MORE WAYS THAN ONE.
Since Port Hudson could neither be successfully attacked nor safely
disregarded, the problem now presented to Banks was to find a way
around the obstacle without sacrificing or putting in peril his
communications. The Atchafalaya was the key to the puzzle, and to
that quarter attention was early directed, yet for a long time the
difficulties encountered in finding a way to the Atchafalaya seemed
well-nigh insuperable. The rising waters were expected to render
the largest of the bayous that connect the Atchafalaya and the
Mississippi navigable for steamboats of small size and light draught.
Of these there were, indeed, but few, so that the work of transporting
troops from the one line to the other must have been, at the best,
slow and tedious, yet, once accomplished, the army would have found
itself, with the help of the navy, above and beyond Port Hudson,
with a sufficient line of communications open to the rear, and the
Mississippi and the Red River closed against the enemy.
The Confederates had in Western Louisiana, near the mouth of the
Teche, a small division of Taylor's troops, about 4,500 strong,
with one gunboat. At first Banks thought to leave a brigade, with
two or three light-draught gunboats, on Berwick Bay to observe
Taylor's force, and then to disregard it as a factor in the subsequent
movements. This, while the Atchafalaya was high and the eastern
lowlands of the Attakapas widely overflowed, might have been safely
done, but all these plans were destined to be essentially modified
by a series of unexpected events in widely different quarters.
In the second week of January, Weitzel heard that Taylor meditated
an attack on the outlying force at Berwick Bay, and that with this
view the armament of the gunboat _Cotton_ was being largely augmented.
Weitzel resolved to strike the first blow. For this purpose he
concentrated his whole force of seven regiments, including four of
his own brigade, besides the 21st Indiana, 6th Michigan, and 23d
Connecticut, with Carruth's and Thompson's batteries, four pieces
of Bainbridge's battery, Barrett's Troop B of the Louisiana cavalry,
and Company B of the 8th New Hampshire, commanded by Lieutenant
Charles H. Camp. The 1st Louisiana held Donaldsonville and the
114th New York guarded the railway. To open the way, as well as
to meet the fire of the _Cotton_, there were four gunboats of the
light-draught flotilla under Buchanan--the flagship _Calhoun,
Estrella, Kinsman,_ and _Diana_.
At three o'clock on the morning of the 13th of January the crossing
of Berwick Bay began; by half-past ten the gunboats had completed
the ferriage of the cavalry and artillery; the infantry following
landed at Pattersonville; then the whole force formed in line and,
moving forward in the afternoon to the junction of the Teche with
the Atchafalaya, went into bivouac. The next morning began the
ascent of the Teche. The 8th Vermont was thrown over to the east
or left bank of the bayou, while the main line moved forward on
the west bank to attack the _Cotton_, now in plain sight. The
gunboats led the movement, necessarily in line ahead, owing to the
narrowness of the bayou. On either bank Weitzel's line of battle,
with skirmishers thrown well forward, was preceded by sixty volunteers
from the 8th Vermont and the same number from the 75th New York,
whose orders were to move directly up to the _Cotton_ and pick off
her gunners. The line of battle moved forward steadily with the
column of gunboats. Between the Union gunboats and the _Cotton_
the bayou had been obstructed so as to prevent any hostile vessel
from ascending the stream beyond that point. A brisk fight followed.
Under cover of the guns of the navy and of the raking and broadside
fire of the batteries, the 8th Vermont and 75th New York first
drove off the land supports and then moving swiftly on the _Cotton_
silenced her. In this advance the Vermonters captured one lieutenant
and forty-one men. The _Cotton_ retreated out of range. That
night her crew applied the match and let her swing across the bayou
to serve as an additional obstruction. In a few moments she was
completely destroyed.
Then, having thus easily gained his object, Weitzel returned to La
Fourche. His losses in the movement were 1 officer and 5 men
killed, and 2 officers and 25 men wounded. Lieutenant James E.
Whiteside, of the 75th New York, who had volunteered to lead the
sharpshooters on the right bank, was killed close to the _Cotton_,
in the act of ordering the crew to haul down her flag. Among the
killed, also, was the gallant Buchanan--a serious loss, not less
to the army than to the navy.
During a lull in the naval operations above Vicksburg, occasioned
by the want of coal, eleven steamboats that had been in use by the
Confederates on the Mississippi between Vicksburg and Port Hudson,
took advantage of Porter's absence to slip up the Yazoo for supplies.
There Porter's return caught them as in a trap.
Toward the end of January Grant landed on the long neck opposite
Vicksburg, and once more set to work on the canal. Porter now
determined to let a detachment of his fleet run the gauntlet of
the batteries of Vicksburg for the purpose of destroying every
thing the Confederates had afloat below the town. The ran _Queen
of the West_, Colonel Charles R. Ellet, protected by two tiers of
cotton bales, was told off to lead the adventure. On the 2d of
February she performed the feat; then passing on down the river,
on the 3d, ran fifteen miles below the mouth of the Red River, and
the same distance up that stream, took and burned three Confederate
supply steamboats, and got safely back to Vicksburg on the 5th.
Porter was naturally jubilant, for, as it seemed, the mastery of
the great river had been the swift reward of his enterprise.
A week later Ellet again ran down the Mississippi and up the Red,
burning and destroying until, pushing his success too far, he found
himself under the guns of Fort De Russy. A few shots sufficed to
disable the _Queen of the West_, which fell into the hands of the
Confederates, while Ellet and his men escaped in one of their
captures.
Below Natchez they met the _Indianola_ coming down the river, after
safely passing Vicksburg. On the 24th the Confederate gunboat
_Webb_, and the ram _Queen of the West_, now also flying the
Confederate colors, came after the _Indianola_, attacked her off
Palmyra Island, and sank her. Thus, as suddenly as it had gone
from them, the control of the long reach of the Mississippi once
more passed over to the Confederates.
At this news Farragut took fire. Between him and the impudent
little Confederate flotilla, whose easy triumph had suddenly laid
low the hopes and plans of his brother admiral, there stood nothing
save the guns of Port Hudson. These batteries he would pass, and
for the fourth time, yet not the last, would look the miles of
Confederate cannon in the mouth. Banks, whose movements were
retarded and to some extent held in abeyance, from the causes
already mentioned, promptly fell in with the Admiral's plans, and
both commanders conferring freely, the details were soon arranged.