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The place of our disembarkation was in fact an island, separated from the high bluff known as Walnut Hills, on which the town of Vicksburg stands, by a broad and shallow bayou-evidently an old channel of the Yazoo. On our right was another wide bayou, known as Old River; and on the left still another, much narrower, but too deep to be forded, known as Chickasaw Bayou.
He was about to start on a tour of observation eastward through a series of short canals that span the shaking prairies from bayou to bayou, from Terrebonne to Lafourche, Lafourche to Des Allemands, so through Lake Ouacha into and up Barataria, again across prairie, and at length, leaving Lake Cataouaché on the left, through cypress-swamp to the Mississippi River, opposite New Orleans.
"As nearly as I am able to determine just now, it was located on the north side of that point that lies on the east side of the bay. There's a bayou sets up to the eastward from that point and it is on the chart here as 'Fort Bayou, so I think that must have been the place. Anyhow, that's the place to which I have been directed." "Here it is," cried Charley, who had been examining the chart.
Our voyage was for information, which might be obtained at a certain habitation; if not there, at a second one, or surely at a third and most distant settlement. The bayou narrowed into a canal, then widened into a bayou again, and the low, level swamp and prairie advanced into woodland and forest. Oak-trees began, our beautiful oak-trees!
In another minute Toussaint appeared on horseback, leading a saddled horse. "I am going for Monsieur Bayou myself," said he; adding, as he glanced round the lurid horizon, "it is not a night for boys to be abroad. I shall be back in an hour. If Monsieur Bayou comes by the new road, tell him that I am gone by Madame Oge's. If fire breaks out here, go into the wood.
The telegram being thus despatched, Porter again turned his attention to the willows; and, a fortunate rise in the water having occurred, he was able to extricate his vessels and begin his retreat down the bayou. He was somewhat perplexed by the silence of the Confederates, from whom he had heard nothing since his mortars silenced their masked batteries.
But his special correspondent knows other methods of handling statistics. He just throws off all restraint and wallows in them 'On Saturday, early in the morning, the beauty of the place graced our cabin, and proud of her fair freight the gallant little boat glided up the bayou.
An ugly water snake twined its slimy length just within the edge of the bayou, and the odor of the still forest about them was heavy and oppressive. Long Jim took a long, comprehensive look, and then heaved a deep sigh. "What's the matter?" asked Paul. "I don't think the country and the climate agree with me," replied Long Jim lugubriously.
The front was very narrow, and immediately opposite, at the base of the hills about three hundred yards from the bayou, was a rebel battery, supported by an infantry force posted on the spurs of the hill behind. To draw attention from this, the real point of attack, I gave instructions to commence the attack at the flanks.
Our retreat to Opelousas, by New Iberia and Vermilionville, was undisturbed, Green with his horse keeping the enemy in check. Indeed, the pursuit was without energy or vigor. The first defensible position was at the Bayou Vermilion, thirty miles south of Opelousas. Here, after an action of some warmth, the enemy was held back until night and the bridge destroyed.
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