Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1863–1865 129
the retreat had reached a point about two miles from the Union lines. There,
the Confederates surrounded the cannon and captured its crew. Port Hudson’s
remaining cavalry rode to the rescue, followed by infantry and artillery but
too late to save the prisoners and their gun. Brig. Gen. George L. Andrews,
commanding the post, reported that “the wonder is that with so small a cavalry
force it has been possible to keep open 25 miles of telegraph line on a route so
exposed, with the great superiority of the enemy in cavalry, without much more
serious disasters.” 16
Camped at Port Hudson that day was the 20th USCI, raised in New York
City, which had arrived by sea via New Orleans only two weeks earlier. Company
I of the regiment had just buried Pvt. Charles Johnson, dead that day
of pneumonia, its first member to die in Louisiana. The regimental band had
played a funeral march for the two-mile walk to the cemetery and a livelier
tune to bring the troops back through pouring rain. In camp again, 2d Lt. John
Habberton had changed into a dry uniform when he heard the order to fall in.
“‘Fall in!’ is a very frequent order here,” Habberton wrote in his diary,
but when I heard the colonel bellowing for his horse it indicated to me, overcoat,
and something to eat in the pockets. Went to the cook-house to get some
bread, and happening to look toward the works, which surround the place,
and which are about a mile from our camp, I saw a neat little skirmish going
on. The men . . . turned out en masse. Men just off guard fell in, and the sick
list deserted the doctor. We have not had such full ranks since they fell in for
pay. . . . Off we marched, and half an hour later we were manning a fort near
the centre. . . . Here we learned that our pickets had been driven in on the
Clinton road, and twelve of them captured. The skirmish had been in front of
this fort. The enemy had been repulsed, and the 6th Regt., Corps d’Afrique
had gone out to try the strength of the enemy. . . . After standing three hours,
and getting wet through, we were ordered back to camp. I only noticed two
men in the company who showed signs of fear, and they were roundly laughed
at and lightly punched by their more manly comrades. . . . We reached camp
at 8 P.M., very wet, muddy, and hungry, and with every private fifty per cent
prouder than he ever was before.
Throughout the spring, Union garrisons along the Mississippi River endured
raids by small bands of armed men. After the effort of repelling the Red
River Expedition, Confederates in Louisiana were too weak to mount a large
offensive. 17
About halfway between Port Hudson and the mouth of the Red River, the
little town of Morganza became the site of an army camp with a contingent of
Colored Troops that eventually grew even larger than Port Hudson’s. The XIX
16 OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 1, pp. 877 (quotation), 879. The cavalry brigade numbered 562 officers
and men present in January 1864 and 700 in June. Strength of the entire garrison was 5,079 in
January and 5,323 in June. OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 2, p. 193, and pt. 4, p. 610.
17 OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 1, pp. 933–34; John Habberton Diary, 7 Apr 1864, John Habberton
Papers, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.; John D. Winters, The Civil War in
Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1963), pp. 383–84.