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We had to hold our haversacks that contained three days' rations of sheet iron biscuit and salt pork, on our heads. The decks were covered with a solid mass of humanity. We cast off the lines and our ship slowly steamed up the Atchafalaya, now and then rubbing the banks so closely that we could grasp the branches of the magnolia and cypress that formed one green, unbroken fringe on either side.
My wife and children had left New Orleans on a steamer just as Farragut's fleet arrived, and were on the Atchafalaya River with friends, all well. While reading my letters, an acquaintance in high position in the office greeted me, but went on to say, if I knew what was afoot, my stay in Richmond would be short.
From his boyhood he had watched the falling in of the banks with the widening and increasing of the strength of the current of the Atchafalaya Bayou.
At the date of this despatch, Emory's division had been for several weeks near the head of the Bayou Plaquemine, with headquarters at Indian Village, endeavoring to find or force a waterway to the Atchafalaya, while Weitzel was holding his brigade in readiness to co-operate by a simultaneous movement against Taylor on the Teche.
Reconnoissances, conducted by Lieutenant Harwood, in the course of which the enemy's cavalry was seen but not engaged, showed the roads from the Atchafalaya to Waterloo to be practicable for all arms.
These streams, or "bayous," are narrow and tortuous, but generally deep, and navigable for ordinary steamboats. The "Atchafalaya" is the first, and enters the Gulf of Mexico at the bay of the same name. At one time it was feared the Mississippi might leave its present bed, and follow the course of this bayou. Steps were taken to prevent such an occurrence.
He accordingly called on Magruder for two brigades and drew in from the line of the Arkansas the division of John G. Walker. However, this concentration became unnecessary and was given up the instant Smith learned that Banks had crossed the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi and had sat down before Port Hudson.
Thus they had long been without repairs and not one of them was now in condition for immediate service. The water on the bar at the mouth of the Atchafalaya was now nearly at its lowest point, so that even of the light-draught gunboats only the lightest could cross.
Near the right bank of the Teche runs even a narrow ribbon of bluffs that may be said to form the western margin of the great swamps of the Atchafalaya.
Cooke, after detaching the Clifton to go up the Teche after the Diana, as already related, remained at anchor in Grand Lake opposite Grover's landing-place and awaited developments. He had not long to wait. The first news of Banks's movement across Berwick Bay had overtaken and recalled Taylor on his way up the Atchafalaya to bring down the Queen of the West and her consorts, the Grand Duke and Mary T, to join in the intended operations against Weitzel. Although Taylor at once sent a staff officer to urge despatch, yet from some cause more than two full days had passed before, on the afternoon of the 13th, the distant smoke of the Confederate gun-boats coming down Lake Chicot was seen by the lookouts of the Union navy in Grand Lake. At daylight the Queen of the West and the Mary T, were seen approaching from Chicot Pass. Cooke at once got the Estrella, Calhoun, and Arizona under way, opened fire at long range, and forming his boats in a crescent began to close with the enemy. Soon, however, the Queen of the West was seen to be in flames, from the explosion of the Union shells, and, her consort having promptly taken to flight, Cooke ceased firing and lowered all his boats to save the crew of the burning vessel from drowning. Captain Fuller, who had formerly commanded the Cotton, was rescued with 90 of his men, but nearly 30 were lost. Then with a loud explosion the eventful career of the Queen of the West came to an end, leaving her five guns, however, once more in the hands of the Union navy. This fortunate stroke gave the mastery of the Atchafalaya into Cooke's hands with nothing save Butte-
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