ALEXANDRIA.
Every one was in high spirits at the prospect of meeting the Army
of the Tennessee, and, to add to the general good-humor, just before
quitting Opelousas two pieces of good news became known.
Grierson rode into Baton Rouge on the 2d of May at the head of his
own 6th Illinois and Prince's 7th Illinois cavalry, together 950
horse. Leaving La Grange on the 17th of April, he had within
sixteen days ridden nearly 600 miles around the rear of Vicksburg
and Port Hudson and along the whole line of the Jackson and Great
Northern railroad. Beside breaking up the railway and the telegraph,
and destroying for the time being their value to the Confederate
army, Grierson's ride had an indirect effect, perhaps even more
important than the direct objects Grant had in view when he gave
his orders. That the railway should be rendered useless for the
movement of troops and supplies, and the telegraph for the transmission
of orders and intelligence, was of course the essential purpose of
the operation, yet no one could have foreseen the extent of the
confusion that followed, aided by Grierson's rapid movements, amid
the fluttering and distracted councils at Vicksburg. Thus it
happened that, when he heard of Grant's landing below Grand Gulf,
Pemberton actually thought himself menaced by the advance of Banks,
and this misapprehension was the parent of the first of those
mistakes of his adversary of which Grant made such good use.
Lieutenant Sargent,(1) the aide-de-camp sent to communicate with
Admiral Farragut, as stated in the last chapter, found at the mouth
of the Red River Admiral Porter, with the gunboats _Benton, Lafayette,
Pittsburg_, and _Price_, the ram _Switzerland_, and the tugboat
_Ivy_, with which he had run the batteries of Vicksburg in preparation
for Grant's movement. Porter brought, indeed, no despatches, but
he brought the great news that Grant had secured his landing at
Grand Gulf and had begun his victorious march on Vicksburg. When
Sargent returned to headquarters at Opelousas, he brought with him
a despatch from Porter, promising to meet the army at Alexandria.
Banks had already broken up the depots at Barré's Landing and New
Iberia. On the afternoon of the 4th of May, he set Dwight in motion
from his advance post at Washington. Weitzel marched from Opelousas
at five o'clock the same afternoon, and Emory's division under
Paine followed on the morning of the 5th. Emory, who had been
suffering for some weeks, had at last consented to obey his surgeon's
orders and go to New Orleans for a brief rest. Grover followed
from Barré's Landing early in the afternoon of the same day. Banks
himself remained at Opelousas until early in the morning of the
6th, having waited to receive and answer the translation of the
cipher telegram from Grant; then he rode forward rapidly and joined
his troops near Washington. From this time the communications of
the army were to be by the Atchafalaya and the Red River.
On the 4th of May, while riding to the front to join the advance
commanded by his brother, Captain Howard Dwight, Assistant
Adjutant-General, was surprised and cut off at a sharp turn in the
Bayou Boeuf by a party of armed men on the opposite bank. Having no
reason to apprehend any special danger so far in the rear of the
advance, the little party was proceeding along the road without
precaution. At the moment of the encounter Captain Dwight was
quite alone, concealed by the turn in the road from the ambulance
and the few orderlies that were following at leisure. Armed only
with his sword, and seeing that escape was hopeless, he instantly
declared his readiness to surrender. "Surrender be damned!" cried
the guerillas, and, firing a volley without further parley, shot
him dead. When the orderlies who were with the ambulance heard
the firing they galloped forward, only to find poor Dwight's lifeless
body lying in the dusty road. The murderers had fled.
By this painful event the service lost a brave and promising young
officer and the staff a pleasant and always cheerful comrade. The
distinguished family to which this gallant gentleman belonged had
given four brothers to the service of their country. Of these
Howard himself most nearly resembled in character, looks, and
bearing his elder brother Wilder, who fell at Antietam, honored
and lamented by all that knew him.
Upon hearing the news, Banks instantly sent order to Brigadier-General
Dwight to arrest all the white men he might find near the
line of his march to the number of one hundred, and to send them
to New Orleans to be held as hostages for the delivery of the
murderers. "The people of the neighborhood who harbor and feed
these lawless men," Banks wrote, "are even more directly responsible
for the crimes which they commit, and it is by punishing them that
this detestable practice will be stopped." There were not a hundred
white men in the region through which Dwight was marching, but many
were punished by imprisonment after this order--a harsh measure,
it must be admitted, yet not without the justification that the
countryside was infested by men wearing no uniform, who acted in
turn the part of soldiers in front of the Union army, of citizens
on its line of march, and of guerillas in its rear. When, under
a flag of truce, Dwight presently demanded from Taylor the surrender
of his brother's murderers, the Confederate officers not only
disavowed but severely condemned the crime, declaring themselves,
however, unable to pick out the criminals.
Two miles beyond Washington the Bayous Boeuf and Cocodrie unite to
form the Bayou Courtableau, out of which again, below the town,
flows the Bayou Maricoquant, forming a double connection with the
Teche at its head. For a long distance the Boeuf and the Cocodrie
keep close company, each following a crooked channel cut deeply
into the light soil. Crossing the Courtableau above Washington,
the line of march now lay along the east bank of the Boeuf, by
Holmesville and Cheneyville, through a country of increasing richness
and beauty, gradually rising with quickened undulations almost
until the bluffs that border the Red River draw in sight.
Banks had promised that he would be in Alexandria on the morning
of the 9th of May; but no opposition was encountered; the roads
were good, dry, and easy under foot; the weather fine, and the men
were filled with a desire to push the march, and with an eager
rivalry to be first in Alexandria. Early on the afternoon of the
7th of May the brigades of Dwight and Weitzel, both under Weitzel's
command, arrived at the beautiful plantation of Governor Moore,
and went into bivouac. Here the cavalry, who had ridden well
forward, returned, bringing the news that Porter, with his gunboats,
was already in the river off Alexandria, where the fleet had cast
anchor early that morning, a full day before its time. This made
Banks desire to push on, and he at first ordered Paine to continue
the march, preceded by all the cavalry. When Weitzel heard this,
his spirit rose for the honor of his brigade, and in emphatic yet
respectful terms he protested against being deprived at the last
moment of the post he had held almost since leaving Brashear.
Banks yielded to Weitzel's wishes, and his men, not less eager than
their commander, notwithstanding the long march of twenty miles
they had already made, at once broke camp and with a swinging stride
set out the accomplish the twelve miles that still separated them
from the river. One of the ever-present regimental wits sought to
animate the spirits and quicken the flagging footsteps of his
comrades by offering a turkey ready trussed upon his bayonet to
the man that should get to Alexandria before him. For a long part
of the way the men of the 8th Vermont and the 75th New York amused
themselves by taking advantage of the wide and good roadway to run
a regimental race. As the eager rivals came swinging down the
hill, they found their progress checked by a momentary halt of the
horsemen in their front, while watering their jaded animals. Then,
"Get out of the way with that cavalry," was the cry, "or we'll run
over you!"
It was ten o'clock at night when Weitzel's men led the way into
Alexandria. A full ration of spirits was served out to the men,
who then threw themselves on the ground without further ceremony
and used to the full the permission to enjoy for once a long sleep
mercifully unbroken by a reveille. Paine followed and encamped
near Alexandria on the following morning; Grover rested near
Lecompte, about twenty miles in the rear.
Beside his own vessels, Porter brought with him to Alexandria the
_Estrella_ and _Arizona_ from the flotilla that had been operating
on the Atchafalaya under Cooke. Porter was thus fully prepared to
deal with any opposition he might encounter from the Confederate
batteries at Fort De Russy; but, although only the day before the
_Albatross, Estrella_, and _Arizona_ had been driven off after a
sharp fight of forty minutes, when, on the 5th of May, Porter
arrived at Fort De Russy, he found the place deserted and the guns
gone.(2)
On the 8th of May, finding that the river was falling, Porter,
after conferring freely with Banks, withdrew all his vessels except
the _Lafayette_, and descending the Red River, sent four of the
gunboats seventy miles up the Black and its principal affluent,
the Washita, to Harrisonburg. This latter expedition had no
immediate result, but it served to show the ease with which the
original plan of campaign might have been followed to its end.
While Banks was still at Opelousas, Kirby Smith, taking Dwight's
approach to signify a general advance of the Union army, had arranged
to retire up the Red River and to concentrate at Shreveport.
Thither, on the 24th of April, he removed his headquarters from
Alexandria and called in not only Taylor but a division of infantry
under Walker, and three regiments of Texans already on the Red
River. All the troops that Magruder could spare from the 8,000
serving in Eastern Texas he was at once to put in march to the
Sabine. These orders, though too late for the emergency, brought
about the concentration that was presently to threaten the ruin of
Banks's main campaign on the Mississippi.
Weitzel, with Dwight, followed the Confederate rear-guard to Lawson's
Ferry, forty-one miles by the river beyond Alexandria, taking a
few prisoners. Taylor himself appears to have had a narrow escape
from being among them.
During the week spent at Alexandria, Banks was for the first time
in direct and comparatively rapid communication with Grant, now in
the very heart of his Vicksburg campaign, and here, as we have
seen, the correspondence was brought to a point. When he first
learned that Grant had given up all intention of sending to him
any portion of the Army of the Tennessee, Banks was greatly cast
down, and his plans rapidly underwent many changes and perturbations.
At first he was disposed to think that nothing remained but to
retrace his steps over the whole toilsome way by Opelousas, the
Teche, Brashear, New Orleans, and the Mississippi River to Baton
Rouge, and thence to conduct a separate attack upon Port Hudson.
This movement would probably have consumed two months, and long
before the expiration of that time it was fair to suppose the object
of such an operation would have ceased to exist. What led Banks
to this despondent view was the fact that he had been counting upon
Grant's steamboat transportation for the crossing of the Mississippi
to Bayou Sara, and at first, he did not see how this deficiency
could now be met.
Indeed, on the 12th of May, he went so far as to issue his preparatory
orders for the retrograde movement; but the next day careful
reconnoissances by his engineers, Major Houston and Lieutenant
Harwood, led him to change his mind and to conclude that it would,
after all, be possible to march to Simmesport, and there, using
the light-draught boats of the Department of the Gulf, supplemented
by such steamers as Grant might be able to spare for this purpose,
to transfer the whole column to Grand Gulf and thence march to join
Grant in the rear of Vicksburg. Accordingly, on the 13th of May,
Banks gave orders for the immediate movement of his whole force in
accordance with this plan, and set aside all the preparations that
had previously been made.
When the news reached Washington that Grant had gone to Jackson
and Banks to Alexandria, great was the dissatisfaction of the
Government and emphatic its expression. On the 19th of May Halleck
wrote to Banks:
"These operations are too eccentric to be pursued. I must again
urge that you co-operate as soon as possible with General Grant
east of the Mississippi. Your forces must be united at the earliest
possible moment. Otherwise the enemy will concentrate on Grant
and crush him. Do all you can to prevent this. . . .
"We shall watch with the greatest anxiety the movements of yourself
and General Grant. I have urged him to keep his forces concentrated
as much as possible and not to move east until he gets control of
the Mississippi River."
And again, on the 23d of May, still more pointedly:
"If these eccentric movements, with the main forces of the enemy
on the Mississippi River, do not lead to some serious disaster, it
will be because the enemy does not take full advantage of his
opportunity. I assure you the Government is exceedingly disappointed
that you and General Grant are not acting in conjunction. It
thought to secure that object by authorizing you to assume the
entire command as soon as you and General Grant could unite."
When the despatches were penned, Grant and Banks were already
committed to their own plans for the final campaign on the Mississippi.
When they were received, Grant was before Vicksburg, Banks before
Hudson; each had delivered his first assault and entered upon the
siege. The censure was withdrawn as soon as, in the light of full
explanations, the circumstances came to be understood.
(1) Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, of Harvard University,
Director of the Arnold Arboretum, the distinguished author of the
great book on Forest Trees of North America. At this time he was
serving zealously as a volunteer aide-de-camp without pay.
(2) Under orders from Kirby Smith to Taylor, dated April 22d: "The
General is of the opinion that if a portion of the force pursuing
you should move against Fort De Russy by the road from Hauffpaur,
it would be impossible to hold it." See also Smith to Cooper,
April 23d: "The people at Fort De Russy cannot stand a land attack.
The advance of the enemy's column to the Hauffpaur . . . will ensure
its speedy fall, with loss of guns and garrison. Under these
circumstances, General Taylor has ordered the removal of the
32-pounder rifle and 11-inch columbiads to a position higher up the
Red River."