United States or Niger ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We spoke of Longfellow's Evangeline, the bay-tree, and Atchafalaya River, which he assured me was slowly widening its current, and would in time, perhaps, become the main river of the basin, and finally deprive the Mississippi of a large portion of its waters.
With these views Banks was himself in accord, yet not in their entirety. The pressure of time led him to desire to avoid divergences into the Teche country. If it were possible, he wished to gain the Atchafalaya by some route at once speedier and more direct. While the explorations were in progress to discover such a route, Weitzel once more took occasion to urge his original plan. On the 15th of February, he wrote to Augur, his division commander: "I feel it a duty which I owe you and my country to address you at this late hour in the night on the present proposed movement on Butte
At the point where the united Red and Washita Rivers join the Mississippi, which here changes direction to the east, the Atchafalaya leaves it, and, flowing due south through Grand Lake and Berwick's Bay, reaches the Gulf at Atchafalaya Bay, two degrees west of its parent stream, and by a more direct course.
Sharpe's brigade of Weitzel's division remained at Baton Rouge, with Gooding as the post commander. Burbridge's division of the Thirteenth Corps remained at Carrollton, while Herron's, at the time of the Sabine Pass expedition, had been posted at Morganza to observe and prevent any fresh movement by the Confederates across the upper Atchafalaya.
Meanwhile, on the 18th of March, Weitzel learned of the presence of the Queen of the West and Webb in the Atchafalaya, and as this seemed to indicate an intention to attack him, and the navy had no more light-draught gunboats to spare for his further security, to avoid having his hand forced and the game spoiled, he discreetly fell back on the 21st to the railway bridge over Bayou Boeuf, and took up a position where he was not exposed, as at Brashear, to the risk of being cut off by any sudden movement of the enemy.
She too was from France: at least, not from Normandy or Paris, like Alix, but, like Françoise's young aunt with the white hair, a German of Alsace, from a village near Strasbourg; like her, an emigrant, and, like Françoise, a voyager with father and sister by flatboat from old New Orleans up the Mississippi, down the Atchafalaya, and into the land of Attakapas.
Thence he proceeded down the Atchafalaya to Brashear, and so by rail to New Orleans.
The route by the Atchafalaya and the Red River, Halleck's favorite, was now impracticable, for both rivers were at their lowest stage, and the great length of this line put out of the question the movement of any large force dependent upon land transport.
The skipper took his map and went on deck. From the position of three islands laid down on his chart, and which he identified as those near him, he concluded that the Isabel had reached the outlet of the lake, which is the Atchafalaya River. Its course gave him a fair wind, and he headed the boat down the stream.
While these events were bringing the Mississippi squadron into that part of the river which Farragut had aimed to control, other movements were leading to his assistance some of the lighter vessels of his own command. After the naval action at Port Hudson, Banks had temporarily abandoned his designs upon that post in favor of operations west of the Mississippi by the Bayous Teche and Atchafalaya, the latter of which communicates with the Red River a few miles above its mouth. This movement was accompanied by a force of four gunboats, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander A. P. Cooke, of the Estrella, which captured a post on the Atchafalaya called Butte
Word Of The Day