport Emma. On the 3d he captured the transport City Belle, on her way up to Alexandria, with the 120th Ohio regiment on board. All the officers and two hundred and seventy-six men were taken, with many killed and wounded. On the evening of the 4th the gunboats Covington and Signal, each mounting eight heavy guns, with the transport Warner, attempted to pa.s.s. The Covington was blown up by her crew to escape capture, but the Signal and Warner surrendered. Four guns, two three-inch rifled and two howitzers, were engaged in this action with the Covington and Signal. They were run up to the river's bank by hand, the howitzers above, the three-inch rifles below the gunboats, which, overpowered by the rapid fire, moved back and forth until one surrendered and the other was destroyed, affording a complete ill.u.s.tration of the superiority of field guns to gunboats in narrow streams. There was no further attempt to pa.s.s Major's position, and Federal communication with the Mississippi was closed for fifteen days.

During these operations the enemy was engaged night and day in the construction of a dam across the Red River, to enable him to pa.s.s his fleet over the falls; and the following extracts from the report of Admiral Porter to the Secretary of the Navy well exhibit the condition of affairs in and around Alexandria ("Report on the Conduct of the War,"

vol. ii., page 250):

"FLAG-SHIP CRICKET, ALEXANDRIA, _April 28, 1864_.

"SIR: I have written you an account of the operations of the fleet in these waters, but take the liberty of writing to you confidentially the true state of affairs. I find myself blockaded by a fall of three feet of water, three feet four inches being the amount now on the falls.

Seven feet being required to get over, no amount of lightening will accomplish the object. I have already written to you how the whole state of things has been changed by a too blind carelessness on the part of our military leader, and our retreat back to Alexandria from place to place has so demoralized General Banks's army that the troops have no confidence in anybody or anything. Our army is now all here, with the best general (Franklin) wounded and unfit for duty in the field. General Banks seems to hold no communication with any one, and it is impossible for me to say what he will do. I have no confidence in his promises, as he a.s.serted in a letter, herein inclosed, that he had no intention of leaving Grand Ecore, when he had actually already made all his preparations to leave. The river is crowded with transports, and every gunboat I have is required to convoy them. I have to withdraw many light-draughts from other points on the Mississippi to supply demands here. In the mean time the enemy are splitting up into parties of two thousand, and bringing in the artillery (with which we have supplied them) to blockade points below here; and what will be the upshot of it all I can not foretell. I know that it will be disastrous in the extreme, for this is a country in which a retreating army is completely at the mercy of an enemy. Notwithstanding that the rebels are reported as coming in from Was.h.i.ta, with heavy artillery to plant on the hills opposite Alexandria, no movement is being made to occupy the position, and I am in momentary expectation of hearing the rebel guns open on the transports on the town side; or if they go down or come up the river, it will be at the risk of destruction. Our light-clads can do nothing against hill batteries. I am in momentary expectation of seeing this army retreat, when the result will be disastrous. Unless instructed by the Government, I do not think that General Banks will make the least effort to save the navy here. The following vessels are above the falls and command the right of the town: Mound City, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Carondelet, Chillicothe, Osage, Neosho, Ozark, Lexington, and Fort Hindman. At this moment the enemy have attacked our outposts, and driven in our indifferent cavalry, which came up numbering six thousand, and have brought nothing but calamity in their train. Our whole army is cooped up in this town, while a much inferior force is going rampant about the country, making preparations to a.s.sail our helpless transports, which, if caught filled with men, would be perfect slaughter-houses. Quick remedies are required, and I deem it my duty to lay the true state of affairs before you. If left here by the army, I will be obliged to destroy this fleet to prevent it falling into the enemy's hands. I can not conceive that the nation will permit such a sacrifice to be made, when men and money can prevent it. We have fought hard for the opening of the Mississippi, and have reduced the naval forces of the rebels in this quarter to two vessels. If we have to destroy what we have here, there will be material enough to build half a dozen iron-clads, and the Red River, which is now of no further dread to us, will require half the Mississippi squadron to watch it. I am apprehensive that the turrets of the monitors will defy any efforts we can make to destroy them. Our prestige will receive a shock from which it will be long in recovering; and if the calamities I dread should overtake us, the annals of this war will not present so dire a one as will have befallen us."