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At length Ned fell asleep, Elsie presently followed his example, and older people were left to the quiet enjoyment of the lovely scenes through which they were passing; for they had now entered Teche Bayou, and from that pressed on, threading the way through lake and lakelet, past plantation and swamp, plain and forest, coming upon cool, shady dells carpeted with a rich growth of velvety grass, and flowers of varied hue, and shaded by magnificent trees, oaks and magnolias; while amid groves of orange trees they could see lordly villas, tall white sugar-houses and rows of cabins where the negro laborers dwelt.
The next day, we were at the Poste des Attakapas, a small hamlet having two or three houses, one store and a small wooden church, situated on Bayou Teche which we crossed in a boat. "There, the several Acadians separated to settle on the lands granted to them.
Grant was operating against Vicksburg, and Banks would certainly undertake the reduction of Port Hudson; but it was probable that he would first clear the west bank of the Mississippi to prevent interruption of his communications with New Orleans, threatened so long as we had a force on the lower Atchafalaya and Teche.
You will thus see, though this campaign has been eminently successful, driving the enemy before us through the entire valley of the Teche, from its mouth to its source, it has been very trying upon the troops. Four engagements and 300 miles march in twenty days call for proportionate suffering which cannot be avoided."
The visitors were, for the most part, country gentlemen, residents of Franklin and neighboring towns, or planters from the Teche country, forming one of the numerous expeditions organized for the purpose of finding the bodies of relatives or friends lost in the great hurricane, and of punishing the robbers of the dead.
Again taken, Fusilier escaped, while descending the Teche on a steamer, by springing from the deck to seize the overhanging branch of a live oak. The guard fired on him, but darkness and the rapid movement of the steamer were in his favor, and he got off unhurt.
Naturally supposing that Banks's troops were in march up the Teche toward the point of meeting, although they knew that Banks himself was still detained at New Orleans, Smith and Porter determined at once to take or turn Fort De Russy, and then to push on to Alexandria. On the morning of the 12th of March, the combined fleet entered the Red River.
Thus it was four o'clock in the afternoon before the whole division found itself assembled on the plantation of Duncan McWilliams on the shore of the lake, with the Teche at the upper reach of Irish Bend four miles to the southward, and Charenton in the hollow of Indian Bend lying but two miles toward the southwest.
Admiral Porter had already arranged to be at the mouth of the Red River with a large fleet of gunboats in time for the rising of the waters; and now Sherman promised to send with the fleet ten thousand picked men of his army, to be at Alexandria on the 17th of March. Banks, on his part, agreed that his troops, marching north by the Teche, should meet Sherman's at Alexandria.
In October the Federals moved a large force of all arms up the Teche, their advance reaching the Courtableau. I concentrated for a fight, but they suddenly retired to the Bayou Bourbeau, three miles south of Opelousas, where they left a considerable body under General Burbridge.
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