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Updated: May 2, 2025
Porter expected to be at Springfield Landing, 110 miles above Grand Ecore, on the 9th. On arriving there, Kilby Smith was to reconnoitre towards Springfield, and if practicable, to send a regiment to seize the bridge across the Bayou Pierre in the direction of Mansfield. On the 6th of April, as soon as the movement of the fleet was decided on, Banks resumed the march on Shreveport.
Sounds of retreat could be heard in the stillness of the night. Parties were sent on the field to care for the wounded, and Bee was ordered to take up the pursuit toward Grand Ecore at dawn, to be followed by the horse from the mill stream as soon as water and forage had been supplied.
It was pointed out that the water in Red River was falling, and navigation becoming more and more difficult; that I had a staff officer watching the progress of the fleet, which was not accompanied by more than three thousand men, too few to attempt a landing, and that they would certainly hear of Banks's defeat and seek to rejoin him at Grand Ecore.
At dawn of the 14th Walker's and Churchill's divisions of infantry, with their artillery, prepared for an active campaign, marched for Shreveport, forty miles. The same day Polignac's infantry division, reduced to some twelve hundred muskets, was sent toward Grand Ecore to strengthen the horse in front of the enemy.
The summer was whiled away in social enjoyments among the officers, in visiting those stationed at, and near, Fort Jessup, twenty-five miles away, visiting the planters on the Red River, and the citizens of Natchitoches and Grand Ecore. There was much pleasant intercourse between the inhabitants and the officers of the army.
Deprived of their leader, the men soon fell back, and the fleet reached Grand Ecore without further molestation from the west bank. The enemy's loss, supposed by our people to have been immense, was officially reported at seven on the gunboats and fifty on the transports.
Feeling assured that intelligence of Banks's defeat would send the fleet back to Grand Ecore, and hoping to cut off its communication, at dawn of the 11th I sent General Bagby, with a brigade of horse and a battery, from Mansfield to Grand Bayou Landing. Before reaching the ferry at Bayou Pierre, he ascertained that the fleet had turned back on the afternoon of the 10th.
Early in the afternoon of the 10th, after a march of twenty miles, the column halted at the Bayou Mayon. At sunrise on the 11th the march was resumed; and the same afternoon found the whole army in camp at Grand Ecore. Great was the astonishment of Taylor when daylight revealed to him the retreat of the victors of Pleasant Hill.
This was four days after the return of Banks to Grand Ecore, which of course put an end to any farther advance of Steele in the direction of Shreveport, and while he was waiting for authentic news, Price was busy on his line of communication with Pine Bluff, and Kirby Smith, with Churchill and Walker, was moving rapidly to join Price.
Below Grand Ecore there was a bad bar. As the river continued to fall, the larger gunboats were sent down as fast as possible to Alexandria, whither Porter followed them on the 16th, leaving the Osage and Lexington at Grand Ecore, and the big Eastport eight miles below, where, on the 15th, she had been sunk to her gun-deck either by a torpedo or by a snag.
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