Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1863–1865 125
The Red River Expedition marches toward Natchitoches, Louisiana, March 1864.
helping themselves to “secesh” property and burning what they could not carry
off since the spring of 1862. 10
Reaching Alexandria after a four-day march, the troops found Porter’s boats
trapped above the rapids. “The water had fallen so low that I had no hope or
expectation of getting the vessels out this season,” the admiral reported, “and as
the army had made arrangements to evacuate the country I saw nothing before me
but the destruction of the best part of the Mississippi Squadron.” The possibility
of building dams to raise the level of water in the river had occurred to engineer
officers as the army marched toward Shreveport; with the expedition’s naval
component facing abandonment and destruction, they urged the project again.
General Banks approved the idea, and the 3d and 5th Corps d’Afrique Engineers
went to work at once, the 3d cutting and hauling timbers while the 5th positioned
them in the river. Each regiment split into two battalions that worked alternate
six-hour shifts around the clock. “Trees were falling with great rapidity, teams
were moving in all directions bringing in brick and stone, quarries were opened,
flatboats were built to bring stone down from above, and every man seemed to
be working with a vigor I have seldom seen equaled,” Porter wrote. Details and
entire regiments of white troops from the XIII and XIX Corps joined in the work.
10 OR, ser. 1, 15: 19–21, 280–89; vol. 34, pt. 1, pp. 205–06, 581 (“every dwelling-house”). Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, 30 vols. (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894–1922), ser. 1, 26: 56 (“through snaggy”) (hereafter cited
as ORN).